Antisemitism online

[serenada]

Isn't there something we can do? I remember a post on here, years ago, by a mum who was very frightened and her post stood out to me.

It isn't right that the Jewish community have to defend themselves alone here - can't we do something to show support and let people know they are not alone in this?

The existence of BAME Jews doesn't mean antisemitism is the same as racism, although they may experience both. Just like being a gay Jew doesn't make antisemitism and homophobia the same.

They are different problems, different struggles, with often different perpetrators, with different solutions.

@Bravefarts

What about converts? If antisemitism is racism, does that mean that if a convert experiences antisemitism, it is racism?

Because then you reach Rachel Dolezal territory.

Or are converts not real Jews?

If antisemitism is racism, can a white British convert have someone also white British (same race) be racist towards them? If not, what would you call it if someone of the same race was antisemitic to someone of the same race? Is the same action racism if between a Jew and antisemite of different races, but not of the same race?

I think if you think people of the exact same race can be racist towards each other, then that's insulting to groups who experience racism.

I'm not saying it's less bad. I'm saying black, Asian, and other BAME people experience racism. Jews experience antisemitism. Lesbians and gays experience homophobia. All bad. All hate. All discrimination. But not all racism.

Converts are real Jews religiously.

They’re not ethnically Jewish.

Antisemitism is racism.

You’re being really unhelpful saying otherwise.

So can converts experience the type of antisemitism that isn't racism, by your definition? Despite them perhaps experiencing the exact same thing as someone ethnically Jewish?

Or because a convert isn't ethically Jewish, do they not experience antisemitism?

I'm not being unhelpful. I think it's unhelpful to confuse the two issues, especially potentially for black or other non-white Jews, who experience both.

Converts have changed religion, and saying that white converts mean antisemitism isn’t racism was unhelpful.

Nothing is that clear cut.

I don’t have the energy to debate this nitpicking any more.

I’m getting really fucked off with people telling me I haven’t experienced racism.

Why do you prefer to feel you've experienced racism rather than just antisemitism.

Is that because you see antisemitism as somehow "lesser" than racism? And it's that not itself internalised antisemitism?

Both are bad. When it was first explained to me that the anti-Irish, anti-redhead abuse I'd experienced in England want racism, I felt similarly. But that's because I had a working hierarchy of discrimination. There isn't a hierarchy. It's all bad. But white people don't experience racism, and to say they do is to ignore the suffering of our fellow humans who do experience racism. It's not more or less bad, but it's different.

Why not respect how lilylion feels?
Who are we to tell a victim of racism how they should classify that racism.

Incidentally I believe what you experienced, the anti-Irish prejudice, is racism. Certainly the law does.

I haven't just experienced prejudice. I've experienced verbal, sexual and physical abuse.

And I was initially quite taken aback when it was explained that it isn't racism, as I'd felt it was.

But I realised that I was appropriating the abuse suffered by black people using the term to describe what happened to me. It was bad. But not racism, because I'm white.

A woman attacking another woman for being a woman is still misogyny.

A disabled person attacking another disabled person for their disability is still ableism.

Anti-Semitism is racism. I have explained it over and over and I am really annoyed at being expected to do the mental labour of understanding it for you too.

Brendan gets it right again:

www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/27/wiley-isnt-ill-hes-racist/

Are people on the whole in support of spiked? I thought it was criticised for being right wing? Funded by the Koch brothers?

Yes, it is funded by the Koch brothers (and one should ask why).

The problem isn't that it's right of centre though.

It's that Brendan O'Neill is an extremist who's so far round the back it can be hard to tell whether this is one of those years he's extreme left or one of those years he's extreme right.

He also seems pretty choosy about whose rights he cares about (or possibly he's just opportunistic).

Bravefarts : Some Christians have always celebrated Passover though. There's a verse where Jesus says not one jot or tittle shall pass from the Law until all should come to pass and some take this pretty seriously.

Please look at the history of the Seder.

It's not ok to persecute a religion, and appropriate their rituals.

A friend of mine is Jewish. She considers herself to be Jewish and certainly practises Judaism. Her father is an Israeli Jew and her mother converted (previously catholic), upon marrying. My friend told me that despite her mother converting, that she would never be considered 'Jewish' despite identifying as one. I found this quite strange and a little confusing.

I have a few Jewish friends, and of all of them, this one in particular is the one I would consider most 'Jewish' based on the fact that she follows the customs etc. Yet, she is considered less of a jew by her jewish community (she grew up in Stamford Hill). I can see @Bravefarts point of view because it's something I've often pondered too. That said, this thread has helped me to develop a better understanding of ethnic jews vs judaism the religion.

That said, I don't necessarily agree with this:

Prejudice based on someone's religion (convert or not) is ignorant prejudice but not racism. It's still wrong.

Saying anti-Semitism is religious prejudice not racism is incorrect because Jews are an ethnic group as well as a religious one. I’m really tired of how often people say, “but Jewish isn’t a race”. I’ve heard it a LOT.

@Smallgoon some orthodox groups can be exclusionary like that. Judaism is different to a lot of major religions as we don’t seek to convert people, and some Jews are very protective of our little club. Given what we’ve all been through that might be understandable, but I don’t agree with it in cases such as your friend’s. (I reject my ex’s claim to Judaism (that he only started after we broke up - he was very very Christian when I was with him - because he follows none of the beliefs or rituals, but instead spends all his time online screaming his workplace is anti-Semitic for not giving him every Saturday off.) At my Synagogue and to me, your friend would absolutely be regarded as Jewish.

Prejudice based on someone's religion (convert or not) is ignorant prejudice but not racism. It's still wrong.

I didn't say that. I understand that Jews are an ethnic group, not "just" a religion. But the discrimination they experience is different to that experienced by non-white people, and the term "antisemitism" is enough to condemn that discrimination. There's no hierarchy of discrimination.

@Bravefarts

Prejudice based on someone's religion (convert or not) is ignorant prejudice but not racism. It's still wrong.

I didn't say that. I understand that Jews are an ethnic group, not "just" a religion. But the discrimination they experience is different to that experienced by non-white people, and the term "antisemitism" is enough to condemn that discrimination. There's no hierarchy of discrimination.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my post, which I've now also re-read, and am embarrassed by the lack of coherency Apologies, it was late,and I should avoid posting when tired.

@SheepandCow made the statement rather than @Bravefarts

I'm surprised that so many people feel entitled to appropriate Jews' experiences, and deny that anti-Semitism is racism.

Jews are a race, as well as a religion. It's incredibly reductive to label Jews as 'white', and therefore deny that we can experience racism, not to mention incorrect.

I have dozens of family members who were murdered in the Shoah. Jews were explicitly targeted based on their ethnicity, not their religious practice. This is racism.

All forms of racism are wrong. It's also very wrong to pick and choose what kind of racism is important.

I am sure that everyone's experience of racism is different, but I find it very telling that so many people are trying to deny Jews' experience, on a supposed basis of colour.

As a white convert, I don't see myself as a victim of racism. Anti-Semitism, yes, but not racism. I have been told I 'look Jewish', which is ironic because I take after my dad and he was most definitely not Jewish. For friends I know who were born into it, it's more complex. Some of them - and this sounds horribly anti-Semitic but I don't know how to word it better - do 'look Jewish'.

@AnnaJKing I heard Orthodox communities are supposed to reject you three times. I converted Reform but my rabbi was more subtle about trying to put me off - he asked if I'd ever considered Orthodox Judaism and suggested that might be for me instead. I hung in there and he knew I was serious. I don't go to shul anymore but that's because I find it a huge strain physically and mentally. It's a bit harder to practice when you live alone and don't attend synagogue as Judaism is so community-based, but I try and do things like lighting candles and I say Kaddish for my dead relatives.

@Mimishimi the Christian seder appropriates Jewish customs and makes it about Jesus. Like turning the four cups into the blood of Christ etc. It completely changes what the whole thing is about.

@serenada I absolutely hate Spiked and Brendan O'Neill. He's one of those professional contrarians, but people like him because he hates trans people and 'wokeness' and because it's not trendy to be pro-Jewish. If it was, I can guarantee he'd be saying 'Hitler had a point actually'. He's said some pretty gross things about #metoo as well.I always get suspicious when contrarians claim to be pro-Jewish because the minute we don't live up to their idea of what a good Jew should be like, they turn on us. Julie Burchill is terrible for this. Jews like me are scum according to her because we don't rabidly worship Israel like she does. Like, be against anti-Semitism by all means but I feel like Jews are being pitted against black people and I don't feel comfortable with it. Plenty of black people disagree with Wiley, plenty of white people agree with him.

@PhilSwagielka

Thanks, Phil - I need to read more of it to figure out what is underlying and what isn't.

I think I have read something from him that I really strongly disagreed with which tallies with what you are saying so will read up.

There are two things there, aren't there? We either support your right to be here or we support you based on xyz which we define. I thought we had moved beyond that to creating a neutral, shared set of values independent of specifics that then lead us into rabbit holes (I'm on another thread with you discussing this, I think). You can't play people off like that - it simply isn't on.

@PhilSwagielka

It is also very strange to me that at a time we are framing things in terms of civil rights that

'Jews are being pitted against black people...'

this is happening. There is a very long history of Jewish civil right campaigners in the US who have supported black civil rights, partcilularly throughout the 60s - Goodman, Shwerrner and Chaney et al.

Divisive politics - and I don't understand it.

Mark Ronson (yes, I do realise the irony of years studying this stuff to end up quoting a DJ) postd on Twitter a good comment (and I had to look up Vorspan)

'THE MAIN POINT is: "until we deal with the terrible plight of powerlessness, until we deal with the social problems... there will be anti-Semitism and there will be every other kind of prejudice and every other kind of antisocial fury"
VORSPAN
WE MUST ADRESS SYSTEMIC RACISM

sums it up for me and is a principle I have always lived by.

To clarify. I agree with @AnnaJKing.
Antisemitism is racism because Jews are an ethnic group (an example being the genetic disposition to having the BRCA cancer gene).

My comment prejudice based on someone's religion is ignorant prejudice, not racism was in response to a poster denying antisemitism was racism. Their reasoning was the fact of Jewish converts not being ethnically Jewish.

Interesting as Jews are told to accept a convert as if they have always been Jewish.

Considering our numbers, I think it also makes sense to embrace converts wholeheartedly, something I’ve noticed the Liberal movements doing much better than the Orthodox.
I’ve had some absolutely fascinating conversations with those going through the conversion process. They are so knowledgeable and it is humbling talking to someone making such a huge commitment and life change.