THE FORWARD -- Marc Dollinger is the professor of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University. He wrote this opinion piece for The Forward.
“To many Jews, the idea that we might benefit from white supremacy threatens our collective historical memory,” Dollinger wrote. “As a culture, particularly among white Ashkenazi Jews, we’ve internalized a narrative of our own exceptionalism, refusing to acknowledge that the whiteness conferred upon us has given us opportunities others lack. Instead, we’ve credited our rapid social mobility to a Jewish cultural affinity for education and hard work.
“This narrative erases Jews of color, conveniently ignoring that the rapid social rise of Jews in American society has been restricted to white Jews. As Ilana Kaufman, founder and executive director of the Jews of Color Initiative, teaches, historians must consider racial status as a central feature in their understanding of the past. To what extent did the privileged racial status of most American Jews inform their historical experience, even as antisemitism sometimes played a limiting role?”