Significant number of Jews hide their identity-Antisemitism

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A recent survey uncovered that many American Jews don't feel safe to identify as one.

The recent survey by the American Jewish Committee found that Jewish people are changing their behavior such as not wearing their garments that identify them as being Jewish.

According to the American Jewish Committee survey, 22% of Jews have avoided publicly wearing, carrying or displaying things that would help people identify them as a Jew, 17% avoided certain places, events or situations out of concern for their safety or comfort as a Jew, and 25% avoided posting content online that would identify them as Jewish or sympathetic to Jewish issues.

“We cannot simply cower in fear and remain in our homes, or if we're a yarmulke-wearing person take it off and wear a baseball cap because that essentially is a victory for the antisemites," said Rabbi Yakov Saacks, of the Chai Center in Mineola.

"We have to clearly not allow antisemitism to define us. The problem is with the hater not with those who are being hated," said Rabbi Anchelle Perl, of the Chabad of Mineola.

In the past few months News 12 Long Island has reported numerous swastikas found in different towns and Jews being targeted for simply being Jewish. Perl said there is a lack of education that needs to be addressed.

My grandmother used to hide that she’s Jewish. She was ashamed of her Judaism.

My brother denies that he’s Jewish, even though his mother is Jewish.

If I was Jewish-American, I'd be scared, too. Neo-Nazism is getting more popular in the US, and last time Nazism got popular, it didn't go well for the Jews.

The Jewish Institute for Liberal Values (JILV) released a white paper on how Critical Social Justice (CSJ) ideology fuels antisemitism on the left. CSJ, which encompasses Critical Race Theory and other theoretical perspectives (and is sometimes colloquially referred to as “wokeness” or “wokism”) is a specific approach to addressing issues of discrimination due to race, sex, or other specific characteristics through the examination of power and privilege.

The paper argues that because of the binary nature of the ideology, which holds that those who are presumed to be powerful are the cause of suffering of those who are presumed to be powerless, CSJ ideology often fuels antisemitism. Even though many of those who advance the ideology do not intend to promulgate antisemitic ideas, the rapid proliferation of this ideology portends an increase in the world’s oldest hatred.

First, CSJ fuels the canard of Jewish privilege. Antisemites have always promoted the canard that Jews secretly control the levers of power. CSJ invites such antisemitic imagery by positing a fixed hierarchy of privilege, which legitimizes notions of “Jewish privilege.”

Second, CSJ promotes the erasure of Jewish identity. Daphna Kaufman of Reut popularized the term erasive antisemitism for the designation of Ashkenazi Jews from Europe as “white.” This racialization of Jewish identity erases Jewish identity in favor of the CSJ binary of oppressed “person of color” versus “white” oppressor. In this ideological framework, Jews are not afforded the status of a distinct people worthy of self-determination. The erasure of Jewish identity also denies antisemitism its unique quality and historicity by falsely equating it with other forms of bigotry.

Third, CSJ, in the concept of intersectionality, can multiple antisemitic ideas. Intersectionality is the theory that various forms of discrimination interact in ways that create specific and compound problems, constituting an intersecting system of oppression. In other words, groups with “critical consciousness” have a strong incentive to agree with each other on whom to designate oppressor and oppressed in every system. This ideological framework serves to multiply a false view of “Jewish power” in the US and popularizes a perverse, binary perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Fifth, CSJ may marginalize Jews in politics. While not explicitly antisemitic, CSJ has rendered and may further render many Jews politically homeless. Large majorities of Jews have historically voted for Democrats, yet the growing number of party officials, platforms, and policies supporting critical race ideologies stands to alienate a significant segment of American Jewry, especially as the connections between the ideology and antisemitism become more apparent.

Sixth, CSJ’s revamped concept of “equity” marginalizes Jews. CSJ ideology insists that the only reason there is disparity among racial and ethnic groups is white supremacy. If white supremacy is responsible for some people being held down, then it is also responsible for others being propped up. In this framework, Jews and other economically successful minorities are deemed complicit in or adjacent to white supremacy.

Seventh, CSJ undermines enlightenment principles. Jews have long thrived in societies undergirded by Enlightenment principles of rationalism, reason, logic and debate. CSJ is inherently anti-Enlightenment. It serves to delegitimize these principles as manifestations of “white supremacy,” stifle debate, and curtail academic freedom.

Like me, my brother has no religion.

I’m a “secular” Jew.

It depends on how the individual Jew sees it. And what “type” of Jew one is.

Hasidic Jews, for one, are basically one culture and mostly one ethnicity.

People who are Orthodox Jews are much more “culturally Jewish” than Reformed Jews.

The whole of Judaism encompasses many cultures and many ethnicities. We have Ethiopian Jews, and we have Ashkenazi (of Eastern and Central European descent, primarily) Jews.

Generally, Sephardic Jews are more conscious of their culture and origins than most Ashkenazi Jews.

Yiddish is, basically, German written with the Hebrew alphabet.