pearwaldorf:

Hello (goyische) friends. As it is almost Passover, this is a good time to eat matzo ball soup but also consider our understandings and possible misunderstandings of Jewishness and antisemitism. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, an explicitly intersectional organization, put out a report right after the election about antisemitism, its connections to white supremacy, (ethno)nationalism, and how it prevents social progress of all sorts.

It’s a pretty long document, and I understand if you don’t want to read it all, but I encourage you to read at least part 1, which gives a pretty good background on the diversity of the Jewish population (spoiler: much wider than the typical Ashkenazi portrayals in the media). 

Something I would like to explicitly point out is criticism of Israel and its connection to antisemitism:

Criticisms of Israel and Zionism are not inherently or inevitably anti-Jewish. All states, movements
and ideologies should be scrutinized, and all forms of injustice denounced. It is not anti-Jewish
to denounce oppressive acts committed by Jews. On the contrary, insisting that a history
of oppression exempts Jews—or any other group for that matter—from accountability undermines
Jewish liberation and betrays our values. [emphasis theirs]

Leaders of the Jewish state and the Jewish leaders and institutions that support them worldwide
must be held accountable for their oppression of Palestinians and the continued occupation of
Palestinian land. However, we must not become confused about the nature, cause, or, sadly, the
sheer ordinariness of Israeli state violence and the pain visited upon Palestinians. It does not
in any way minimize the suffering of Palestinians to say that their oppression is comparable to
many other terrible human rights disasters being committed worldwide by non-Jews. There is
nothing about the Jewishness of Israeli leaders that makes their rockets more deadly or their
walls more brutal—it is simply militaristic nationalism. Syrians, Ukrainians, Chechens, Afghans—all
will recognize this flavor of violence immediately, just as indigenous people in the

U.S. and the world over are familiar with the violence of displacement—no Jews required. 

This
is why JFREJ envisions a world without oppression, colonialism, occupation, and displacement,
including, of course, here in the United States.
We must criticize Jews who support the oppression of Palestinians on the same terms and by the
same standards that we hold for all oppressors the world over—we are enraged because of what
they do, not by who they are. 

It is also important to understand that for many Jews past and present, Zionism has not been
seen as a colonialist project but as the right for Jews to have a physical place of self-determined
safety. [emphasis mine] For many Jews, the State of Israel has felt like the only thing standing between them and
another Holocaust. This fear, rooted in very recent historical trauma, is why grounded and valid
protests against Israeli government policy or Zionism are sometimes heard by Jews as threats
to the safety of the Jewish people as a whole. Actual violence against Jews or other antisemitic
acts in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and around the globe only compound these fears and
further a tragic dynamic…

We cannot overlook any injustice when we see it, no matter where it is or who is causing it. As
Jews, we are no less responsible for our role in perpetuating oppression anywhere in the world
because of our history of persecution; in fact, that history should only further fuel our commitment
to justice. But our movements must also continue to cultivate clarity about the role that all
oppressions—including antisemitism—play in maintaining the status quo. If we’re committed
to collective liberation, we can’t compromise on who’s included in that vision for the world. We
need everyone, from New York to Palestine.

So I hope this is useful, and clarifies some things.