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A few words on Jay-Z

Jay-Z’s antisemitism isn’t excusable, but it is comprehensible, and it is worth taking the time to comprehend it.

Up until the 50s and declining into the 60s Jews in the US were heavily poor and heavily working class. This population of Jews mostly lived in Northern urban centers, such as New York or Chicago. After WWII, Jewish veterans received benefits from the GI Bill and in the 50s Jewish quotas at universities died out, permitting us to take advantage of higher education at rates never before possible in America, become professionals and get low-cost mortgages for homes in suburbia. As a result we largely shifted from being a poor working class community renting in urban centers to a community of middle class educated professionals living in suburban homes.

Our entry into the middle class was supported by and fed another demographic change occurring in the American Jewish community. Assimilation into whiteness.* Pressure from McCarthyism, which played on American fear of the politically radical Eastern European Jew, and pressure from WASP neighbors in suburbia led us to suppress our ethnicity and emphasize our religion. The physical layout of suburbs supported this: in the cities we had synagogues, storefronts, named libraries, settlement houses, and various secular institutions reflecting our Jewishness back onto us - along with thousands of Jewish neighbors in close proximity; our move into suburbia dispersed us and our local communities became centered on the synagogue, accessed by car. Resultantly, we started looking and acting a lot more like our WASP neighbors – just observing the sabbath on different days.**

At the same time, in the 50s and 60s the Great Migration was bringing black people to the North from the South in enormous numbers. As Jews left their homes in poor city neighborhoods and we increasingly looked and acted like WASPs, black people replaced us as tenants. Black people stuck in working class jobs in industry and service (black women very commonly held domestic and personal service jobs with egregiously poor wages) watched as Jewish neighbors took advantage of the GI Bill, went to college, got good professional jobs and moved to the suburbs.

Further stoking resentment, even as we left urban centers, we still owned and operated businesses in the poor neighborhoods we left, like supermarkets, butcher’s shops, candy stores and delis. Some of us even owned the apartment buildings that had once housed poor Jews but now housed poor black people. Many of us still worked in the city, but Jewish women, working as public school teachers, were especially visible. In short, we became hyper-visible in the day-to-day life of poor black people. We became hyper-visible as the people taking their money, giving them poor goods and services, evicting them, putting the needs of the teacher’s union ahead of the needs of black children, and employing them in our shops and homes for a pittance.

Simultaneously under pressure from antisemitism and drawn by stability, safety and prosperity, we entered the white middle class in America (who could refuse?). This process also forged us into an instrument of racial and economic exploitation in the lives of many black people. That this has created prejudice against Jews among some black people is intelligible – we have been and to an extent still are, very visibly, the white people in their lives exploiting them.

That Jay-Z – who grew up in Brooklyn where this history and social dynamic between Jews and black people was and is especially strong – is antisemitic is not a shock. Jay-Z’s antisemitism cannot be understood in isolation, though. Antisemitism as a social structure is very much alive in America in its classic form. We have been cast as a buffer for power – court jews, moneylenders, rent and tax collectors, evictors and confiscators of property. It is much easier for people to blame Jews than it is to grapple with something so enormous as white supremacist capitalism.

As pervasive and deeply seated antisemitism is, it is not a universal spiritual fact of the world. It has a history, intellectual and material, and therefore it can be fought. If white Jews and black gentiles can reckon with our shared, painful history, we open the possibility to forging solidarity in the fight against white supremacy, antisemitism and capitalism on a scale not seen in decades.

And we must try. Antisemitic prejudice from oppressed people is disheartening, but white Jews owe it to black Jews and other Jews of color, pulled in half by antisemitism from people of color, to reaffirm our dedication to fighting racism and uprooting the antisemitism of those who should be our natural allies.

*Historically contingent and exclusive of many Jews. Not entirely coterminous with Ashkenazi, nor descriptive of all Ashkenazim. This is not a discussion on whether or not any Jews are White™.

** See April Rosenblum’s Offers We Couldn’t Refuse in Jewish Currents for a more detailed overview of the suppression of Ashkenazi ethnicity and its replacement with Ashkenazi Judaism in the lives of American Jews.

Final note: James Baldwin’s 1967 essay Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White continues to be the most important read on this topic. 

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I mean, the thing is, I know all of this. I didn’t read those lyrics and think they came out of a vacuum. This history is true, and it’s an issue that needs to be examined and grappled with. 

And if this were Jay-Z’s debut album, I’d be uncomfortable and little annoyed, but I’d let it slide in the name of young people making mistakes as they unpack their experiences.

But it’s not his debut album. He’s one of the most famous people in the world, and he’s a grown ass 47-year-old man with three kids, and a personal networth higher than some small nation states. He has a massive platform that could be used for good, but instead he used it on a throwaway line to affirm people’s anti-Semitism, and now we’re all just gonna have this quoted at us for the next ten years as a example of why goyim don’t need to care when white supremacists attack us. 

Like, this is the exact opposite of “reckoning with our shared, painful history.” It’s just planting more seeds of distrust to reinforce the same divides that are already preventing progress. 

This was a damaging inclusion from somebody who should have known better, and I’m not here for it.

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Serene | 2017

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Hammersky Vineyards // Paso Robles, CA by Ken Kienow Photography

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in my opinion & experience, the worst form of antisemitism isn’t the fascistic ravings of white supremacists at neo-nazi rallies and in the far-reaching “far reaches” of the internet (in my experience, their platforms tend to not be as hidden as one would assume, but the rampant nazism on the internet is another story). their claims are visibly abhorrent, and easily denounced. of course “white pride” is bad, of course “kike” is a slur, of course jews don’t have “dirty blood,” of course nazis aren’t good people. 

no, the most insidious form of antisemitism is perpetuated by liberal spheres, wherein they’re too lazy & apathetic to not be ignorant of all the antisemitic bullshit they actually believe & spread. i don’t associate with white supremacists, but i do associate with many Progressive & Liberal goyim who would never consider themselves antisemitic… because they don’t actively hate jewish people. 

so to all the goyim reading this, here’s a psa:

no, we don’t control the banks. (here’s a good post explaining how this stereotype was first conceived; please read it.) we also don’t control the media. both of these notions are part of a larger conspiracy theory perpetuated by neo-nazis that “jews are all in on some underground organization where they plan to commit ‘white genocide’/perpetuate ‘jewish supremacy’/are reptilian lizard people who want to take over the world.” (ever joked about the reptilian conspiracy before? yep, that’s nazis.) it’s a tactic to explicitly dehumanize us, please stop falling for it. 

not all jews are white people from long island/connecticut/a suburb. most of our population are not white (ashkenazi), it’s just the most represented ethnic group within the jewish population in america. (remember that thing that happened during ww2 to like, a whole bunch of european jews, causing them to attempt to take refuge in america? granted, a lot of refugees were denied– fun fact, including anne frank– but a lot of ashkenazim made their way to america then or during other pogroms throughout history.)

using jewish cultural/religious traditions (for example, bar/bat mitzvahs) as a way to represent white culture is insensitive and stupid. if it is a specifically jewish tradition, and just because the only jew you’ve met was jacob weinstein or w/e and he was soooooo white, that doesn’t give you the right to appropriate our culture. (yes, taking over jewish religious & cultural traditions to satirize & mock is exactly what cultural appropriation is, no im not being “over-sensitive.”) if you want to make fun of white culture, that is such a easy target, white people do so much dumb shit all the time. please stop exploiting an ethnic minority. i don’t care how white the jews you’ve met are, they’re still an ethnic minority. (looking at you “black-ish”) 

“are [white] jews white??” why does it even matter? it doesn’t change the fact that they’re jewish. race, being a man-made social construct that’s completely arbitrary and pretty ridiculous, is messy and not everyone can either fit into the box of “white” or “person of color.” (that’s why the term “white-passing” exists.) whether or not white jews are considered white is regional and conditional. if a white/ashkenazi jew refers to themselves as “white-passing” instead of “white,” that’s their prerogative as they probably have a history of being othered for their ethnicity, and not wanting to be associated with their oppressors. they may still benefit from white privilege, but they do not benefit from white supremacy, and they are an ethnic minority (if they are ethnically jewish, that is. not all jews are ethnically jewish.)  

stop masking your antisemitism with anti-zionism. your hypocrisy and double standards aren’t fooling anyone. the israeli-palestinian conflict is leagues more nuanced than ive seen any goy on this website ever make it out to be. and saying that israelis kill babies for fun or whatever is blatantly antisemitic blood libel. also, stop denouncing israelis for not actively condemning israel. it’s not their job to do so. their parents/grandparents were very likely refugees, who had nowhere else to flee. they’re human beings, in the same way that palestinians are human beings, and this crisis can only be solved with an emphasis on human rights and with a nuanced and humane approach. NOT the transparent, black-and-white thinking plaguing our discourse (usually in a conversation many of you are actually barely informed about), that holds a specifically jewish state (the only one in the world) and its peoples to an infinitely higher standard than to other militaries and/or occupations. (i wonder why.) 

stop comparing israelis to nazis. stop comparing israel to white european colonialism. yes, there are ashkenazi israelis, no it’s not the same. you’re not getting a point across, you just sound like an asshole. 

if a jew tells you something is antisemitic, just listen to them, and don’t try to defend yourself. antisemitism is so engrained in our culture, that you probably meant no harm. just own up to your mistake, and try to educate yourself. (and generally when people try to defend themselves, they just end up being more antisemitic in the process, so please keep that in mind.) 

stop throwing jewish people under the bus as a way to uplift other people of color. this actively hurts jews of color, and helps no one. 

stop saying “it’s been over 70 years [since the holocaust], i can’t believe antisemitism still exists.” antisemitism has been pervasive for thousands of years. you sound ignorant as hell. if you can believe that racism still exists, then trust me, antisemitism hasn’t gone anywhere. 

jews shouldn’t have to prove to you that antisemitism is still extant, and the denial of antisemitism is inherently antisemitic.

stop referring to yourself as “goyim.” you sound dumb, and we will make fun of you for it. (instead, “gentile” or simply “not jewish” is fine.)

antisemitism is a combination of religious intolerance, cultural prejudice, and ethnic persecution. sometimes “antisemitism” and “racism” are interchangeable, sometimes they aren’t, usually it’s a bit of both. much like how islamaphobia can be a combination of religious intolerance and anti-arab racism (although obviously not all muslims are arab, and not all arabs are muslim). 

“antisemitism” was a term coined by germans in the 19th century because it sounded better than “judenhass” (meaning “jew hatred”). (btw, not all “semitic people” can be affected by “antisemitism” because it specifically means hostility towards/ prejudice against jews. stop bringing that up as an argument, it’s invalid.) 

the insinuation of any kind that “[all] jews are [filthy] rich” is antisemitic. 

witches, dwarves, goblins, and any other portrayal of an unclean and corrupt people with big, hooked noses and/or green skin who love gold/money, drinking the blood of babies, etc. is directly rooted in antisemitism. now you know. 

[white] jews are allowed to complain about white people. regardless of their race, their culture/ethnicity/religion makes them a direct target of white supremacist violence, and they have definitely faced antisemitism over the course of their lives. white people are their oppressors, and a [white] jew complaining about white people is not equivalent to a white person complaining about white people to collect their liberal ally brownie points and to distance themselves from active racists. it’s not the same. all jews are allowed to vent about their oppressors, regardless of skin color. 

if you know a jew who isn’t actively offended by something antisemitic, every jew who does take offense isn’t being oversensitive. take heed of their voices, not the one “good jew” inadvertently validating you. 

saying “jew” instead of “jewish person” isn’t actively offensive, but it does make a lot of us uncomfortable. it’s definitely not as offensive as saying “the blacks” or “the gays” because it describes a religious group and is therefore grammatically correct, but it’s still subliminally dehumanizing, and it would be awfully nice if you were conscious of sparing us the courtesy of those extra three syllables. 

in my experience, my friends of color have been much more sympathetic towards jewish issues and antisemitism than the white people i know. the obvious reason to this being that they are immediately able to empathize with minority struggle and are less likely to subconsciously harbor prejudice and/or consider themselves superior. this does not mean that people of color cannot perpetuate antisemitism, and any poc reading this should make an effort to be just as conscious. you’re not given a pass for being not-white, as jews aren’t exclusively victims of white supremacy, and any goy has the potential to be actively antisemitic. 

also, goy is simply the hebrew word for non-jew. it’s not inherently derogatory, and even when it is used derogatorily, don’t take offense. 

finally, don’t assume that all jews will agree with me on any of these points. i am writing all of this from personal experience, and these are my opinions. not everything is black and white, and many of these issues have no right answer. (after all, a nuanced debate is at the very core of jewish belief.) if you see a conflicting opinion, i’ve probably also taken said opinion into account, and that doesn’t mean that you should be allowed to disregard this entire post. 

while this post turned out to be way longer than i originally intended, if any jews feel like adding to this post, don’t be discouraged to do so. but please avoid any discussion of israel on this post. i don’t wanna see it. also, sorry if i sound condescending and/or angry at times, im just Tired (in every way imaginable). goyim are encouraged to reblog. .‏תודה רבה

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