Confused Noises

Noah Schnapp is a Moroccan Jew.

The exact the same thing happened with Jerry Seinfeld too, despite him being a Syrian Jew.

But what this tells me is that so many American and European leftists fundamentally do not understand what North Africans and Southwest Asians look like. They do not understand that many Middle Eastern groups are pale, many Middle Eastern groups share features with Europeans— I mean, the Middle East literally borders Europe, did you not expect us to have similarities? This stretches back to the ancient world too. We know that in Yehuda there were gingers, as shown by King David*. Iirc, studies on Rameses the second’s remains show that he most likely had an olive tanned complexion and reddish-blondish hair, similar to a European Mediterranean look— which makes total sense seeing as Egypt is literally a Mediterranean country as well

It’s not just Jews. Persians, Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, Amazigh, Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula**, all of these ethnic groups are incredibly diverse in their features, even without any significant genetic influence from other areas. You cannot just project American and European black and white concepts of race onto the Middle East and act as if that is reality. The world is not split into pale people in the north, brown people in the middle, and black people in the south, and if you genuinely believe that then you really need to look at some pictures of the groups that you’re claiming to be the defender of. Please. I’m so tired of this bullshit lol

*I know that the historical evidence for David is shaky at best and we’re not sure if he was real or not (I personally believe it’s a King Arthur sort of situation where there was a real person here that got turned into legend), what I’m trying to say is that if the Ivrim could have a figure like this who was ginger, then the Ivrim clearly had gingers. Nobody come for me please

Red hair occurs more frequently in Jews (and Kurds) than it does in ethnic Southern Europeans.

Because these people don't view fascism as bad, they just view right wing fascism as bad, they view it as bad only when they're oppressed.

Because leftists for the almost past two years have been shouting for Israelis who have left Israel, immigrated to other countries to be deported. Deporting immigrants good apparently if it's immigrants you don't like. Kinda sounds like right wingers when they are fine with European immigrants, sorry "expats", but dislike any brown or black immigrants.

Protecting minorities good until it comes to jews being physically attacked on campus when walking to class, or when jews in Australia are doxxed en masse. Or when a 12 year old jewish girl is raped.

The core component of fascism, killing people who disagree with you, is bad, unless it's those darn joos with their zionism, because killing zionists is good and not at all a sign of fascism.

You cannot, cannot separate antisemitism from Nazi ideology, they are one and the same.

There are many, many deeply evil, poisonous and bigoted ideologies, but if antisemitism is not present, it simply is not Nazism.

Jewish survival is beautiful, and amazing.

I know times right now are absolutely awful, and it can feel like the world is against us. We're seeing the Nazi marches, the targeting of Jewish businesses, harassment of religious Jews, and so much more at a much more severe rate than many of us have seen within our lifetimes.

But we've survived this before.

The most dangerous thing right now is to lose hope. To lose hope of a better future, to lose hope of any future. We have survived the pogroms, the Holocaust, the Inquisition, the many Middle Eastern anti-Jewish genocides and attacks, various expulsions and so much more.

I've reblogged someone else's post saying this before but I'm going to say it here again: every single Jew alive right now is a miracle.

So here's one thing I want to ask of you: Live.

Do it out of love for your fellow Jews, do it out of spite towards our enemies, do it so that there will be more miracles in the future.

Living is the greatest form of Jewish rebellion.

Living a proud Jewish life is even more so, but at the very least, please live.

Please please please don't give up on life right now. If you feel alone, reach out. Reach out to your fellow Jews, find non-Jewish allies to stand by your side, seek out supportive communities.

As a Jew, you are never truly alone. You have people who will love you like family if you just reach out, because we are one. One family, one nation, one soul. And we all care for each other.

Because even though I would express my views on "Jews aren't white" to people, I'd frequently be told I'm wrong, or they'd listen but then in the next conversation simply forget all about it and made it clear they didn't agree or didn't care.

And so, for a very long time, I allowed goyim to define what it means to be Jewish for me.

But would I let anyone tell me who I am in relation to any other identity? Or was I just so conditioned to treat my Jewishness as something for society, not me, to define?

My Jewishness isn't just my religion. Whether or not I keep shabbat, I'm still Jewish. If I cook mac-n-cheese in a pot and then make chicken soup in the same pot, I'm still Jewish. Even if I wear pants and a tank top, I'm still Jewish.

Because being Jewish isn't just being in a religious category. For me, and a majority of Jews (not forgetting about converts, love y'all), being Jewish is in our DNA.

You can take the Jew out of Judaism, but you can't take the Judaism out of the Jew. (It seemed better before I wrote it.)

We are Jewish not because of a religious category, but also an ethnic category. And the world has only very recently decided we are white. But even now, we aren't treated as such.

You know, my perspective shifted due to a conversation about arm hair with my dad and sister.

We were sitting in a restaurant and my sister was wearing a t-shirt, showing her arms. At this point, I still thought of us as "just white" and my "Jews aren't white" views were of the "well I don't get to claim that for myself" (idk why to be honest). This conversation changed everything.

Anyway, my sister was complaining, as middle schoolers do, and mentioned her very fuzzy arms. My dad responded, "Well of course, you're Middle Eastern."

I was shocked.

I knew my parents are from Eastern Europe, and that we don't look Eastern European, and I just thought of myself as "generic white" even though I knew I was 100% ethnically Jewish.

That changed.

I wasn't "generic white" but rather I was a white-passing Jew. I look white, I know that. But I still have some traits that, when taken on their own, aren't typically European at all. They're Middle Eastern.

It was my first time really hearing a Jew define being ethnically Jewish in this way, as opposed to a goy, and it was world-changing.

Finally, I let myself take my feelings about antisemitism seriously.

Do you understand why society forcibly defining all of us as "just white" is so dangerous? It lets people easily dismiss antisemitism. Because we live in a society where "anti-white racism doesn't exist" is accepted as a common fact. (I am offering no opinions on this, only stating it as a societal observation.) So if Jews are white, how can antisemitism exist? How can it really be serious?

That's why we need to define being Jewish ourselves. If we let the world do it, not only does it harm us personally (as it did when I would constantly dismiss my own feelings and gaslight myself into thinking I was making a big deal out of nothing) but it also harms us on the community scale. It's dangerous.

Jews define what it means to be Jewish. Jews define antisemitism. Jews define Judaism.

The world deserves no role in this except to listen and accept it, as they'd be expected to do for any other minority.

I think we have all seen the people calling Zionism "white supremacy" and Jews "white colonizers" in order to politically justify hating us.

But, what about the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting? Were we white then, when that white supremacist barged in and killed our people?

But, what about the worst killing of Jews ever, the Holocaust? Were we white when Hitler systemically slaughtered us in order to preserve his white Aryan race?

But, what about our time in Europe (where we, in fact, do not originate from)? Were we white when we were made to live separately from the actual "white Europeans"? Were we white when we were routinely and systemically attacked in pogroms? Were we white when laws were passed, prohibiting us from buying and selling certain things (ask me where bagels come from)?

But, what about America, where "no dogs and no Jews allowed" was written on businesses. Were we white when Leo Frank was falsely accused of murder, then taken out of his prison cell and lynched when his sentence was reduced? And the university/employment quotas against us? Were we white then?

Were we white any of the times we were hated and discriminated against for being "other" and different from those who were white?

In those days, we were racially categorized as being not white, because being white was seen as "moral" and desirable.

But now, what is the easiest way to strip someone of any right to consider themselves a minority or marginalized group? What is the easiest way to encourage people to disregard one's experiences of hate and oppression? What is the group society considers most privileged, and thus least qualified to define morals and ethics?

White.

We are called white, because the same people who call us white say that anti-white racism doesn't exist. So, how can hate against Jews exist, if we are white?

We are called white, because the same people who call us white view being white as a form of moral taint.

We are called white, because calling us white makes them believe that it is justifiable to strip us of our heritage and deny the fact that we are indigenous to the land they claim we are colonizing.

We are called white, even though according to FBI data, Jews are the most targeted minority group per capita in the US.

We are called white, even though our experiences are vastly different from white non-Jews.

Throughout history, we have been forced into racial categories that made oppressing and hating us easier.

There is another version which imposes on Israel-Palestine a framework that characterizes any and all Jewish presence “from the river to the sea” as an occupation, and the entire region’s population of Jews as “settler-colonizers”. I think this is a very dangerous way of characterizing Jewish existence in the Levant, because if any and all Jews in the region are inherently “Zionist colonizers”, then any “decolonization” will de facto just be dejudification—the removal or death of Jewish people and Jewish culture. This would be, at best, an ethnic cleansing—at worst, a genocide.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a slogan that really seems to presuppose the latter framework and makes little sense outside of it; thus, it’s hard to hear as anything other than a call to either ethnically cleanse or genocide Israeli Jews.

This is why many Jews are scared right now—even ones who are not Pro-Israel and who’ve been highly critical of Zionism for a very long time (hi that’s me). Because we are seeing our neighbors sign onto the goal of dejudification, and repeating slogans that call for the ethnic cleansing & genocide of our people.

And many Anti-Zionists will be quick to push back against this by saying “Well, no, we don’t hate all Jews, just Zionists”. The problem with that is that many of y’all are labeling all Israelis “Zionists”, any Jews outside of Israel who mourn their deaths “Zionists”, any Jews who point out antisemitism or make any criticism of anyone but Israel “Zionists”, any Jews who acknowledge that Jews are indigenous to the Levant or that pogroms were a huge motivating factor in Zionism “Zionists”; there are almost definitely going to be people reblogging or commenting on this post to call me a Zionist. Even if you just pare that down to only Israeli Jews, that’s about half of all Jews on the face of the planet you believe deserve to be ethnically cleansed.

Basically the book said two things that weren't presented as being connected but actually make a lot of horrible sense together.

During the inquisition, Jews who converted to Christianity were not called Christians. They were called converts.

And nowadays, the book said, instead of trying to force us to convert to Christianity, they want us to convert to anti-Zionism.

But even an anti-Zionist Jew is never quite the same as a goyishe anti-Zionist. They're put on this pedestal, truly more like a gallows, and tokenized. Praised for being the "good Jews" and yet knowing that a toe out of line, anything that can be construed as even close to support of Israel, and they will no longer be accepted.

Just as the Europeans never saw us as European, just as even those who converted for safety where never anything more than converts, anti-Zionists can never truly distance themselves from Judaism in the eyes of today's antisemites enough to be "proper" anti-Zionists and freedom fighters.

We've repeatedly been forced to denounce our roots without being given any other group to turn to.

We will always be the "other" that is forced into boxes that make hating us more politically correct, even when those boxes do not fit.