Jews in the US: The Rising Costs of Whiteness

Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie. "Jews in the US: The Rising Costs of Whiteness." Womens Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. 5. (2010 ): 119. Print.

Melanie Kantrowitz is a professor of literature, Women’s Studies, and Jewish studies. She is the founder of Jews for Economic and Racial Justice and the former director of Queens College/CUNY worker education extension center. (Kaye/Kantrowitz 119)
Kantrowitz’s article Jews in the US: The Rising Cost of Whiteness hits hard at many of our traditionally constructed views of Jewish people and who they are. Kantrowitz begins with her recollection of an essay she read by James Baldwin in 1990, in the essay Baldwin asserts that Americans Jews have opted to adopt a white identity. Kantrowitz cites this essay is the basis for the beginning of questioning Jews as a race. Kantrowitz explains that many Jewish Americans have experienced privilege because of their ability to pass, or “whiteness”. She writes, “On the other hand, the last time the cops stopped me. In the car with me were two other white Jews. My heart flew into my throat as always, but they took one look at us and waved us on. I remembered all of the stories from my friends of color who did not receive a friendly apology and wave.” At the same time however, she illuminates instances of discrimination Jewish Americans have endured, like swastikas painted on people’s homes and cross burnings.
This leads her to the question of what being Jewish means. Race or Religion? Kantrowitz says, “Of course Jewish is not a race, for Jews come in all races.” (Kaye/Kantrowitz 120) She explains that Jewish people have been racialized throughout time because of persecution and exile. In American culture with think of Jewish people as white because much of the Jewish people we know in the US moved here from Eastern Europe. When Kantrowitz says that Jews have been racialized she means that as a larger group, Jews have been exiled, hated an discriminated against and thereby developed a distinct culture socio-historically
Kantrowitz goes on to say that there is danger in Jewish people in the US trying to assimilate and pass as “white”. The danger creeps up when Jewish people begin to feel like they are no longer marginalized and therefore don’t feel the need to build bridges with other minority groups, gays, blacks, women, Latinos. Kantrowitz extrapolates that these coalitions of minorities are pivotal to preventing atrocities mass exile and murder of minority groups.
In the end, Kantrowitz seems to come to the realization that the more conscious she became of her Jewish identity the more she felt she was in solidarity with others like herself. This is pivotal she says, because if we don’t all stand together who will stand with us? She points to a powerful testament of solidarity by a Rabbi defending Oregon gays. “The Holocaust began with laws exactly like ballot measure 9. Those laws first declared groups of people to be subhuman, then legalized and finally mandated discrimination against them. Comparisons to the Holocaust must be limited. But clearly, this is the start of hatred and persecution that must stop now. “(Kaye/Kantrowitz 129)