#ashkenormativity

Some examples of actual ashkenormativity is the neglect to try to preserve and document Jewish diasporic languages that aren’t Yiddish, or the heavy focus on Ashkenazi history and oppression while downplaying everything else— I can not sit through another Jew trying to say that Jews had it good as Dhimmis or that Mizrachim were living it up with the Islamic countries until we got expelled, please I will explode—, or acting like the epitome of Jewish food is Kugel and Latkes, or the generalisation of non-Ashkie Jews as one cultural group, or the way Mizrachi culture has been looked down upon and seen as ‘primitive’, and are you seeing the pattern yet? Ashkenormativity is an intracommunity issue, and it works fundamentally differently to how most non-Jews think they understand it. It’s mostly based on the idea of neglect and the centralising of Ashkie experiences, not whatever weird idea you have of ‘Jewish racism’. If you’re trying to define it as that, then you’ve fallen for some intense disinformation and propaganda, or you yourself are knowingly spreading that to demonise Ashkenazim. Frankly, I really don’t want any non-Jews to be involved in these things at all, because it’s a self contained Jewish issue, meaning that outside communities can’t really change or work on the problem. It has to come internally.

There are a lot of things I want the Jewish community to improve on when it comes to non-Ashkenazi subcultures. I want things like my family’s customs, diasporic languages, cultural tales, foods, all of that to be preserved, cared for, and revitalised in the same way that many Ashkenazi counterparts are. I want the neglect of our Jewish subcultures to improve. I want to not feel like crying when I hear about how my mother grew up being looked down upon and being embarrassed to be spoken to in her mother’s native language in public, I want to be able to know that’s a complete thing of the past and there’s nothing that resembles it at all now. I want to be recognised properly.

I do not want, in any way shape or form, to make Ashkenazim less safe, or have Ashkenazi culture be less cared for.

"All Jews are white european colonizers!" - While this doesn't even apply to Ashkenazim (who are not white and are not colonizers), it especially doesn't apply to Mizrahim, most of whom's families never stepped foot in Europe.

"Falafel, shawarma, hummus etc aren't Jewish/Israeli foods!" - This erases this culinary traditions of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews by claiming that the only Jewish foods are Ashkenazi ones. Hummus is just as much of a Jewish food as Babka is.

"Jews should just go back where they came from." - While an Ashkenazi Jew might (but not definitely - ie Ukraine) be able to go back to where our recent ancestors lived, most Mizrahim and Sephardim definitely could not.

Ashkenormativity is the assumption that the default Jew is the Ashkenazi one. It is a term coined by Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews to explain our alienation from the rest of the Jewish community, from my lived experience specifically from the Diaspora Jewish community.

I'm half-Ashkenazi, but that half is pretty secular. When it comes to major Jewish holidays, I've always done them with my maternal grandparents, who, despite being secularized, still respect their cantor roots to the point of not wanting to skip on a holiday or even shorten the Seder(until one hilariously bad one). So the only minhag I've known was the Sephardi one.

In Israel, this was a non-issue.

The most I heard about differences is how Sephardim and Mizrahim emphasize table manners because unlike Ashkenazim, they actually eat on the table.

When I left Israel and moved to a place hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest Jewish community, I finally realized how much I need our community. So like everyone on lockdown, I sought it online, where Jewish cultures is bagels and casual use of Yiddish, two things completely foreign to me. I mean we have bagels in Israel, but they're not the meme they are among US Jews. They're nowhere near as popular as a pita. So when I had to look up what "davening", "shul" and "shanda" meant, I first got the sense I don't actually belong.

But the people using those terms as a day to day weren't the ones who actively made me feel unwelcome. In fact, those were more likely to acknowledge my confusion and explain. The ones who alienated me are the antizionist Jews from the Anglosphere, who ignore and revise non-Ashkenazi history and even history of Ashkenazim outside the Global North, who blame modern Hebrew for the decline of Yiddish which they frame as the traditional Jewish language, ignoring how that pushes down communities that traditionally spoke Ladino, Juddeo-Arabic, Amharic and more, and overall infantilize and dismiss families like mine who built a good life for ourselves in Israel and rose to the position to actively combat Ashkenazi hegemony, and remove the agency of my former classmates who take a stand against it, all in favor of superimposing the race politics of the Anglosphere onto Israel.

So the Columbia university definition of singling out "white Jews" is quite inaccurate. Under ashkenormativity, an Ashkenazi JoC would find themselves better represented than the white-presenting members of my Sephardi(or raised according to that half) family. It's another reductivist attempt to superimpose European guilt onto Jews by erasing half of us. Specifically, the half that lives in Israel.

‘Stop trying to divide the community! We’re all Jews after all, right?’ Well if you motherfuckers actually saw us as equal Jews, and if you didn’t try to divide the community by neglecting and looking down on us, then we wouldn’t be trying to have this conversation

‘Well it’s just natural for this to happen in countries like America. Ashkenazim are obviously going to be centred when they’re the majority!’ Okay, so Jews are just under 0.2% of the world— this clearly means that we should be completely ignored, until we’re brought up for the sole purpose of being mocked. Oh wait, that already happens, and every Jew is fucking angry about it! But we shouldn’t be, because the non-Jews are just the majority, it’s natural for them to be centred. And ashkenormativity isn’t just about Ashkenazi stuff being centred— it’s Ashkenazi stuff being centred at the expense of non-Ashkenazim

‘Well I’ve never seen ashkenormativity before!’ YEAH WELL THAT’S BECAUSE YOU STICK YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS AND SHOUT ‘BUT WE’RE ALL JUST JEWS’ EVERY TIME WE TRY TO BRING ATTENTION TO IT

At the very best we get our history completely ignored. At the worst they tell us it was actually amazing, and ‘no, Dhimmi status was good actually’. At the very best we get shut out whenever ‘Jewish culture’ is brought up. At the worst our customs, languages, and way of Judaism is completely mocked. At the very fucking best our existence gets completely ignored, and at the worst we’re told that we’re not actual fucking Jews

If you can acknowledge that the Samech Tet were incredibly discriminatory to Ashkenazim (well, they looked down on all Jewish groups, but were fucking AWFUL to Ashkenazim), then you should be able to acknowledge Ashkenormativity is a real thing. But no, all these people ever do is shut it out and pretend that we’re trying to cause trouble by bringing it up

I’m so tired. Everyone hates us already, I don’t have the energy for my own fucking people pulling this bullshit. All I want to do is sleep now honestly

I'm half Ashkenazi and half Mizrahi, and I see ashkenormativity all the time, from both sides of my family actually.

this is something I've seen time and time again in different communities, actually. a minority that is being oppressed as a sub-minority that's oppressed by both the majority and the second half of the minority, and asks for respect from their peers only to be told they're dividing the community by not pretending to be a unified wholesome family because the oppressors will use it as an excuse to call the entire minority evil.

the more privileged of the minority are scared that if the oppressors see any problems in their community, they'd point their finger and call them evil, so they want to pretend like they're perfect little angels and that nothing is wrong, and silences their own minority to not speak of their struggles living in the community. Columbia's definition of Ashkenormativity is treated as a "white supremacy but Jewish" and used to demonize ashkenazi jews as if the term is proof that all Jews are white oppressors and the poc Jews are suffering under their iron fist and never had any form of rights, when in reality, Ashkenazim are the privileged group the same way every country has a privileged group, and it's important to address and combat it.

we should always talk about problems inside our community, even if goyim will try to take it and twist it to justify their hate.

Insisting that latkes must be made of shredded potatoes and mocking anyone who makes them otherwise feeds into harmful Ashkenormative ideas about Judaism.