The anti-Semitism intersectionality gap

littlegoythings:

She told me, “It’s okay to feel sad.”

I forget sometimes that
I’m allowed to feel sad for Jews. The discourse in the School of Social
Work around anti-Semitism has dwindled in large part due to the
hyperbolic conflation of Jewishness with whiteness. I am therefore quick
to forget that Columbia often fails to treat anti-Semitism with the legitimacy it deserves. My mom’s simple acknowledgement allowing me to feel Jewish pain reminded me that it was ok to feel so deeply.

My
experience in the Columbia School of Social Work has often made me feel
hollow. It can seem like I have no role as a Jew in both the course
curriculum and in class discussions. “How Jews Became White Folks” is my
school’s single mandatory reading regarding Jewish people in
contemporary society. And, even though this piece takes a dive into
important assimilation markers of the American Jew, this is only a
20-page reading shoved in among the several books and 40 articles that
make up our curriculum. In discussions, fellow classmates have confessed
that they have become frustrated when Jewish people speak up about
their experiences. On one occasion, I tried to explain to a close peer
how my Jewishness guides my social justice work and she told me that I
needed to stop talking, since my white privilege dominated any authentic
form of solidarity I could claim as a Jewish person. During my time at
Columbia, I often wonder if I truly belong at the School of Social Work.

Why
do my peers dismiss my Jewish identity due to my white skin? Why do I
feel so disingenuous for being Jewish in social justice work?

This
message from my peers, that Jews are white, isolates the Jewish people
from the broader cultural context. It creates an assumption that renders
the dialogue around anti-Semitism obsolete and minimizes the Jewish
experience. Not only is this generalization detrimental to understanding
the nuances and diversity of Jewish identity, but it also inhibits an
honest conversation about the ways being Jewish has been contextualized
in discourses of race, ethnicity, and culture. Frankly, perceiving
Jewishness as a mere form of whiteness or as just a religion is
ignorant. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel knew this, and cautioned us
against these toxic and reductive comparisons when he said, “No human
race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective
judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”

Intersectionality—the
interrelation between race, class, and gender—is a central theme in our
curriculum that promotes a solidarity-driven approach to social
justice. Unfortunately, it seems that this ideology is not being taught
to address issues pertaining to anti-Semitism. Social workers are often
so concerned about abiding by these pre-established intersectionality
guidelines that they unintentionally perpetuate the very kinds of
discrimination that they supposedly oppose. Thus, Jewish students
whisper to each other in the secrecy of dimly lit dive bars about our
shared experiences of anti-Semitism, but we don’t risk speaking out in
class. An intersectionality gap exists between engaging in discussions
of anti-Semitism and those pertaining to other forms of racism. Rather
than avoiding discussions of anti-Semitism, we must break the silence by
discussing solidarity.

The anti-Semitism intersectionality gap