One of my biggest pet peeves (of which I have many lol) about how Jewish people are portrayed in the media is how silly the representation of Judaism is in most things.
Like, I very rarely see a portrayal of Jews where the focus isn’t on four tropes:
1) A couple where the man is meek and emasculated, controlled by the wife, and basically the human equivalent of a wet mouse and the woman is large, domineering, stubborn, loud, and annoying
2) Someone who says they’re Jewish once and MAYBE has a menorah in their window during the Christmas episode but still fully participates in all Christian traditions, eats pork, possibly shits on their Jewish parents or grandparents (which usually fall into the first category), and whose entire identity is forgotten the minute it’s not juxtaposed to Christianity or a one-off joke/reference
3) Gosh, aren’t those orthodox people INSANE?
4) These Jews Are Dead, But Don’t Worry, The Christian White People Will Avenge Them
It doesn’t matter the genre, it’s all these four tropes. And has anyone else noticed that we usually only appear in comedy or tragedy? When was the last time we got a Jew in an action film??
Never mind that there’s never any diversity when we ARE in something. I can count on one hand the amount of goyim I know that were aware that Jews of color exist before I told them. Or any diversity beyond the archetype that every single work regardless of genre uses-white passing, straight, cis, extremely reform or orthodox (but they never use those words), eastern european ashkenazi (again, you never hear those words), men and sometimes women of a certain personality type.
There are Jews on every continent and from every background you could possibly imagine. There might not be that many of us, but we’re a diverse bunch despite it! I know many people have never even met a Jew, but with the internet now there’s really little excuse for blatantly antisemitic and offensive portrayals like this. If I see another Mort Goldman type I might actually go insane. Almost every piece of adult media is responsible for a Mort Goldman. Enough is enough, it was never funny.
Do some research PLEASE. Portraying a minority as reductively as we are portrayed has real-world consequences. Some of the stuff I’ve seen in recent years isn’t far removed from Charles Dickens for fuck’s sake.
Reform Jews are still Jewish. Non-observant Jews are still Jewish. Atheist Jews are still Jewish and some are even observant. Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews exist. Orthodox people are not insane and actually happen to be fairly diverse! Many Jews don’t even fall under these categories and have their own observances. Judaism is so individual.
Furthermore, Jews of color exist. Jews of every creed and background exist. Jews of every orientation and gender exist. I literally promise you.
We don’t only exist to be killed or made fun of. There are so many people you can talk to about this. I want people to see the post so I won’t link anything but myjewishlearning and chabad.org are great places to start even if chabad.org looks like a gossip website from 2005 because it’s run by like six old men! Both are even free! The stereotypes are false!
