at one point, a Native American / Indigenous American friend of mine explained the concept of Indigenousness not just as being from a particular location, but also the relationship to that location as being usurped from it by a colonial power and the conflict between trying to protect their culture and environment from being exploited by said power. However, I've also seen individuals argue (one of whom is a close friend of Native and Jewish descent) that such definitions were created specifically to exclude Jewish people from conversations about Indigenousness. As a reason to draw a distinction between the terms "native" and "indigenous", the explanation of my native friend makes sense, but I'm also now confused because of the latter argument. I'd love to hear from others on the subject, because too many people just equate "indigenous" and "native" when they aren't equivalent terms; specifically, I'd appreciate hearing from other Native/Indigenous American Jews on the subject.
Because in the first framework, no, Jews are not "indigenous" to the levant, even though we come from there and trace our roots as a people to that location; if anything, it's kind of reverse-indigenousness; but in the second, we are, because we come from that location and were removed from it.
None of this erases the simple fact that Israeli policies and actions towards Palestinians are colonial and oppressive, nor does it reduce the indigenousness of Palestinians to the Levant.
But I've seen too many people on this site assume that indigenous and native are equivalent terms, and I don't think they actually are? But I'm not an expert on any of this, I'm relying on what I've learned from listening to different Indigneous groups as well as friends from said groups. So I'm back on my bullshit making a tumblr post to talk about it with a wider group rather than continue to muse on my own (rip).
totally expecting people to be normal in the notes (sarcasm) and have great reading comprehension (more sarcasm) so I reserve the right to turn on and off reblogs and replies as necessary for my own sanity. if anyone mentions consipiracy theories that claim Jews do not, as a group, come from the Levant, this post is cancelled (fun fact: Jewish people and Palestinians form a clade because we are cousins).
for the record I am not of Native descent of any kind which is why I am uncomfortable forming opinions on this subject without learning from experts (ie, Native people) first.
I read an internet article of a Jewish & Native person discussing this very subject. The following is my response to it. And I hope that maybe it’ll help you find more questions to ask that will lead you to the answers you seek. Also, it gets more unhinged as you read.
I take exception with the narrative of being forced into diaspora under Roman enslavement, being framed as though we left peacefully and willingly and not after the gruesome history.
And I find it confusing when people conflate the population of post-Shoah refugees as being Ashkenazi settlers who had a choice of anywhere to go, but decided to create a homeland. As if it hadn’t already been our homeland for millennia. As if we don’t pray facing Jerusalem three times a day. As if there isn’t video of Jews who were liberated from concentration camps singing Hatikvah. Before the establishment of the nationstate.
It confuses me especially, given that the Shoah affected more Jews than Ashkenazim, from Bukharia to Baghdad and into Africa. And it confuses me when only 30% of the Jews there now are either Ashkenazi or Russian-Jewish. And it confuses me, again, that people think that these Jewish refugees from all over the old world part of the diaspora, would be welcomed back to the places that supported their removal & mass extermination.
The author made the point that we can’t be indigenous because the systems of oppression that forced us out happened pre-European Colonialism-era.
But we still existed as a people with independent practices and systems that have been in place in some way, shape, or form since before the beginning of those 15th century colonialism systems. Even if we were ousted from our homeland over and over again before that 15th century time period.
It doesn’t matter how long before European colonialism we existed as a pre-colonial society and civilization, if we still remain in tact and in touch with the spirit of that land. Like how our calendar is an almanac for the weather and the farming/herding. How our holidays involve praying for rain over the winter and celebrating the first signs of new life growing in the spring.
Or how most of our ancestral practices can’t be done in diaspora so we had to develop whole new forms of Judaism to accommodate maintaining that connection.
We know our origin. And we have been there in some way since it was called Canaan, with archeological records.
The article kind of also says that we don’t have solid determination for who is and isn’t one of us, which confused me as someone who has been through the legal ringer about whether or not I am or am not legally a Jew and to whom I am and am not a Jew.
Then the author goes on to single out Ashkenazim.
All Jews are Jews. We know that regardless of blood percentages, that all Jews are Jews. Kind of like how all native people here, are native.
And even if the laws of our culture went by DNA, which they do not, Ashkenazim specifically didn’t mix with other groups which is why our DNA is so jacked up, but if it helps to discredit us as not being real Jews by perpetuating already-debunked Khazar Hypothesis narratives, then sure.
It’s just that I thought that blood purity and phenotypical purity tests harmed all of us in every indigenous community. But when it comes to using Blood & Soil rhetoric to single out Ashkenazim in scientifically & historically inaccurate ways to draw a Real Jew vs Fake Jew binary between Ashkenazim and the rest of Am Yisroel, I guess it’s okay.
The UN has a working non-definition for indigeneity that was created by indigenous peoples. And the only reason why Jews don’t fit in with the rest of the groups who meet every single criteria on the list, is because people don’t want us to.
Maybe it’s so they don’t have to be associated with us.
Because if a group of people can be barred from being indigenous solely because of how they were colonized, by whom, and at which point in time it happened, then that means that the Sámi aren’t indigenous either.
Or the Amazigh.
Or the Celts.
Or the Armenians.
Or the Ryukyuans.
Or the…
The list goes on.
Every criteria that people say rules out Jews, also disqualifies another group of established Indigenous people who are accepted as being indigenous.
The double standards that people will use for Jews, stretch further than a 90s toy filled with corn syrup.
