I mean, it may be ethnocentric, but it's my experience. I'm not interested in renouncing my Jewish identity (and the separation of the racial component and the religious component are important because there are indeed an unfortunate number of reform converts who are anti-Zionists, who could easily peel off their Jewish identity in the event that there was a rounding up and slaughter of Jews like there was only 80 years ago) for an ideological post-racial cause.

Personally, I'm of the belief that there are many things that separate us, AND we are all inextricably connected. I have different experiences and different subjective (and objective) identifiers than some other people, and it may feel quite difficult, but I can do my best to make peace with not understanding.

In that sense, while I agree generally speaking on the nature of identity politics as batshit crazy in this climate, it is still important to me that A) ethnic Jews not be considered indivisible from the European people who recently tried to wipe us off the face of the earth, and B) that we not be considered indivisible from the people who tried to wipe Native Americans off the Earth and instrumented the slave trade in America.

Jewish people are scapegoated constantly in far left and far right spheres across the furthest reaches of the globe, so I feel very compelled to combat this narrative.

At the end of the day, to your point, even if we were white, it's ludicrous and disgusting to assert that that would be fodder for genociding us.

But it's also simply incorrect when the discussion in too many liberal circles veers into the "white v POC" dimension pertaining to Israel and Palestine, and I think that's important to address.

It's a good article you wrote, and truly a testament to what is so maddening about this time. A Black woman who said violently antisemitic things on social media sent me a message when I said that she should be fired, just with a link to my own article summarizing Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" with commentary on why Black lives matter.

It was particularly telling to me, because this person, thinking they caught me in a gotcha moment, conflated the idea that mass incarceration shouldn't target Black people with the idea that every individual person from a marginalized background is intrinsically good and NEVER personally responsible for causing any kind of harm. It's a genuinely mind-boggling conclusion to jump to.

But alas, these are the times we are in. Thanks for commenting and sharing