Hi Elisa,

Thanks for your thoughts here. You have every right to claim whatever identity feels resonant to you, but I firmly believe that any ethnic Jewish person is not actually "white" (though they can obviously be white-passing and therefore still benefit from white privilege). This is obviously not a nuanced conversation that has taken place in our society, as evidenced by the continued widespread/official use of the demographic category "Caucasian" to refer to a plethora of SWANA (or "Middle Eastern") peoples who are objectively not white-- as well as those who may be from places like Afghanistan or Jordan but have overwhelmingly white-passing features.

If the label of whiteness feels resonant to you because you feel you've lived your life overwhelmingly with the identity and privileges of a white person, then that is your call to label yourself how you see fit. But what I'm hearing in your words (aside from general frustration that I think others have nodded to in these comments) is a sense of displacement even within the confines of the allegedly safe identity of cis white womanhood that you have felt attached to. I wonder if your own mentioning of your Jewish identity is not necessarily merely an ode to your spiritual/religious beliefs (though it certainly could be), but the complex space where Judaism is for most Jewish people actually an ethno-religious identity. Not so many other cases of that in the remainder of society, and certainly a confusing place for others who know nothing about Jewish people to operate from.

Personally, even as a non-binary Jewish person (who is Ashkenazi but not white-passing in the ways most people assume Jewish people fundamentally are), I get frustrated by the ways that people whitewash my identity and culture and make sweeping exclusionary assumptions about my ability to participate in social justice discourse because I have the audacity to acknowledge the complexity of Israel (and the fact that it is the native origin place for ethnic Jews, in addition to being a culturally critical space for us-- not to say it isn't both of those things for Palestinians as well).

I can see from the timing you've referenced in this article and from looking you up that you spent formative years of your life and career in work environments that were not as hospitable to any women (even white or white-passing ones) as they are today (not that it's any walk in the park for femme people today either. But I think we can all agree that some form of progress has been made since "Mad Men" era of women entering the workplace).

I can understand the feeling that you are being attacked or underappreciated or at least that you don't belong. And it's also possible that sometimes certain things you say or think can reflect white fragility and be reactions to privilege. Both of those things can be true at the same time, and the reality is that all of us sometimes feel and express bigotry, all of us make mistakes, all of us are human beings.

Regardless, not because it should give any white-passing Jews carte blanche to avoid coming to terms with privilege and colorism (which is something everyone including all marginalized folks have a responsibility to do in order to dismantle harmful power dynamics and create a more compassionate society), but ethnic Jews should in my opinion be included under the POC umbrella. And in a "Jews will not replace us" society, we should not be mixed in with white people, especially in light of our recent historical relationship with whiteness in Western culture. Just my thoughts, but always very happy to discuss!

I'm not sure if anything that I've said here resonates, but I appreciate your thoughts.