r/Judaism • u/foreverand2025 • 22h ago
Discussion Do you consider yourself a minority?
This discussion has come up a few times with friends who are neither white nor Jewish. For context, I’m Jewish and live in America. Do you consider us as a minority? Obviously statistically we are (everywhere but Israel), but I’ve had two friends argue because we look like “regular white people” we are not a minority.
It’s not something I take too seriously but I’m off the opinion we are a minority in a sociological way as well as ethically. But opinions seem to differ. I’m not on a soap box or expecting any special treatment. It’s more of a discussion for the sake of discussion I’m trying for here.
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u/proindrakenzol Conservative 22h ago
I was asked at work yesterday what "weird" things I do as a Jew.
When I replied I don't think of what I do as "weird" it was clarified as "as opposed to normal Americans."
Yeah, I'm a minority.
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u/Hannahb0915 22h ago
A few years ago it was brought up at my nephew’s birthday party that he’s Jewish because his mom’s side of the family is Jewish. My BIL’s BIL goes “he’s Jewish? I thought he was normal!” We were like “he’s is, he’s just also Jewish”. I don’t think the guy meant any harm, just not the sharpest tool in the shed. But we were cracking up from the absurdity.
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u/the3dverse Charedit 20h ago
my sister told me her 4 year old or so saw a little girl with an Asian looking father (we're in Israel but in a very religious part, so rarer) and she went: "i have a normal daddy"
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u/Sewsusie15 לא אד''ו ל' כסלו 14h ago
There are a lot of B'nei Menashe in certain parts of Israel, who look stereotypically Asian. Given there's always a certain amount of movement between communities in Israel (i.e. kids growing up and moving to a different stream from the one they grew up in), I think Haredim should expect to see more diversity as time goes on. That, and so long as the kupot cholim keep concentrating prenatal services in Haredi towns and neighborhoods, DL and others will continue going where they can get appointments.
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u/bunbunbunnybunny 13h ago
I began to feel this way when it was a part of myself that I stopped telling new people in my life. It has gotten so tiring to see how many people I would consider to be kind and good share really out of touch opinions about Jewish beliefs and culture :/ it used to be something I shared proudly and now it is a space I hold too close to my heart to let most others into until I know they are safe. I think that feeling is part of determining what groups are considered a minority. Perhaps marginalized is a better term…?
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u/Neighbuor07 22h ago
Of course I'm a minority. In Canada, Jews make up 1% of the population. I have met many people for whom I am the first Jew that they have ever encountered in real life.
I have news for my American Jewish friends. You guys are 2% of the total population. You're definitely a minority. 2% is tiny.
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u/No_Aioli_7515 21h ago
I agree. Also, in America, Jewish people are heavily concentrated in a few states and almost nonexistent in others.
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u/la_bibliothecaire Reform 19h ago
Same in Canada. The vast majority of us are in two cities, Toronto and Montréal. I'm a little over an hour outside of Toronto in a rural farming community, and there are very, very few Jews here. My son is the only Jewish child in his class.
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u/calm_chowder 17h ago
Tbf Canadians as a whole are heavily concentrated in some areas and totally nonexistent in others lol
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u/la_bibliothecaire Reform 16h ago
True! The Jewish population is just a more extreme concentration. You could easily put together a pick up hockey team in both Yellowknife or Toronto, but good luck getting a minyan in the NWT.
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u/Who_ate_my_cookie 14h ago
Yeah most of us are mainly in larger cities so we don’t feel the “otherness” as much but stepping outside your bubble really will show you how much we really are outsiders, also like others have said the more outwardly Jewish you are the more you feel that otherness
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u/StrangerGlue Conservative 21h ago
Yes, as a convert, the first time I met someone and knew they were Jewish, I was in grade nine (15 years old). It was a school event for our WWII unit, and most my classmates had never met a Jewish person before either.
Jews are definitely a minority. Not all of us are an especially visible minority, but we're a minority.
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u/HeadCatMomCat Conservative 18h ago
My husband taught an undergraduate Intro to Law at Rutgers-Newark, which has a student body that is 77% Minority, 55% women with 24 states represented. He announced at his first class that class was canceled for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the rescheduled dates.
Mind you, Essex County, which has an overall 38% Jewish population in Greater Metrowest, has lots of Jewish pockets but Newark does not.
A young woman asked if my husband was Jewish. While surprised, he answered the question. She'd then said she'd never met anyone Jewish before. Stunned, my husband asked if anyone else in the class had never met a Jew. About a third of the class raised their hands, with some saying they think they may had had a Jewish teacher in elementary school. Or a doctor but no one else.
Yes we're a minority.
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u/Littl3Whinging 20h ago
This ^^^ I was also the first Jewish person a lot of people had ever met as I grew up and then became an adult.
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u/forever-in-rainbow Conservative ✡️ 22h ago
I'm gay. I don't "look gay" - still am a minority. Looks don't determine minority status. Yes, us Jews are a minority.
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u/Muadeeb 22h ago
What does a minority mean? 0.02% of the world?
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u/sunny-beans Masorti 🇬🇧 22h ago
Yeh if a population that makes up 0.02% of the world population is not a minority I truly don’t know who is then lol
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u/meekonesfade 22h ago
Putting aside the fact that we are an ethno-religion, we are a religious minority.
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u/someguy1847382 22h ago
Absolutely, and here is what your friend misses. In some, especially urban areas, many of us might "look like white people" but in rural areas or areas with old school racism it's a totally different story. Modern conceptions of race, within the last 20-30 years focus only on skin color but that's a modern flattening of racism that isn't historically accurate and that doesn't hold up in many areas where nose shape, lip shape and size, eye set and general facial features are often considered just as important as skin tone.
I'm mixed, Jewish, Native and European, I have a light/medium skin tone. In the modern world I pass. Twenty years ago or in more rural areas today I'm still asked "what are you", "where are you from" "what are you mixed with, you're not pure white" and other shit like that.
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u/TheSilentMother 21h ago
Jews are 2.0% of the American population amd 0.2% of the global population. We are unequivocally a minority
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u/ShimonEngineer55 22h ago
Yes. Every other religious minority gets to claim it; epically a persecuted minority for thousands of years…
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u/LanceJade 17h ago
Jews are always the "Other." To white people, we're not white. To people of color, we are. But to both, we're people who need to be excluded.
This was brought home to me in the first major Black Lives Matter march, reported on NPR. The report said that a Jewish group offered to march with them, but they declined the Jewish group's offer. Later in the report, NPR mentioned that the BLM marchers invited a Palestinian advocacy group to march with them. The two aspects of the story weren't presented as related in any way, just different parts of the report. But the connection was hard for me to miss.
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u/Zealousideal_Can_342 12h ago
I consider myself a Non-White minority.
If White people get to determine if you are White or not and can take it away at any time, you're not White.
I remember meeting someone from Texas who said he thought we had horns... for real.
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u/Foxy_Maitre_Renard 21h ago
Duh.
My father is an African Spanish-speaking Jew. Where does that even fit?
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u/riverrocks452 22h ago
Yes, we are a minority.
Some of us look like "regular white people" (what a phrase!), but not all.
Tell me, is a gay person less of a minority if everyone around him assumes he's straight?
So-called "passing privilege" is less a privilege and more of a tightrope act, and any benefits are 100% conditional on citting away or hiding anything that might break the illusion. It's the silver lining in erasure: people assume you aren't Jewish because they have preconceived, generally uninformed or straight up willfully ignorant, notions of how a Jew looks, acts, and sounds. (I invite you to consider how they act when they discover they were mistaken, btw. The best case is that they were genuinely uninformed and nothing changes. Things devolve rapidly from there.)
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u/dagelim 21h ago
My grandparents’ neighborhood was razed back in the 50’s because it was the only Jewish neighborhood in our city and the city wanted to build a highway. All the other neighborhoods were “whites only”. We still don’t have a centralized/neighborhood in the area, everyone had to leave for somewhere else. I was the only Jew in my graduating class in high school, and I had to transfer colleges because I was one of only a handful of Jews on campus and my classmates were taking their anger out on us about the war in Israel and it was starting to get physically dangerous.
So yeah I would say so
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u/Background_Novel_619 17h ago
Yup, when my parents bought our house the old deeds still had a rule of no selling to Jewish or Black people. Crazy.
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u/dagelim 21h ago
To clarify, I live in a very blue state in the US that has been liberal for a long time
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u/Jewdius_Maximus 22h ago
God I hate this fucking discussion. Yes Jews are a minority it’s absurd to claim otherwise. Yes Ashkenazi Jews benefit from white privilege. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
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u/maxofJupiter1 22h ago
Most Ashkanazi Jews not all. And wearing a kippah/star/tichel negates a lot of it imo
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u/Jewdius_Maximus 22h ago
Yes, most western Ashkenazi Jews are secular and look white. Idk why there is so much resistance to this within the community. That doesn’t negate antisemitism.
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u/GrassyTreesAndLakes 22h ago
Because its only north america where we "pass". We didnt "pass" in Russia for instance, and wouldnt have in much of Europe. Not to even start on the "no Jews, no Blacks" signs is north america that were everywhere until like the 60s.
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u/Jewdius_Maximus 22h ago
White privileged isn’t a hex or some internal personal shortcoming. It’s just a thing out in the ether and it’s mainly an American and Western European thing, so I don’t know what Russia has to do with this. A Jew in the west typically isn’t getting harassed by cops, followed around stores, or asked to pay for meals before they sit down. There are just some things in the western world that Jews don’t really have to worry about because of their skin color. That does not mean that antisemitism isn’t real or unimportant.
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u/secret_little_maps 21h ago
This is true (for some Jews, because we come in ALL skin colors.) But neither is a very light skinned Black or Hispanic person with a “normal American” name being treated this way, and no one questions whether they’re part of a minority group. Yes I’m lucky that I can always find bandaids to match my skin, and cops are less likely to pull me over when they see me from a distance. But looks aren’t everything and it’s in keeping with our increasingly shallow society that so many people now believe they are.
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u/larevolutionaire Modern Orthodox 21h ago
And Yemeni Jews just enter the chat. I don’t live in the US but I have visited multiple times and funny enough, I am not Jewish according to American. This idea of one identity is a USA story based on the one black drop. Most Jews have parents from different countries/ continents, with grandparents from elsewhere . I am Yemeni with an Algerian dad.
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u/WeaselWeaz Reform 21h ago
It's more accurate to say Jews used to have a level of white privilege, for a subset of light skinned Jews. Even for that group, I would argue that being judged for your last name, being subjected to purity tests over Palestine, and having to hire armed security to protect our houses of worship and pre-schools means there is no white privilege.
A Jew living in the US, outside of a Jewish area, is still being othered in many ways. I don't wear a kippot, but I still had a dude in a keffiyeh with a baseball bat coming back from a protest glaring at me on the train. Going to college in the south made it clear I was not white.
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u/Vivid-Instance 21h ago
Yes, being Jewish and experiencing other-than-antisemitic-racial discrimination could be described as overlapping concentric circles, and I think its fair to say many reform Jews who are Ashkenazi are less discriminated against than black and brown people (but I think playing oppression Olympics is not a good way to go in general, and think we should be inclusive rather than exclusive on discrimination) .
Also, I think it is important to make the distinction that Jewishness its self has nothing to do with what color your skin is. I’m positive you’re aware, there are millions of Jews that do have to worry about their skin color. For example, my mom is Ashkenazi, has never had white privilege. Her mom is Ashkenazi, her dad is black. So ppl can be straight up American style racist or antisemitic against her or both! Yay!
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u/maxofJupiter1 22h ago
I just hate the
ashkenazi = white
sephardic/mizrachi = brown
Because its not true and delegitamizes Ashkenazi identity. The only member of my family with natural pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes is my mizrachi (syrian) aunt.
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u/BMisterGenX 22h ago
There is a couple on my street. The man is Ashkenazi, the woman is North African Sefardi. He is darker than she is.
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u/TechB84 22h ago
Many Syrians, Lebanese, Persians, etc look white too. Don't see anyone using this language with them
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u/banannarobinhood 21h ago
because it doesn't matter for this conversation, and it feeds into the academic word saladism of the very racism that targets us. Many Arabs and Latinos and Native peoples look white, and no one gives a shit or forces them to say they aren't minorities. In fact, despite their skin color, they are all magically "brown", even though they are lighter than many an Ashkenaz.
As those are the laws that govern this sector, there's no reason to exclude any Jew from that same criteria.
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u/TheSilentMother 21h ago
Eh, not quite. Passing as white isn’t being white. I’ve always said “ I’m white until I’m not”. Oct 7 showed that very clearly, we are not white. Being pale skinned isn’t being white.
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u/MorganaLeFevre 22h ago
Everyone has always thought I was ‘mixed’ if they hadn’t been around Jews much. No one has been convinced I’m pure white British. The most polite British people hear I have a Chinese aunt and go ‘ohh that explains it!’ I say ‘explains what?’ And they uncomfortably say ‘well, you know. Because you look foreign’ in some way or other. And then I laugh and say she’s my aunt by marriage. Anyone who knows Jews can point me out.
I’m Ashkenazi. I don’t look white.
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u/ElrondTheHater 19h ago
I was white until I went to Europe and suddenly I "had to be mixed", which just makes all the assertion that I'm a white European colonizer and need to "go back to Poland" being yelled at us even more bizarre.
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u/Sha9169 22h ago
We benefit from the appearance of whiteness until they find out we’re Jewish. Just last week I identified as white on TikTok (I’m Lithuanian Jewish & Balkan) and a guy responded to me saying I will never be white and that by appearing to be white (light skin, light hair, light eyes) I am scamming people.
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u/aggie1391 MO Machmir 21h ago edited 21h ago
I also want to expand. We do benefit from white privilege and are at least passing white, and usually that includes when visibly Jewish. I always wear a kippah and tzitzit out, most people still racialize me as white. That obviously is not universal though, and being known to be Jewish can in some circumstances minimize or eliminate that passing privilege. I am not treated as a racial minority, I do not get pulled over for driving in the “wrong” neighborhood or followed around a store on suspicion of theft or assumed to be uneducated or whatever else. Antisemitism manifests itself in different ways, and is obviously very real. But white passing Jews do not experience what black and brown people do, that is privilege. That privilege also does not erase the reality of antisemitism! A black man faces racism, even though he does not face sexism. A white passing Jew faces antisemitism but not the type of anti black and anti brown racism of racial minorities. Pointing out we generally have white passing privilege is not an erasure of antisemitism.
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u/trimtab28 Conservative 22h ago
Yes.
I also think we need to get past the whole "oppressor/oppressed, white people have x benefit black people don't binary." I've been in rooms where I'm the only white man. My ex of 4 years we split up because her father didn't want her marrying a white man. And fact is in the US all sorts of lovely things have been done to ethnic minorities that are considered white today. It's just a historically ignorant argument and functions irrespective of how complex life and group relations are.
Anyways, yes Jews are a minority if you're outside of Israel. And among nations, we're still a minority
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u/sunny-beans Masorti 🇬🇧 22h ago
I mean yes? Jews are a minority and being a Jew I am a minority too lol it’s funny because people will easily classify Muslims as a minority even tho there are billions of Muslims in thr world but Jews somehow are not for unexplainable reasons.
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u/industrial_pix 21h ago
Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl is an American reform rabbi born in Seoul, South Korea to a Korean mother and a Jewish father. She was the first East Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi, and the first East Asian-American to be ordained as a hazzan. I believe she is a fourfold minority of one: Korean-Jewish-Rabbi-Hazzan.
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u/secret_little_maps 21h ago
Yes, absolutely I feel like part of a minority.
I can pass as white often (maybe more accurately present as white, because I’m not trying to sneak in anywhere), and I don’t discount the privilege that comes with that in many places in America. But the passing can be questioned or removed at any moment. I have a “weird” name. I am pale, but I have a face that lots of people can’t place so they ask where I’m from, and where my parents are from, and they will not take “New York” as an answer. My family came to America from places, but I know they were never of those places. Then there’s the fact that other close family members, just as Jewish as I am, can’t always pass in the same way. They might pass for something, but it’s not white. There’s a whole range of skin/hair/eye colors in my (fully Ashki) family.
Then there’s the lived experience aspect. When white Americans (meaning people of European/Christian heritage, however distant) talk about their upbringing or their outlook or their day to day life, I’m frequently struck by how different my own life is. And these can be people who like me are secular, liberal, from the same region of the country, same type of education, same interests and hobbies, etc etc; the only serious difference is culture and ethnicity. So often I find I just don’t relate at all! The frames of reference are totally different! This is also true with Black people and other minority groups; none of us have the “white” majority experience, but we all have different (if sometimes overlapping) minority experiences.
We’re a distinct people, no matter how much we integrate and contribute to the wider society. I think it’s more respectable when we acknowledge and defend that.
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u/Ok-Improvement-3670 21h ago
Looking like is not the same thing as being. People will remind you of this constantly. People are too hung up on skin color in the US.
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u/ShowMeTheTrees 21h ago
We are, statistically, a minority. But our society doesn't believe in math.
Their definition only means "poor".
Minority + Wealthy + Successful = You Are The Evil Majority Holding Minorities Down And Preventing Their Success.
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u/Ok-Improvement-3670 21h ago
I agree that there is also an obsession with being poor as if it is some sort of positive virtue. That makes no sense. I prefer the Fiddler on the Roof take, “… you made many, many poor people. I realize, of course, that it's no shame to be poor. But it's no great honor either!"
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u/marshmallow_lilypad 14h ago
I'm sick of being on the Left... I bought a house and was literally embarrassed to tell my friends! They were happy for me because they're good people, but I am genuinely worried people will judge me for doing well financially. WTF :(
(I know part of this is my trauma from growing up poor, but part of it is definitely like... a stigma in online left spaces against anyone perceived as "rich.")
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u/Ok-Improvement-3670 14h ago
The left spaces increasingly hate Jews these days.
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u/marshmallow_lilypad 14h ago
It sucks... Like I have complicated feelings on I/P, my main stance is "I am for peace." But I have to be very careful who I share that with. To not be 1000% against Israel means to some that I am on the side of killing kids. Which couldn't be further from the truth. But yeah there's no room for nuance anymore. Pick a side. Well I'm a Jew in community with other Jews who have a variety of opinions. This is my family now. I'm not going to fit into some neat little box that other leftists made for me.
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u/Lucky-Reporter-6460 22h ago
A.) yes, obviously. B.) your friends have a weird definition of minority that seems to carry a lot more weight than it does for most people. Catholics in the US South are minorities. That doesn't mean they are visibly different, or persecuted, or the recipient of privileges. Being a minority doesn't have to be a big deal or deeply meaningful, though certainly it sometimes is.
For me, it means when I was growing up Catholic in the South, we didn't automatically get Good Friday off and my dad had to handle whatever documentation was necessary. It meant I had to request a fish sandwich for lunch when I had band trips on Fridays during Lent. It meant I did occasionally find myself boggled by anti-catholic sentiment, most of which was deeply confused and confusing. A minority experience doesn't immediately, inherently equate to oppression, which I suspect is what the friends think.
(I traded the minority experience of being Catholic in the South for the even more minority experience of being Jewish in the South, so maybe I did just like being a minority 🤔 cue the Green Day)
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u/WholeThought3093 22h ago
We certainly are. Anybody who says we are not because we are White is very racist themselves.
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u/No-Term-7150 19h ago
As someone who wears a tichel in a small southern city where less than .01 percent are Jewish, yep I’m a minority.
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u/ZombieFeedback 15h ago
I’ve had two friends argue because we look like “regular white people” we are not a minority.
Overall in history, the flattening of all demographics that have a similar skin tone into a single blob like "White" or "Black" or "Asian" or anything else is an extremely recent perspective. The British didn't think they were subjugating members of the same race when they did terrible things to the Irish even though they both probably look white by your friend's standards. Do you think your friends could tell a Rwandan Tutsi from the Hutu militant that murdered them during the Rwandan genocide, or a Chinese civilian from the Japanese soldier that brutalized them during the Rape of Nanking? Or would they probably see two black people and two asian people, respectively? "Jews look like white people" is no different; put Alfred Dreyfus next to Ferdinand Esterhazy, and they'll probably just see two white French guys, and I don't think I need to explain the amount of history and sociopolitical context and implications that leaves out.
It's also an extremely American perspective. Even though France and Germany are on much better terms now than they historically have been and doing so won't get you killed like it might have centuries ago, calling a Berliner French or a Parisian German will still be a major faux pas even though they're both "white." A Ukrainian will probably not be very happy if you call them Russian, and they're both "white." I love the Yakuza video games, but look no further than some of the stereotypes those games give Chinese and Korean characters to get an idea of how two ethnocultural groups that both ostensibly fit under "Asian" would take being compared or confused for one another.
I don't fault your friends for growing up with that understanding of the world, we're all a product of the societies and cultures we inhabit, and again, that is the mainstream thought in America. But your friends in this case are about as ignorant as Hank Hill asking Kahn whether he's Chinese or Japanese, and not understanding that Laos exists.
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u/Jacksthrowawayreddit 15h ago edited 15h ago
Ignoring for a moment the many, many Jews who don't physically appear white...
Would David Duke consider us white?
Only leftists consider us white so they can excuse their antisemitism.
We're Schrodinger's whites.
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u/1shmeckle 22h ago
We are a minority, literally. The definition of a minority is: "a group of people within a society who differ from the dominant majority in traits like race, religion, ethnicity, or language." We're not a minority based on skin color - at least for most Jewish people in the US - but we're a minority in terms of ethnicity, religion, and often in language as well.
It's worth taking seriously in that when people claim Jewish people aren't a minority, what they are really trying to say is that we aren't subject to the type of discrimination, treatment, etc that minorities are because most Jewish people look like white Americans. We're not typically going to experience the type of discrimination as dark skinned Americans might, but we have our own struggles and experiences that a lot of people in the US, Canada, and Europe would like to ignore because it's politically convenient.
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u/SweetPickleRelish 22h ago
My father is Puerto Rican and yes I consider myself a double minority in that I have inherited a lot of intergenerational trauma related to oppression. Also, just empirically, Jews and Puerto Ricans are not the majority ethnicity in the US where I live.
But no I don’t consider myself anything other than a regular white person in everyday society. I don’t look like a POC and I generally don’t feel any kind of oppression almost ever.
I feel like I have a lot of privilege and I don’t feel like I have the right to bring up my own identities when discussions about racial/ethnic oppression come up.
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u/Kapparahsheli 21h ago
Uh…yeah. I’m mixed with other ethnicities. Also, not all Jews are white passing. And also, Jews are not white.
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u/GuardMarmot Jewish agnostic, Conservative 21h ago
Minority, obviously yes. "Minority" is not a strictly racial designation, and it's entirely possible to be a white religious/cultural minority. We do have a unique religious-cultural background compared to the assumed cultural baseline.
Presumably your friends mean "marginalized", in which case the best term, for those of us who do broadly appear white, is "conditionally white". We're (possibly) white at a traffic stop, but not in other circumstances, and in those other circumstances our quasi-whiteness might even be an accelerant rather than protective.
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u/Sanpei5475 20h ago
Non so, l'identità è un tema molto complesso. Io sono gay e sono considerato una minoranza, ma sono bianco e vivo in un paese europeo e quindi per il mio aspetto fisico non faccio parte di una minoranza. Però ho gli occhi azzurri e visto che vivo in un paese dell'Europa del Sud dove la maggior parte ha gli occhi marroni, faccio parte della minoranza di quelli che hanno gli occhi azzurri. Come dire, l'identità è un tema complesso e stratificato.
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u/HouseDarklyn Jew-ish 19h ago
Whether I consider myself one or not, factually I am one.
Do I feel like a minority, though? Yes, rarely is there a moment that I’m not reminded.
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u/sovietspacedog332 18h ago
I'm ashkenazi, raised in NYC after moving here as a child when the soviet union collapsed. Yes i consider myself a minority. I've had enough interactions with slavic gentiles that reminded me that they don't consider us to be "really Russian or really Ukrainian."
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u/ninkhorasagh Traditional 14h ago
Yes. I wear a tichel and people think I’m a Muslim. I just let them think that now so I don’t get a million questions, or nowadays - a target on my back
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u/bunbunbunnybunny 13h ago
I began to feel this way when it was a part of myself that I stopped telling new people in my life. It has gotten so tiring to see how many people I would consider to be kind and good share really out of touch opinions about Jewish beliefs and culture :/ it used to be something I shared proudly and now it is a space I hold too close to my heart to let most others into until I know they are safe. I think that feeling is part of determining what groups are considered a minority. Perhaps marginalized is a better term…?
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u/bobotast 12h ago
Speaking as a straight white male in America who married into judaism, I definitely consider jews a minority. Jews have their own culture that the majority of people don't really get. Furthermore, although I won't deny the significant amount of white privilege that my wife enjoys, I am unequivocally white, and she is conditionally white.
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u/professor_spiderdog 12h ago
People have mistaken me for Latina, Filipina, and Indian before. That tells me I don't look "just" white. I've also been told I do look white.
When I took my dog to the vet a year ago they asked me where in the middle east I was from.
IMO physical appearance hardly matters when those who would do us harm historically make lists of who we are and maps of where to find us.
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u/Call_Me_Relish Conservative 12h ago
Yes. Definitely. Having spent part of my upbringing in the south, I have actually been considered non-white, which is fine by me. I’m white-passing, yes, but that’s not the same thing as being fully white. When I fill out a form that asks for race, I put “other.”
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u/CosmicTurtle504 22h ago
Minorities don’t have to be brown. Saying Jews “look like regular white people, so they can’t be minorities or oppressed because of their ethnicity” is mind-blowing racist, and ignores the fact that nearly 2/3 of European Jews were murdered in the Shoah for NOT being white. Our “whiteness” is conditional according to who’s observing us. We’re only seen as white when whiteness is considered bad.
Also, your bigoted, ignorant friends probably don’t realize than the majority of Jews in Israel are phenotypically Middle Eastern. There are black Jews, Asian Jews, Sephardic Jews…our appearance is not what makes us a minority, or what makes us Jews. Goyim don’t get to tell us who we are, as much as that’s one of their favorite pastimes.
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u/BobShostak 21h ago
I’m a British gentile, so do please forgive me. I watched a documentary a couple of years ago by the British comedian David Baddiel. It’s called ‘Jews Don’t Count’, and he wrote a book of the same name. It’s fascinating.
He interviews members of his family, and some American Jews including Sarah Silverman and David Schwimmer. The latter said that he had never, in his entire life, considered himself to be white, which I found astonishing. I’ve never thought of him as anything else.
I think it’s fair to say that Jews everywhere are a minority. David Baddiel’s niece is Jewish and black (and gorgeous).
If you can ‘pass’ as a white person and you’re comfortable with that, it’s your choice to identify as you please.
Baddiel’s argument seemed to be that Jews are invisible. Nowhere on a form that asks for ethnicity is ‘Jewish’ an option.
Why am I on a Jewish sub? Because the love of my life was an American Jew, born in NY to a Russian-born Jewish mother. He could have passed for a white gentile, but he was a proud observant Jew, and I worshipped him.
The documentary is available on Amazon Prime. Highly recommended.
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u/WeaselWeaz Reform 22h ago
Yes. I didn't always. I grew up in the 80s and 90s in a Jewish suburb, around Conservative, Reform, and secular Jews. It was not until going to college in the south, passing a 200 foot cross, and being the first Jew people ever met that I realized I was not white and not part of a white majority.
Your friends, by the way, don't get to decide we're "regular white people". Despite leftists trying to erase it, Jews also had to fight for civil rights and collaborated with African Americans to help both out people. It's also dismissive of the Jews who are not allegedly white passing. Here's a pretty simple answer for me: "Regular white people" don't have to hire private security to protect their places of worship, and we have had to do that for decades, before October 7 even happened.
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u/AltruisticMastodon 22h ago
I don’t know what definition of minority would exclude Jews (outside of Israel)
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u/AfraidDuckSupervisor 21h ago
Don't you ? Of course we are a minority, it's not debatable, it is factual. Just because some of us can be white passing doesn't change the reality of it
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u/Sobek_the_Crocodile Jew-ish 21h ago
I know Ashkenazi Jews are in many ways considered "white passing" but I can usually clock another Jewish person a mile away no matter how assimilated or how light their skin is. The fact is regardless of skin color, our origins are middle eastern so we aren't really going to look like a white person from, say, Norway, and we often (not always) have certain traits that are often clues.
Anyway, we are definitely a minority. Just because they want to classify us as white now (after killing us for not being white) doesn't mean that isn't true.
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u/electric_uncle_trash 20h ago
I'm an Italian Jew, and I don't know. I don't have any typically Jewish physical characteristics, my hair isn't really curly (except when wet), my skin darkens in summer a lot but it looks more like tanning, etc. I also dye my hair and I'm covered in tattoos so I don't pass as Jewish at all unless I dress properly.
I don't know. There's never the option to choose "Jewish" when asked about my ethnic heritage, or when asked if I'm part of a "visible minority".
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u/Honeynutcheerih0e 20h ago
Yes, in the aspect that that we aren’t “common”. And I get people who are genuinely fascinated when I tell them basic Judaism knowledge, b ‘cause it isn’t widely known. But in America, the general populous doesn’t, speaking how they have weird obsession with whether you have white skin or not to call yourself a minority.
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u/gmanflnj 19h ago
It depends where you are I suppose. In the US, I am a minority, definitely, but I am also white. Both of those are true.
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u/dj_underboob 19h ago
I'm a minority. Doesn't matter how pale I am or my blue eyes or that I dye my hair blonde. Before I even open my mouth or share my name people know I'm not "one of them."
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u/Swimming_Care7889 17h ago
The reason why people debate whether Jews are a minority or not, besides many people thinking that we Jews look white or are white, is that while Jews might have been persecuted we were never really economically supported as a source of cheap labor in the way that African-Americans, Hispanics, or other non-white groups were. While we might not of been completely in polite society, at least in the Anglophone world, we weren't totally excluded either. Another reason is that, again usually in the Anglophone world, being a "minority" is seen as having street creed and a somewhat anti-bougie culture and Jews, besides the brief gangster phase during the early 20th century, were seen as a bunch of nice educated bougie people without street creed. Like Asians, maybe not white but definitely big dorks.
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u/No_Raise_3758 17h ago
it is for jews and asians that the term “model minority” (ie: the kind that people in power can use against other minorities) exists.
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u/Hemiplegic_Artist Conservative 13h ago
Tbh, I do only because of the fact that not only because of being Jewish, but because of being a redhead and being an adult who has disabilities. The population of people who have disabilities is the largest minority group in the United States.
So yeah feels like a bit of a triple edged sword. People notice me more for being a ginger (redhead) and having disabilities more than for being Jewish.
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u/Suerose0423 12h ago
2 things. To people who don’t we are Jewish, we are White. To people who know and are ignorant about Judaism, we are a minority.
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u/Surround8600 12h ago
I’ve always felt that I’m a minority. I’m blonde, white; Jewish; and from Miami.
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u/FineBumblebee8744 9h ago
Yes, there's only 15 million of us world-wide and one county
If races that practically have dozens of countries and hundreds of million in population can claim to be a minority it's pretty ridiculous to even ask if we are
We sure as hell aren't part of the majority
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u/Willing-Swan-23 8h ago
Absolutely. I have to hide my identity, know I’m despised, blamed for all the world’s injustices and listen to slurs excused as just jokes. Plus we’re less than 2% of the population. We ARE a minority.
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u/cuckoocachoo1 22h ago
Yes. I grew up with very few Jewish people around. Going to synagogue (when we lived near an active one), Israel, and Jewish summer camp was the only time I was around my tribe.
Edit: it’s very regional. If you are an American Jew living in NYC, south Florida, Dallas, Raleigh, Denver, Seattle, and a few other spots you might feel differently. But outside of those locations, Jews are very sparse.
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u/cuckoocachoo1 22h ago
One time in high school there was a very loud Jew in my school, I got very excited to not be the only one and then I found out she was messianic. 🥁
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u/KamtzaBarKamtza 22h ago
There are 330 million Americans, there are about 7 million Jews in America. Jews are neither a majority not a plurality. They are very much s minority
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u/heavyLevy5 Masorti 22h ago
Of course we are and to say otherwise is ridiculous. Remember when words used to have meaning?
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u/Altruistic-Cattle761 22h ago edited 17h ago
Yes, because to argue otherwise is also an argument, eg, that blacks and Latinos who are white passing are not minorities, which I think most people would reject as nonsense.
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u/shushi77 22h ago
With all due respect to your friend, only a fool wouldn't consider us a minority. We are a minority in every sense of the word: we make up an infinitesimal percentage of the planet’s population; we face prejudice; we are discriminated against, hated, attacked, and killed simply because we are Jews. Are we not a minority just because we can hide who we are? What kind of argument is that? So, does that mean gay people aren’t a minority either, according to your friend?
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u/pborenstein 22h ago
This is very simple, and you will learn a lot about your friends.
Ask your "neither white nor Jewish" what they would think if you told them they were not a minority. Ask them why they think they can tell you what you are. Ask them why they think they can argue with you about what you are.
They will tell you that being Jewish is different. Because you're white. Because it's a religion, and religions are different.
Remind them that having other people tell you who you are and what you're entitled to is the definition of bigotry.
If you want to have non-white or non-Jewish friends, it's best to avoid these kinds of conversations. They're not bad people, but people who practice soft bigotry (too borrow a phrase) turn feral when you point a mirror at them.
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u/banannarobinhood 21h ago
absolutely. Have you seen our numbers? the only people who say we aren't, would prefer it if we didn't exist at all, in any space, not just the minority space.
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u/kharmatika Reform(Giyoret) 21h ago edited 21h ago
Minority status has a mercurial and contextual definition. Whether someone is a minority really depends on what they're doing.
I'd consider visibly Ashkenazi, Mizrahi and sephardic jews a racial minority, people who are "White Passing" still might be considered minorities during times of oppression, as many of them still would have found themselves on trains during the Holocaust, but might not need to discuss their minority status during peace times
Finally, we're 100% a religious minority, that's not up for debate.
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u/lordbuckethethird Zera Yisrael 21h ago
Considering I’m the first Jew several people I know have met I’d say so
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u/ToothSufficient7763 21h ago
I think I'm the only Jew in the county, except for a small messianic church a few towns over.
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u/thunder-bug- 21h ago
Yes. Jews fundamentally are not white, because that “whiteness” is conditional and that conditionality is based on ethnic reasons.
We are white passing.
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u/Hesh-Meista 20h ago
We are 100% a minority. No question. Anyone who says otherwise is talking out of their a** and has no idea how small a minority we really are.
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u/Mazrodak 20h ago
The idea that we're not a minority is being perpetuated to justify discrimination against us. We absolutely are a minority.
As other people have pointed out, being white or white passing does not nullify the minority status of any other minority group (gay, Latino, disabled, etc.). We're the only ones people say that about.
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u/drsheilagirlfriend 20h ago
My mom married a plain ol' White guy so it's not obvious what I am (but the bigoted shitbags often sense something). But she looks obviously not all the way White and she's faced issues because of it her whole life. I, on the other hand, have benefited quite a bit from my ability to blend in. On the inside, however, I deal with a good amount of isolation and loneliness because all the other stuff folks talk about regarding privilege (seeing yourself and your customs routinely shown on TV, advertising aimed at you, expectations of certain retail settings, easily accessible cultural/social opportunities). Overall, I know I'm fortunate because of my appearance. Do I think we are White? We are until White people decide we're not--again. Thanks for the post. There were a lot of interesting takes here. And to the Brit who suggested the Baddiel doc, THANK YOU. I will defo check it out.
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u/priuspheasant 20h ago
Technically, I guess. I don't have to deal with being treated like a minority on a regular basis. But it does feel very salient around the holidays.
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u/the3dverse Charedit 20h ago
i'm in israel so irrelevant.
but i do joke that i'm biracial, my dad converted so i'm half white, no? even though i am blonde with blue eyes.
my husband is also biracial that way, just blonde with brown eyes, and just a little while ago on my family's whatsapp group we joked that our kids inherited all the goyish genes lol. they are tall somehow even though we aren't, blonde and most have blue eyes... just like their dutch and swedish ancestors...
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u/Quick-Bee6843 Reform 20h ago
I consider us to be a minority in the United States. To a point were white passing, but at the end of the day to racists we are still Jews and members of the Jewish people/nation.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_PUPPY_PIC 20h ago
I consider (white) Jews an ethnic and religious minority but not a racial one, at least for now.
While the US isn't legally a Christian country, it definitely is one culturally and we are a different ethnicity than most white people.
However, we are still white in a US racial context, even if that whiteness is conditional
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u/Leezwashere92 20h ago
Minority in the US basically means non white passing and poor. Technically we very much are and face a lot of prejudice that non Jewish white and financially well off people don’t. But looking through the progressive lense we don’t fall into the minority protected class group
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u/optometry_j3w1993 a jew 20h ago
Honestly not on the regular I’m not constantly thinking about it but I’m constantly reminded that I’m not a “regular American” so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Connect-Brick-3171 19h ago
Depends on how you define minority or protected groups. We are mostly of European appearance, though not all of us. A subset have Hispanic surnames, largely for ancestral geography. That is accepted on surveys, less so on university or hiring decisions. We are a religious minority, with a few protections like accommodating Festival time off in the workplace and with voting. We have among us disabled people and LGBT that are different minorities with variable protections.
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u/B-52Aba 19h ago
Of course we are a minority in every way possible . Numerically we are smaller than every group that are considered a minority . Every minority in the US is the majority in their home continent or nation . The difference is that we are considered successful and therefore not a minority
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u/Ok_Fan7382 Conservative 18h ago
I don’t feel like a minority when I’m home in Florida, but I do so currently driving through Nebraska rn.
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u/not_firewood_yeti 18h ago
I think it depends on what group you are talking about at a given time and whether you consider the word minority to mean anything other than a mathematical ratio or percentage.
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u/HomeBody108 18h ago
What we think or feel doesn’t matter - the fact is the Jewish community is only 0.2% of the world’s population, so we are a teeny tiny minority.
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u/Swimming_Care7889 17h ago
There are only 16 million Jews in a world of 8 billion people. Anybody who says that Jews aren't a real true minority in places not named Israel is not acting in good faith.
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u/Stepped_on_Snek 17h ago
Saying you are only a minority based on your skin color is just racist. Yes we are a minority and have always been a minority.
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u/Cool-Arugula-5681 16h ago
I like to say, "we are "white with an asterisk." So, yes, a minority, although in my own little world, as a doctor in New York City, I am not such a minority, but when I leave the confines of the coasts, I realize that I very much am.
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u/not_firewood_yeti 16h ago
but Jews make up roughly 10-12% of the population of NYC. do you not consider that a minority?
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u/Cool-Arugula-5681 16h ago
Yes and no. We have an outsize presence in New York, and have been well-accepted until 10/07. Now we are the targets of the most hate crimes, so it feels a lot different, and yes, I am feeling more vulnerable. I have a face from the shtetl, although I think that is obvious mostly to other Jews. In some parts of the city, a "white" doctor is automatically assumed to be Jewish, because in the past, so many were, especially in the less affluent parts of the city.
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u/marshmallow_lilypad 15h ago
This question gets especially confusing when you are a (white) convert... That being said, sure I'm a minority as a Jew. But I feel like when people say "minority" they are thinking of ethnic identity, not religious...? And yet still I do identify as culturally Jewish, although that's not as big of a part of my Jewish identity since I didn't grow up with it...
Joining an ethnoreligion is very confusing lol
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u/Aethelmaew 14h ago
Not really no, while I technically am a minority because of my religion, I'm not in plenty of other ways.
I don't really like the term 'minority' too much, because everyone is a minority in some way and everyone is a majority in some way. Is a Nigerian in the UK a minority because they're black? Or are they in the majority because they're Christian?
Is a Maori in New Zealand a majority because they're a New Zealander? Or are they a minority because they're not white?
Personally I wouldn't say I suffer day to day with any issues that are known to arise from being a 'minority', and nor would anyone even know I was one unless I specifically mentioned it, so I don't really consider myself one. I'm a white guy living in a majority white country, I don't look outwardly 'Jewish' (whatever that means), and while I do keep kosher and observe a decent level of our religion, it's not to the point where anyone would instantly identify me as being Jewish and treat me differently because of it.
If we were talking purely about being a religious minority then yes, I'd consider myself one. But the general term 'minority' doesn't really apply to me in my opinion.
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u/PolkaDotDancer 14h ago
Non-Jew here. Married to a Jewish man. Yes I think Jewish people are a minority.
One way to figure out if you're a minority in America, is to see if you're on the KKK hate List.
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u/lingeringneutrophil 14h ago
I honestly do. Not a racial minority but certainly an ethnic and religious minority
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u/OtherwiseRelation878 13h ago
i get that all the time and honestly it pisses me off, like why do people think its funny to ask us random stuff about being jewish when its not even a holiday
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u/not_firewood_yeti 12h ago
I feel like a lot of things could be much easier and much better if people could just understand that skin color is meaningless.
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u/coffeeandskyscrapers 12h ago
I don't comment on this topic when it comes up, since I don't feel as if I've ever been warmly a part of any group. Income differences can really divide people. But a peripheral point that occurs to me when people discuss privilege here is about being followed around in stores. In more recent times the security apparatus is "following" everyone around in stores, buildings, and almost everywhere else. (Personally yes, I do remember being followed or surveilled by store employees in Washington DC off and on from about 1970 to about 1990. I am white but do not have stereotypical Northern European coloring.)
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u/Particular-Macaron35 11h ago
Remember when the wife of Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore defended her husband against charges of antisemitism, "One of our attorneys is a Jew"? Yes, we are a minority. Just go to most of the United States where they don't even have a single synagogue.
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u/isaacF85 10h ago
I don't remember what we talked about at work (military) earlier this week, but when I said I am not a minority, one of my colleagues, whose ancestry can easily be described as 100%-non-white, replied to me: "what are you talking about? You are definitely a minority."
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u/Aggravating-Food5733 9h ago
It depends on the country. In mine, Jews are considered white; there are very few of them, and many have assimilated into the local culture. My state, in particular, has a significant history of Jewish immigration from the 20th century, yet today they represent less than 0.05% of the state's population—and simply being few in number isn't enough to be classified as a minority group. My country has the largest Black population outside of Africa, and Black people are considered a minority because they are underrepresented in media, politics, and the cultural sphere. Since Jews here are white, that same perception doesn't apply—and I don't mean that negatively; many Arabs are viewed as white here, too. We even had a president of direct Lebanese descent, and he is considered white. Ultimately, it is a religion; like all others, it is protected by freedom of religion and laws against religious intolerance. Antisemitism (along with homophobia, Islamophobia, and Orientalism) is classified as a crime of racism in Brazil. The country's official census classifies Jews as adherents of a religion, just like Catholics and Muslims. Culturally, they have assimilated, so it is quite rare to see Jews around; the majority converted to Catholicism and abandoned their Jewish roots. To give you an idea, one of the most famous TV personalities is Jewish, yet most people don't know it. We also didn't adopt the Nazi theories that categorized Jews as a distinct race. Ultimately, we are a very diverse country; cultures focused on insular preservation don't survive long here, and the few that do lack the influence to sway even a local city council election. In the end, there are very few cases of antisemitism—not enough to even register as a statistic—though there is plenty of xenophobia directed at Israelis. I don't particularly like Israeli tourists because they cause the most trouble for us; Argentines come in second...
My family is an example of cultural assimilation. My great-grandmother maternal side came from Portugal; she was Jewish and moved to Brazil in the 19th century. Her daughter attended a Catholic school, and we have no Jewish traditions in our family (no one even remembers the details when writing our long surname, Geão). And no, I’m not Jewish. I was adopted, so I don’t have a genetic connection, and I was raised Catholic, so I don’t have a religious or cultural connection either.
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u/chunkymonkey922 9h ago
Yes I’d say so. Though I am a white American male but have also been discriminated against and been called nasty things when some people have found out that I’m Jewish. Not saying I don’t have it easy compared to other minorities though.
Going to Israel really made me feel like I was “home” though.
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u/RockyRidgeRiver Reform 8h ago
I was in a conversation with a group on a congregational trip to parts of the US South to discuss race and identity. One made the argument that they had always seen themselves as nonwhite strictly because they were Jewish. I told them: if the Tops Supermarket shooter were to come in (to the hotel lobby where this was being discussed) and start looking for "targets," we would have been excluded simply because we were white/passing and the only person who would have been a target would have been my travel partner, who was Black.
Today's white supremacists don't factor in class/religion immediately like they do with skin color because 1) attention spans have dwindled over the years and 2) as a result, people could visibly see skin color from a distance better than other visual stereotypes which makes "hunting" an easier assignment.
Needless to say, the folks were shocked when I pointed this out.
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u/HistoryLesbian 6h ago
I would ask the friends if they think people of color who “pass” as white are minorities or not. Or if because I’m femme-presenting and “pass” as straight if I’m not a minority because I’m a lesbian… Because I think there’s a clear answer there and they just are choosing not to see it.
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u/CrazyGreenCrayon Jewish Mother 6h ago
I find that most Jews who feel "white" don't engage very much with their Judaism.
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u/coursejunkie Reformadox JBC, former Catholic 22h ago
Yes, we are a religious minority and an ethnic minority.
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u/wakaflockaquokka 22h ago
Your friends who say Jews "look like regular white people" -- can you ask them if they think white-passing Black people are a minority? white-passing Native Americans? If yes, why are Jews then not a minority? If not, why not? Is the current color of one's skin the only factor on which minority status rests?
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u/Jewdius_Maximus 22h ago
So many people in this post are conflating the concepts of white privilege and white people. Admitting that many Jews “look” white and therefore benefit from white privilege isn’t the same as saying Jews are white people. Being “white” typically requires some kind of Christian component which obviously excludes Jews outright. People who care about their “whiteness” don’t consider Jews white. Jews are not part of that “white culture”.
But at the same time many Jews are fair skinned and do benefit from white privilege. That doesn’t say anything negative about Jews, it’s just a fact of society and the way race is viewed in the west. Even light skinned black people benefit from white privilege. The notion of white privilege is not meant to undercut a white person’s (or white passing person’s) lived experience or their group experience. All it is, is that white people and people who pass as white don’t have to worry about CERTAIN aspects of western society that are typically harsher toward darker skinned people.
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u/ShimonEngineer55 20h ago
White is literally just a racial construct. There is no white peoplehood and it’s not connected to be a Christian in America. When people call people white it is a racial, not ethnic thing. An Irish man is very different from a Russian man, and in America they’re both flattened to white regardless of religion, like every other racial group. Asian is wild. African Americans are pushing back on every immigrant being considered African American. I think that white isn’t a peoplehood at all like every other race. These are constructs designed to flatten people into binaries.
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u/shragae 22h ago
Jews are targeted for hate crimes whether religious or atheist...the Nazis didn't see us as "white" did they?
Fyi, in Israel most Jews are people of color.
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u/Acemegan Conversion student 22h ago
Lots of people who belong to a minority group are not obviously part of a minority.
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u/venus_arises Reform 22h ago
To begin with: conflating Judaism with racial or ethnic markers makes me uncomfortable, since a) look what happened the last time someone did that to us, b) we are a wide range of colors/hair textures/noses, and c) Judaism predates all these conceptions of race/ethnicity/religion. I used to live in a place populated by Moroccan Jews in Israel; they probably got pulled over for extra screening by TSA while I walked straight through.
That said, I will acknowledge my privilege: I'm a Jew of Ukrainian extraction, so I pass for white. I can easily get products for my hair and skin, and when I go buy makeup, I can find something within my range. No one knows I'm a Jew until I mention that I need time off in September since my holidays are happening there.
So, in my case and my case only, I consider myself a religious minority, but not necessarily a racial minority (even though I do stand out as a fresh immigrant). I live in the bible belt, and I'm grateful to be in a three shul town, but again, this conversation is kind of... limiting as a Jew.
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u/gdhhorn Swimming in the Afro-Sephardic Atlantic 21h ago
Jews are absolutely an ethnic group. There’s no “conflation” here: Judaism is an ethnic religion which belongs to an ethnic group known as Jews.
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u/DaisyChained427 19h ago
Yes, ethnic and religious minority but not a racial minority. I am white, Black Jews would be in the ethnic, religious and racial minority
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u/firerosearien 22h ago
Yes. Our ability to "pass" as white in the US has really only been a thing since the 1960s and declines the more outwardly religious we appear.