therealmanishtana-blog

[therealmanishtana-blog]

In these past few days since Charlottesville, I've seen many statuses, tweets, and articles of a certain kind. [white] Jewish authors all, and all in the vein of the trauma and uncertainty being revisited upon this "new resurgence of white supremacy". The fear being echoed from later generations of those who survived the Holocaust. And--while I'm not denying or belittling the authenticity of those feelings, or their right to be felt--as someone who is African-American, and an African-American Jew, and as someone married to someone who not only is African-American and a Jew, but is also the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, my most primal reaction to these sentiments--with all due respect--is a hearty "Fuck you".

Because in many cases--not all, but many--in *many* cases, you are the same Jews who "didn't see" there being a disproportionate police response or brutality to black & brown people. Or "didn't get" why BLM was and is a thing. Or "didn't believe" in the systemic or institutional deck-stacking against black and brown peoples. You held sancrosanct some tenet of "if onlys". If only they'd been respectful to police. If only they'd obeyed the law. If only they'd kept their hands visible. If only they'd complied when police barged into their homes. If only they'd let police know there were sleeping toddlers in the house. As if the Constitution werent built on the legal inferiority of African-Americans. As if "Jim Crow" laws werent LAWS. As if the anti-Semitic workings of Hitler up to and including the Holocaust hadnt been legal.

But *now* you're afraid? Because of some blatant show of a trauma from less than 70 years ago? But you "don't understand" the attitude and racial realities for brown and especially black people in this country? You think "the talk" is unnecessary hysteria and fear-mongering?

So let me illustrate this better for you:

Imagine, after the Holocaust, upon the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948--a full 3 yrs after the end of WWII--all of a sudden, statues started popping up of Hitler. Of Goebbels. Of Abetz. Of Eichmann. Of Himmler. Of Mengele.

For "history", of course.

Now imagine after the 1967 victory, even more statues popped up. Imagine you were being policed by former Nazis, using methods specifically employed to round up and corral Jews. Imagine the Nazi flag was incorporated into a state you lived in. Imagine a popular TV show had the Iron Cross emblazoned across the roof of that show's flagship car.

Now imagine, with all of these things happening concurrently, you were being told, for generations, to "get over it". That these things needed to stay because "history". Imagine some of the people telling you these things were themselves persecuted minorities. Now imagine feeling some kind of way when all of a sudden, after an event that explicitly evokes imagery relevant specifically to them, they turn around and say "OMG. Im nervous about this resurgence of hate!"

Because those statues of the Confederacy? Of "history"? They were put up in resistance to the efforts of Reconstruction. The second wave were constructed as a "Fuck you" to Black ppl fighting for Civil Rights in the 60's. If they were such a monument to history, then where are the statues of Judah P. Benjamin, one of the most influential minds and forces behind the Confederacy? Oh wait, what's that you say? He was a Jew? So you mean there's been proof of this statue obsession not only *not* being about "preserving history" but also about this sentiment being inherently anti-Semitic? But of course you probably werent even looking that closely. The Confederacy, after all, was just one of those slavery-related things that Blk ppl should just "get over" already.

[Wait, what's that?...Yes, I *did* say that one of the most influential minds and forces behind the Confederacy was a Jew. Also, by 1860 1/4 of the Jewish South were slave owners...Yeah, that *is* true that in the almost century between 1776 and 1861 there were far more Jewish slave-owners and slavery apologists and slavery ambivalent folks than abolitionists...Huh. I guess when you put it that way, I suppose it *does* put Jewish involvement in Civil Rights in a whole new context. Kinda like it was something owed in penance, not a philantropic endeavor that African-Americans are ungrateful for and should be beholden to...]

The current police system is an outgrowth of slave patrols. There are states with the Confederate flag incorporated into their official state flag.

At any rate, you're concerned about the "resurgence" of white supremacy?

Resurgence? When? Where did it go? Was it not embedded here this entire time? Or were you just not paying attention? Or were you just busy justifying its institutionalization until your roosters came home to roost? Because, y'know, you were law abiding citizens and "those ppl" were not. And "those ppl" were being hyperbolic. And "those ppl" were being "oversensitive". And "those ppl" were playing "the race card". But now it's affecting *you* and so "now is the moment". It's killing ppl who look like *you* and so "now is the time". It's attacking and threatening *you* and *your* ability to innocently live life and so "now we must unite".

We have a lot of work to do, my Jews. And reading all this and feeling shame or guilt does literally nothing toward that work. So try actively helping to fix this problem instead. And no, I'm not going to hold your hand and show you how. JOCs and other POCs have been spilling ink on this topic for more than a decade. Google is a thing. If youre as invested in this work as you are about Game of Thrones, then you'll have no trouble finding what you need to know.

[therealmanishtana-blog]

This Wednesday, the March for Racial Justice released a statement apologizing yet remaining steadfast about their decision to hold the event on September 30th this year, a date which happens to coincide with Yom Kippur. It was an eloquent, sensitive, and vulnerable apology. It is also one that should never have had to be written.

Did *you* know that September 30 is the anniversary of the Elaine Massacre of 1919 in Elaine, Arkansas, during which more than 200 Black men and women—many WWI veterans--were killed in cold blood by a mob of white citizens and law enforcement in what was the largest state-sanctioned massacre of black people in US history? Because *I* didn’t. And I’m *Black*. This isn’t like North Carolina Pride which was scheduled on Yom Kippur simply for the arbitrary reason of it always having being held on the last Saturday of September.

And if you are among those who weren’t aware of the significance of Sept 30 to a march specifically inspired by over-policing of Black and Brown minorities, then how is your lack of awareness so different from the lack of Jewish sensitivity that you’re caterwauling about that you should feel so self-righteously outraged?

Also, while we’re on the topic, kindly explain how the choice of Sept 30, without checking for Yom Kippur, for a Black and Brown justice march about anti-minority police violence, is an attack of Jewish liberals or the left “erasing” Jews? And no, don’t *now* pull the “but Jews of Color” card out of your back pocket.

Because we’re convenient talking points for you or as political weapons to expose the failings of intersectionality, but you don’t much want to hear from us when we’re actually in the room. *Don’t* pull out the “Jews of Color” card, because us Black and Brown Jews get stripped of our Jewishness in social movements, and “Jewish involvement” only begins once white Jews arrive. If you’ve ever talked about “Jewish involvement” in BLM, as if one of the very *founders* of BLM wasn’t Jewish herself (ie, Alicia Garza), then have several seats. *Don’t* pull out the “Jews of Color” card, because we’re also part of Black and Brown communities, and active in them, and we’re perfectly capable of talking to and coming for our own. We don’t need you cloaking your upset at having your hurt white feelings denied centering in Black and Brown-led decisions and activism as you “talking for” us. And if you’re so beholden to the idea of white policing of Black/Brown activism, of not allowing Black/Brown decisions to stand without white protest, then don’t “wonder why” the Jewish/Af-Am alliance of the Civil Rights Movement fell apart. Because you’re just repeating the same mistakes.

(And before somebody gets into *that*: Do. Not. Talk. To. Me. About. Jews. During. Civil. Rights. If your most significant proof of social engagement and moral uprightness is an event from *three* generations ago, then that is a problem, and you need to figure out why, just as much as Republicans having to reach 150 years back to claim Lincoln to prove support for minority rights).

So here’s the ugly truth: The [white] Jewish community has not only failed to lead the modern movement for racial justice, it also has not been at its forefront. It has been lethargic to the table at all the formative moments. And this is how things like this happen. There is no strong “pro-Israel” in, say, BLM, because by the time pro-Israel Jews decided to stick their toes in the water, pro-Palestinian and anti-Occupation groups were already in the pool because they answered the call when it was given. There aren’t many Jewishly observant-minded events or gatherings because observant Jews largely don’t come to the table. If you want sensitivity and inclusion and intersectionality, you kinda have to show up *before* the dust clears and do the work of building the table and your seat at it. Jews are not *owed* a seat at any table just by dint of resting on wilted 60-year old laurels of romanticized involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

And yes, “romanticized”.

The Civil Rights Movement was a predominantly Black one, and its heavy lifting was done by ordinary Black folk. Yes, [white] Jews had a disproportionate amount of involvement, but only in relation to *white* populations, not Black ones. And that involvement speaks nothing to the apathy of Southern Jewry as a whole, or to the reluctance and even opposition of American Jewry on average. The demand for [white] Jews to see themselves depicted in every aspect of the CRM, all the time, is also what partially led to the alliance’s disintegration and its tepid state today. Case in point, the outrage at Heschel's lack of inclusion in Duvernay’s “Selma”. Yet no such uproar from those same folks committed to historical fidelity when the far more pivotal Fredrick Douglass was omitted from Spielberg’s “Lincoln” two years earlier.

But back to today, you can’t sit on the sidelines and offer minimal or implied support, but then get in a tizzy when scheduling leaves you out. This march began its planning on June 16. No Jewish groups thought to come to the table until the date was announced *last week*? C’mon now. And then, when given the rationale for the date, you patronizingly acknowledge its significance to Black history, then summarily dismiss it as not mattering because *you* have to be in shul? Also, by whose terms must Black/Brown-led activism conform to religious practice? Especially when it comes to Jewish practice?

After all, there are Jewish organizations that *specifically* plan actions, marches, and protests on Jewish holidays for the added gravitas. Furthermore, Judaism is the only religion which contains any kind of denomination or observance that restricts travel, carrying, etc. Why would the organizers think that Jews *wouldn’t* be able to just…walk? Even myself, as an observant, Orthodox Jew, there is nothing inherently keeping me from participating in the march during the break between Musaf/Mincah and Neilah except perhaps lack of blood sugar.

Is there anti-Semitism on the left? Yep. Is there an erasure of Jews in general? For sure.

But this march is not an example of either. If we want to be represented, we need to show up. And not after the fact.

And now, after all this righteous indignation and outrage, there had better be an outpouring of Jewish attendance on October 1st—from individual Facebook Jews all the way up to the Mayim Bialiks of the world—to justify all of this belly-aching.

Otherwise this was just all sound and fury to justify something that was never a priority in the first place.

(And, as always, feel free to share.)

[therealmanishtana-blog]

There may come a day, when I can comment on what I'm about to comment on, and everyone can hear it without getting all in their feelings, but it is not this day. There may come a time, when I can organize my thoughts in such a way that they are not defanged, but still humor white fragility, but it is NOT THIS DAY. Maybe, it'll be tomorrow. In the meantime, for today, here are my thoughts. Everyone these past few days has been all in a tizzy after Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, once again asking the question that reared its head in a panic after Trump's election: "Are Jews white?" Yes, they are, this one says. No, they're not, that one says. They’re not white, but they’re not people of color either, says a third. It’s complicated, says yet another, doing a great impression of a Talmudic daf. Now, I suppose we can pontificate on how the “whiteness” we’re defining that Jews “aren’t”—and that the Irish and Italians “weren’t”—is ahistorical and refers to a stylized, sociological or anthropological understanding of "whiteness" which means either "fully socially accepted as the equals of Americans of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic stock" or, in the more politicized version, "an accepted part of the dominant ruling class in the United States”, and that simultaneously—despite discrimination and even violence—was emblematic of racist hierarchy within the white group, not evidence that these groups weren’t considered to be white. Consider, for example, that anti-miscegenation laws did not apply to any of those groups. Consider that the first Jew of Color recorded in New England was a “Malata Jue” in 1668 Boston named Solomon, likely of slave descent. “Mulatto”, as we all know, was the legal terminology for someone with one black parent and one white parent. Therefore, if his slave half made him "half-black", and he was classified as a "mulatto", then that means his Jewish half…was considered "white". Again, we could go down this line of argument, but David Bernstein, whom I've liberally plagiarized just now, has a pretty good handle on that already.  So yeah. We’re saying Jews aren’t white? Fine. Then show us. Show us that when you’re arguing “Jews aren’t white” that you mean “Jews”. That you’re envisioning “Jews”, not just the ones who look like you, the ones you insist can only “pass” as white. Because as it stands, only Sarah Tuttle-Singer's piece in this recent discourse has bothered to mention that "Jews are a people–in many colors—from deep ebony all the way to alabaster—who can trace their DNA to a little strip of land no bigger than a fingernail. And we are not 'White.'" And that, is a true statement. Jews aren’t white? Then make sure it’s so apparent, that the rainbow of hues that flow through Jewish identity is so prevalent, that no one can question it. All those “Ten Most Beautiful Jewish Women” articles and “Nice Jewish Boy” calendars and Federation videos about the “Jewish future”? Try including a heaping serving of those Jews who you joke “don’t look Jewish” because their skin is browner and their eyes are thinner and their hair is kinkier than yours. For that matter, stop joking that we “don’t look Jewish”, period. I mean, you don’t seem to be too enthralled about that joke when it’s turned on you, either. You say you don’t have white privilege because you lose it when you’re discovered to be Jewish. Fine. So then before you get outed—if you ever do—firstly, acknowledge that you have privilege. Define it as "white privilege", "passing-white privilege", "conditional white privilege","phenotypical white privilege", "Ben & Jerry's Vanilla White Privilege Scoop Surprise" or whatever semantical construct you'd like, no one even really cares. But acknowledge that you have the privilege. Acknowledge that privilege every time you get the urge to blurt out things like “Do you really experience that much racism?” or “I don’t think it’s that bad”. Acknowledge that privilege every time you feel like telling Jews of Color that they are being too sensitive, and remember what that lack of privilege feels like every time you have to defend that anti-Semitism is still a thing, let alone on the rise. Secondly, while you still have that privilege? Use it. Use it while you're in rooms that people who can't "pass" can't stand in, and stand up for them.Use the shit out of it to change things for the better like you’re someone for whom “tikkun olam” is actually your mission here on this Earth, not a sexy little buzzword to toss around. You say you’re not white because of anti-Semitism endured both historically and today. Great. So you’ve been oppressed. So? Christians were thrown to lions by the Romans. Catholics were massacred whenever their monarch was a Protestant and likewise for Protestant when the monarch was a Catholic. Before they eventually merged, the Angles and the Saxons took turns persecuting each other. What does enduring anti-Semitism and the Holocaust mean to you? Are you using it to be more aware of the persecution of others by “whiteness”? Are you using it to ensure it doesn’t devastate others the way it’s victimized you and yours? Or are you using it as some kind of karmic currency giving you a voucher to say or act however you please (y’know, like how you say black people do)? Are you aware that being and having been persecuted has no bearing on being racist, discriminatory, or any of the other hallmarks of the ideology of “whiteness”? Being a persecuted minority didn’t stop Congregation Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim of Charleston, South Carolina from discriminating against people of color in Rule No. 23 of their 1820 Constitution (emphasis mine): "This congregation shall not encourage or interfere with making proselytes under any pretense whatever, nor shall any such be admitted under the jurisdiction of their congregation, until he or she or they produce legal and satisfactory credentials, from some other congregation, where a regular Chief or Rabbi and Hebrew Consistory is established; and, provided, he, she, or they are not people of color." Nor did it prevent Congregation Shaarei Chesed of New Orleans from identifying as white in 1828 in Act No. 84 of the Louisiana State Legislature (emphasis mine): "Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, in Gene[r]al Assembly convened, [t]hat Manis Jacobs, Aaron [Daniels], Isaac Philips, Plautz, S.S. Solis, Bernard [J]unior, Souza [S]enior, and all other white Israelit[e]s living in this City, who may desire to form a society, and their successors, are hereby constituted a body corporate under the name and title of "Shananreen Shosset of the Congregation of Israelites of New-Orleans". Surviving the Holocaust didn’t stop European-descended, newly-minted Israelis from kidnapping Mizrahi and Yemenite babies in the 50’s, and it doesn’t stop sabras from discriminating against Yemenites and Ethiopians today . Being victims of anti-Semitism certainly didn’t keep death threats from being issued to Rabbi Alysa Stanton, the first African-American woman ordained as a rabbi, requiring a police escort the day she was installed as rabbi at Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, NC in 2009. And that none of that stops any Jew from claiming every bit of the old racist white guy trope. Except for, apparently, the “white” part. Don't tell us about genetics and really being Levantine, because for every study "proving"Ashkenazi Jews are Middle Eastern descended, there's another equally "proving" that Ashkenazi Jews have 80% European maternal ancestral DNA. Science will "prove" whatever someone's using it to "prove". And regardless of the amount of Levantine DNA in either direction, Ashkenazi Jews identify black Jews with Levantine DNA as "black", Asian Jews with Levantine DNA as "Asian", Indian Jews with Levantine DNA as "Indian", and so on and so forth. Of course, if there were an easy answer to this question it would either be so obvious that it wouldn’t need to be debated or it would be ignored by people who didn’t want to accept it anyway. So let’s just stop debating if Jews are white or not. Show us. Show us. Show us you publishing Jewish children's books where the kids come in a lot more than peach. Show us your synagogues that are so welcoming that your pews look like rainbows. Show us you standing up in country clubs and VIP sections where those off-color jokes get told and discriminatory practices fester, declaring that you are not white, in those words, not the relative cop-out of "I'm Jewish". Show us you rejecting the ideologies of whiteness like colorism, prejudice, discrimination, and racism with the same alacrity and disgust as I hand back an organic kale quiche to Becky. [[White] Ashkenazi] Jews aren't white? Aight bet. Great. Go for it. We (brown Sefardim/Mizrachim/Yemenites, Jews of Color, ethnic Ashkenazim of color, non-Jewish non-white minorities, non-Jewish whites, even self-defined "white" Ashkenazim) are watching. Show us.

#manishtana jewsofcolor wonderwoman arejewswhite