Jews Get to Define Anti-Semitism
A central tenet of anti-oppression work is that marginalized communities are the authors of their own experiences. Those who experience a specific oppression get to define it, and how it shows up in their daily life in big and small ways. I cannot possibly grasp all of the ways racism shows up throughout the life of a person of color. As much as I may try, my white privilege will inevitably blind me to how simple daily acts like driving my car, walking my baby in the park, or waiting in a Starbucks can quickly become dangerous. Conversely, my husband as well as male friends and colleagues may struggle to understand how gender shows up in my daily life, so they should listen to me when I describe what my experiences are and how they affect me.
Anti-Semitism, like most forms of systemic oppression, is difficult to see if you don’t experience it directly. If you have never been asked to leave an anti-war protest because you were wearing a Magen David necklace, you may not understand how we are pushed out of movements. If your house of worship does not require 24-hour private security, armed guards, and bag searches to enter, you may not understand how we move through the world. If your family doesn’t include people who were ghettoized, beaten, starved, and gassed to death in concentration camps, you probably don’t experience a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville—or “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators burning the Israeli flag and chanting for the deaths of Jews in Israel—the same way that we do. If a passerby has never screamed at a crowd of worshippers, or drawn swastikas or rats on your spiritual home, or accosted you in your workplace and started screaming about purported Israeli atrocities or “Likudnik” conspiracies, you will not understand our fear of being Jewish in public. If you’ve never spent an afternoon on the phone with an anti-extremism expert discussing whether or not being featured on a neo-Nazi website is cause for alarm, you don’t understand what Jewish writers regularly encounter during their workdays. If you have never been told to tolerate being called satanic or evil, or compared to an insect for the sake of coalition building or political unity, you may struggle to understand why many of us are so angry at the progressive movement. I have experienced all of the above.