my hot take is that fundamentally the concept of ashkenormativity is true, as a non-ashkenazi jew living in north america, the jewish life i live is underrepresented and misunderstood by the jewish majority.
AND that ashkenormativity has mostly been used as a weapon, predominantly by self-hating jews, to either delegitimize and poke fun at the rich and diverse ashkenazi culture and history — much of which was destroyed by the nazis — OR to frame mizrahi jews as the “real” jews indigenous to the levant and ashkenazim as some othered, embarassing version of judaism.
i work in jewish advocacy and education. i live my life as a sephardi jew who is constantly having to push for jewish leadership and organizations to adequately consider our experiences of the diaspora.
but i fundamentally understand that my identity as a sephardi/mizrahi jew is rooted in DIASPORA. and while the diaspora remains an important part of jewish identity and history, what defines my jewishness is belonging to the jewish peoplehood, encompassing ALL jews. when you frame my diasporic identity as the “real” judaism, or when you frame ashkenazim as privileged, or “white”, or fake jews, you only prove to me that 1) you don’t understand jewish identity, history or peoplehood, 2) you want to apply the oppressor v. oppressed dichotomy, rooted in the western lens of oppression and racism, to an innately non-western people and history, and 3) your intentions are not to advocate for the inclusion and uplifting of jews like me, but to marginalize ashkenazim and jews as a WHOLE by weaponizing sephardic and mizrahi jewry.
i, as a sephardi/mizrahi jew (i’m not completely comfortable with either term) know that we face challenges as a minority within a minority. we do undoubtedly face discrimination, i have both anecdotal evidence and research that demonstrates this to be true. the idea that ashkenazi identity and history often represents the whole of jewishness is TRUE, but this represents a very recent phenomenon in the history of our peoplehood.
and i fundamentally know our PEOPLEHOOD is the goal of advocacy and inclusion, not to uplift one kind of jew over another but to ensure we are ALL represented, diversely and equally, as one people.
does this make sense? these are half baked thoughts.
2087
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blakekathryn
tankhall
izzy806
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germansingergirl
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