The “are Jews BAME?” chat flags up a lot of the problems with “BAME” as a category, which has always struck me as something of a sanitising concept which can flatten out experiences as much as, if not more than, it unites people around shared struggles.
Yes, Jews are an ethnic minority. No, that does not mean white Jews face systemic oppression of the type faced by black people, or anything approaching it.
Personally I don’t think white Jews should participate in self-organised BAME/BEM structures in the labour movement. We can experience racism, discrimination, and prejudice, but we’re not structurally oppressed. Those spaces should be for self-organisation against oppression.
The substantial integration of (white) Jews into the socially constructed category of “whiteness” is a) recent, and b) limited and highly precarious. It’s vital to remember that. But it doesn’t do anyone any favours to pretend that such an integration hasn’t taken place.
Antisemitism still frequently functions as what @BulldogShadow called “the theoretical core of white nationalism.” There’s a specific work to be done of constructing anti-racist solidarity between Jews and other historically racialised peoples.
That work needs to take place on the terrain of ideas - through education and debate - and on the terrain of practical organising. We don’t have to tick the “BAME” box to do that, and arguing about whether we should seems a sideshow at best.
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