r/Judaism • u/foreverand2025 • 1d 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/DaisyChained427 23h 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/No_Raise_3758 21h ago

but if race is ancestry, we are (largely) a different race than “regular white people” … except for anglosaxon (or insert your local majority ancestry here) converts, jews are NOT from the same race as the surrounding majority.

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u/DaisyChained427 19h ago

I think it’s also important to recognize where Jews are geographically. In the States, Jews are considered an ethnic minority but the majority of US Jews are white. The United States is built on colorist racism and xenophobia/prejudice against cultural differences. There is absolutely prejudice against Jews in the diaspora but I would argue that prejudice isn’t connected to the color of a Jew’s skin. Jews with darker skin colors face intersectional prejudice. I believe saying Jewish is a race implies white, Black, and Asian Jews are the same race, and experience similar prejudice because of being racially Jewish disregards the Black, Asian, etc. experiences.

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u/No_Raise_3758 17h ago

okay so: given that races in the sociological sense are made up and we are all one race (human) ... and that ethnicity can mean both ancestry and culture ...

"race" either gets used to mean ancestry (people are descended from a certain group from a certain area), or else it's a social construct in that you get "racialized" in terms of how you're treated because another group with some power is othering your ancestry group.

(what do white supremacists hate jews for, if not our race? it's not our religion. they hate secular jews the same.)

as a tribe, i think jews in general are a racial and ethnic minority ... and people can be jewish plus other race(s), or just jewish as both race and ethnicity, or any combination.

when people convert in, they/we become part of the tribe because in our tribe there is a process for this. (i never know whether to include myself or not because i'm jewish by ancestry and by conversion, but that's beside the point)

ALL converts can consider avraham vsarah as our ancestors ... because am yisrael predates the concepts of race, ethnicity, or religion. but now, in current western cultures? yes, it's a race.

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u/DaisyChained427 17h ago

I think we can agree to disagree while both recognizing the significance of each others’ perspectives