Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: Are Jews white?
Position‹2 of 3›: Yes, Jews are white
Argument‹2 of 3›: Jews are perceived as white

Whiteness is not performative, it is defined objectively by how one is perceived. Jews are privileged in society by virtue of their skin colour. One need look no further than the great levels of wealth and education enjoyed by Jews, relative to others, as proof of white privilege in action.

The argument

Although Jews of color amass the majority of the world’s Jewish population, Jews are still perceived to be white. Ashkenazi Jews, or light-skinned Jews with European descent, have used their white privilege to define Jewish culture to be perceived as white. These light-skinned Jewish demographics predominantly exist in developed and influential regions such as America, Europe, and Israel. As a result, the stereotypical white “Western” Jew only reinforces the perceived white narrative for the rest of the world’s Jews to emulate. Even from the beginning of U.S. legislation, Jews were legally considered as white. Jews had the right to gain US citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1790, which deemed them among the “free white persons.” As American society progressed and race relations formed, Jews were still considered white. Seemingly white Jews did not face color-based discrimination from slavery, the Jim Crow Era, segregation, or criminal profiling. Even in modern society, the perceived whiteness of Jews gave them a leg up in society compared to people of color. Jewish individuals also live with white privilege, the covert societal benefits of being white. Jewish people have been included in the white demographic since the earliest days of America. They have been continually perceived as white, regardless of their religious practices.

Context

Jewish racial identity has always been a multifaceted issue. The intersectionality of race and religion of the Jewish demographic poses a challenging means of racial designation. Regardless, Jews are perceived as white due to their generational privileges in society.

Premises

[P1]Ashkenazi Jews, who dominate influential regions like America, Europe, and Israel, have shaped the global image of Jewish identity as white. [P2] U.S. law has classified Jews as white since the Naturalization Act of 1790, and Jews were not subjected to color-based discrimination under slavery, Jim Crow, or segregation. [P3] Jews continue to benefit from white privilege in modern society, just as other white groups do. [C] Therefore, Jews are white, at least insofar as they are consistently perceived and treated as white.

Counter-arguments

Jews of color make up the majority of the world’s Jewish population. Jewish people of color cannot be perceived as white; skin color is a prominent distinction. Even in areas with predominantly white Jews, Jewish people of color still cannot be perceived as white. At that point in the matter, the narrative becomes less about the Jewish faith and more about the color of skin.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Perception is the wrong kind of evidence for the question asked. That one large community shaped an outside image of Jewish identity says something about how Jews are seen rather than about what Jews are — and the demographic claim underlying the premise is itself contested. [Rejecting P2] The legal and historical record is more mixed than the premise allows. Jews were classified as white for the purposes of naturalisation, but were also subject to immigration restriction, university and professional quotas, restrictive housing covenants and organised social exclusion — and were defined as a separate race in law by the regime that carried out the Holocaust, which is the background against which this question is usually raised. [Rejecting P3] Whiteness in this debate means a social position rather than a self-description, and it is one that has been withdrawn from Jews within living memory. That some Jews are treated as white in some societies at some times is compatible with the opposing position's claim that the category does not fit, and it says nothing about Mizrahi, Sephardi, Ethiopian and other Jewish communities.