Unfriendly reminders about âprogressiveâ antisemitism:
- âJudeo-xtianâ is a false term made up by xtians to diminish their culpability in trying to erase Jewish culture, legitimise their supersessionist (fundamentally and inescapably antisemitic) beliefs that xtianity âcompletesâ Judaism, and is also sometimes used to exclude Muslims from xtian-dominated Western society. Do not use it to describe Judaism. Do not use it to describe xtianity. Do not use it to describe religion. Do not use it to describe western culture. Do not use it to form your beliefs about structures of power. Just do not use it. It is a lie.
- Jews are a tiny, persecuted minority, and Judaism is an indigenous ethnoreligion. Efforts to deny this are ahistorical at best and genocidal at worst.
- Jews are not the ones responsible for the xtianity that oppressed you or others, and they are not responsible for the xtian fundamentalism you are angry about. This comes from the incorrect and antisemitic belief promoted by those same xtians that Judaism is 90% the same as xtianity. It is not. Not even of the texts we âshare.â Our interpretations are very different. When you yell about âOld Testament lawâ being the source of your oppression, you better always fucking follow that up with âaccording to fundamentalist xtianity,â because blaming Jews for things like homophobia and anti-abortion movements shows that you have zero understanding of Judaism.
- If you are not Jewish, Judaism is not yours to âreclaimâ or say your people invented. Doing so is violent appropriation. This is true even if you are not white and/or xtian. It is not the radical stance against xtian dominance that you think it is. You do not have the right to trample on a minority ethnic group anymore than they do to trample on you. They have the right to call you out on it. Respect this. The âreal Jewsâ are Jews. Period. When you say otherwise, you are contributing to the worst antisemitic tropes about how Jews are not legitimate and that Judaism is defined by theft and deceit. You do not have the right to perpetuate this, regardless of what white xtianity has inflicted on you. Take that up with white xtianity.
- Antisemitism is not religious bigotry. Antisemites do not hate Jews for their religious practices. Antisemites hate Jews for their existence as a culture and a people, regardless of whether an individual Jew is religious. Judaism is an ethnoreligion and it does not work like xtianity or Islam with regards to cultural identity. Antisemitism is racialised. If you think âthe Holocaust was a crime against white peopleâ is an edgy take, it shows that youâre a moron who doesnât know the first thing about the Holocaust and therefore should probably not open your mouth. Antisemitism is racism, and antiracism that tolerates antisemitism is not antiracism. Do fucking better.
- Conspiracy theories about âthe new world order,â shadowy global elites, reptilians, worldwide Zionist string-pulling etc are antisemitic. You cannot be antiracist and promote these things. You cannot be progressive, radical, or leftist and promote these things. If you think youâre a leftist and you promote these, you are a hypocrite and youâre kidding yourself.
- Jews are not white. White is a social category, not based on complexion. Some Jews are conditionally white. Many Jews are not conditionally white or white-passing in any way. Many Jews consider themselves to be in multiple ethnic or racial categories. None of these things change the fact that Jews are an ethnoreligious group. Jewish identity is a complicated topic because white people donât consider us one of them and PoC donât consider us one of them and we are constantly left in the middle space. If you are not Jewish, you should not be butting into these discussions. And even in intra-Jewish conversations, there is still an obligation for people in one subcategory to respect the way other Jewish subcategories may define themselves. Ashkenazim donât have the right to talk over Sephardim about Sephardic identity and so on. It is not a matter of one group having more power than another, because that is very context-dependent. Thatâs just a matter of respect and applies to all subcategories with regards to every other subcategory.
- Dictating Jewish identity to Jews or talking over us about antisemitism is an act of oppression and unacceptable, period. This is the case even if you are part of a marginalised group yourself. Marginalisation in one area does not give you a free pass for bigotry and violence in an area where you are not. It is not less harmful coming from a marginalised person than from a non-marginalised person, because you are still contributing to the spread of these hateful beliefs. Every person in the world, regardless of what their identities are, has an obligation to clean up their own houses when it comes to being complicit in bigotry against a marginalised group.
- Jews are not your enemy. Marginalised groups need to work together. Do not fall easy prey to the manipulative propaganda of abled cishet white xtians who are more than happy to see us blame each other for our problems than the real culprits. If you have found yourself repeating stuff like the judeo-xtian lie, do not get defensive or loudly bewail it. Just listen to Jews and do better in the future. Itâs that simple. But a lot of you would rather side with the privileges you have than with the marginalisation we share. Remember that privilege is not a ladder. Any non-Jew has the privilege of not being subject to antisemitism, even if they are also a religious or ethnic minority (this works for all kinds of specific oppression in all directions; a Muslim in the US has the privilege of not facing antisemitism at the same time as a Jew has the privilege of not facing islamophobia and at the same time as both face the oppression of being a religious minority. Whenever you are on the majority side of a specific oppression, you are potentially able to reinforce that oppression, because these oppressions do not take identical forms and are not held up by the same tropes. Do not think you are immune). So when you talk over Jews, what youâre doing is siding with your privilege of not facing antisemitism. Telling non-Jews to deal with their antisemitism is not to make them feel bad, but itâs also not our responsibility to comfort you and assure you that itâs ok to be antisemitic. Put on your big girl pants and deal with it. We need to be allies. The white xtian establishment has told you we are your enemies because they know we are an easy target you already hate. Donât prove them right.
- Grabbing for excuses as to why you donât have to care about antisemitism IS antisemitism. If your support for the rights and safety of a minority indigenous ethnoreligion is contingent on them appropriately grovelling and proving themselves, or on there being no Jew who does anything you donât like, or on the basis of your half-baked opinions on some distant geopolitical conflict you only know through propaganda, the blunt truth is that you donât care about minority rights at all. Human rights are not conditional, and if you use excuses to keep Jews out of your definition of social justice, youâre a fraud and a hypocrite. Leftist movements and spaces have waaaay too much of this happening and it is disgusting. I shouldnât have to add that I also include Jews and every other group in this expectation, but leftist whataboutism is so strong that I know if I donât, none of you will understand that itâs because I shouldnât have to and will choose to latch onto it by deflecting from your own crimes into accusations about Jews. I canât even say âitâs sad that Jewish civilians died in a hate crimeâ without you disingenuous dumbasses screaming OH SO YOU UNCONDITIONALLY SUPPORT ALL THE ACTIONS OF THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT unless I add a disclaimer that says I donât.
- Latching onto the one minority Jewish voice as a way to legitimise a position the majority of Jews are telling you is antisemitic is, you guessed it, antisemitic. This is not functionally different for antisemitism than it is for any other group. How would you like it if someone who was not a part of your group kept running their mouths with excuses and crap and said that they were allowed to do so no matter how many people told them to knock it off, just because they found some fringe member of your group who agreed with them? If youâre part of a marginalised group, you probably already know very well how frustrating and offensive it is when outsiders do this to you. It is no different when you do it to us. Watch yourself to make sure you are not centring a token who agrees with you at the expense of everyone else telling you to stop being so fucking racist. Everyone can benefit from this.
I encourage non-Jews to share this, but do not talk over us.
Also, most of this is directed most heavily at people who consider themselves to be left-wing, because theyâre the only ones I have even a slim hope for. That should not be taken as saying that antisemitism ONLY comes from the left. If you are a leftist whose kneejerk response is âbut weâre not as bad as the nazis!â youâve missed the point by a mile, and you need to read the second-to-last point again until you understand the meaning of personal responsibility for your hand in perpetuating bigotry. If you think this about attacking/blaming a single group, or if you donât think it includes your group, youâre wrong. It is not âsomeone elseâsâ problem. It is your problem. If you are right-wing and smugly consider this justification of your claims that antisemitism is a left-wing problem only, consider taking a walk out of an aeroplane without a parachute instead.
