JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST 

Cal Poly Students Target Zionist Groups

A group of students at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo issued a list of demands on April 13 in response to a racial incident;

So! Allow me tell you why I’m seething over this in two parts! 

Part I

First of all, let’s get specific about what this means: They explicitly want to exclude Hillel. To vaguely phrase it as “all Zionist-related groups” is just a dogwhistle for Hillel. And look, there are legitimate reasons to be opposed to Hillel as a national organisation, especially when it comes to their stance on Israel. I personally do not believe Hillel should have any stance on Israel at all, because it’s meant to be a home for all Jewish students, and that includes Jews of varying political and religious opinions. I would love to see Hillel abandon its present stance, and I know there are Jewish students all over the place working on making that more of reality as I sit here typing this. 

But here’s the thing: Regardless of Hillel’s bad policy on this issue, it’s still overwhelmingly the centre for Jewish life at nearly every college and university in the United States. It just is. So the message quickly becomes an ultimatum—from gentiles—that any Jew who wants to be considered progressive must completely divest themselves from the existing Jewish community and only engage with other approved Jewish individuals in order to be considered ideologically pure. It doesn’t matter if Hillel is your only option for getting Kosher food, attending services, being with other Jewish people, etc. It’s #bad and if you engage with it, then so are you. 

Now, would be bad enough just on the principal that gentiles shouldn’t dictate how Jews access Jewish life and Judaism, but in light of all the drama with the Women’s March Organisers, this whole thing becomes even more offensive and absurd. Because when Tamika Mallory (along with Linda Sarsour and Carmen Perez) refused to denounce Louis Farrakhan’s comments about Jews and LGBTQ+ people, the following was said: “I don’t agree with everything that Minister Farrakhan said about Jews or women or gay people…[but I hope that Jewish and LGBTQ+ people] will also take the time to understand why I have partnered with the Nation of Islam and been in that space for almost 30 years.” Basically: “He has some bad ideas, but I think his group does enough good for my communities at large that I am willing to overlook it.” So then why aren’t Jewish groups afforded the same nuance? Why is it only Jews who are being held to a standard of unattainable perfection, while everyone else gets to be messy and flawed? 

They’re so quick to say “It’s not anti-Semitism because opposing Israel isn’t the same as being anti-Semitic!” and like…it’s not always the same as being anti-Semitic, but you have to fucking do it right, and my goyim, you ARE NOT. Gentiles holding Jews to different standards from everyone else, asking Jews to prove themselves from cutting ties with campus Jewish life, and generally just trying to define anti-Semitism as non-Jews? Like, it doesn’t even matter what your Israel stance actually is; your praxis is already inherently anti-Semitic all on its fucking own. 

Part II

The article notes that the statement calling for Hillel to be excluded said the following: 

“Black folks and other People of Color have a long-standing history of standing in solidarity with Palestinian folks,” the statement reads. “The quotidian experiences of Palestinians include a long history of dealing with violence, colonization (particularly through land dispossession), and oppression. We cannot in good conscience advocate for our own liberation without being mindful of the current and historical liberation struggles of others locally, nationally, and globally.”

Later on, the statement added that The Drylongso Collective was focused on “anti-Black and anti-Brown racism at Cal Poly.”

“To attempt to decenter Blackness from our discussion by focusing on an accusation of anti-Semitism based on a false equivalency of Zionism and Judaism is deeply disturbing and speaks of not only the lack for anti-Semitic acts committed by non-Black/Brown students but also of the coalition work that remains to be done,” the statement reads.

Okay, so let me stop y’all right fucking there with this reminder: 

JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST 

Like, not only does this statement completely overlook the fact that over half of all Israelis are either Black or Brown, which demonstrates a total lack of understanding about who Israelis are, thus utterly disqualifying these students from really having any opinion on the state as an entity all, but FUCKING HELL, does it really go out of its way to way absolutely erase Black and Brown Jews existing in their own corner of the diaspora. They mention the ‘struggles of others locally, nationally, and globally’ in the same breath that they imply that Black and Brown people are a wholly separate entity from Jews, and then go on to preemptively accuse Jewish people of derailing the conversation to be about themselves, shifting the focus away from Black and Brown people, when again JEWS OF COLOUR EXIST. 

How much chutzpah does one have to possess to be able to simultaneously erase all Black and Brown Jews whilst also demanding that they stop engaging with Judaism unless it’s entirely on your uninformed gentile terms?

I am so sick of discourse that paints Judaism as whiteness, not only because it misses the point of how anti-Semitism has operated as a racial hatred for centuries, but also because it always ends of with Jews of Colour being attacked and harassed by people who claim to fight for, well, People of Colour. Just like how the CDM organisers revelled in the “white tears” of the Iranian Jew they ejected from their march, and the trans Indian Jewish reporter they got fired from her job, these organisers would have you believe that Jewishness, in and of itself (and unless otherwise proven on an individual basis through a series of loyalty tests), is whiteness, perhaps even whiteness in its very worst form. And I don’t know how much of that outlook is due to ignorance and how much of it is due to blatant hatred, but it’s anti-Semitic no matter which way you spin it, and I’m so fucking tired of watching people who think they’re progressive swallowing conspiracy theories from the pages of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as if it wasn’t already trite Jew-hating bullshit when it was first published in 1903.