Thread by @KosherSoul

#WhoopiGoldberg ok. So this tweet is about dialogue...
The comment Whoopi made was myopic and uninformed at best, but its based on American not Hitler's Germany issues. To many Jews are a faith community, or assimilation into "whiteness," in America has made them "white" but...

Anti-Semitism really is about Jews as a distinct, racial group that bear in their genes dysfunction..it was coined by a racial anti-Semite. I use Anti-Jewish also to describe issues with the religious part of Jewish peoplehood, Judaism.

Jews were seen by the Nazis as a "mongrel" race because they ranged in phenotype and reflected origins as a mixed people. There were seen as imposters if similar in phenotype or invaders if not. You couldn't win.

Her commentary that the Shoah was white on white violence is less of an issue that separating the Holocaust from white supremacy and racial Anti-Semitism bc "race" is indeed woven into the whole history of European Anti-Semitism.

Its very similar to the way certain ethnic groups in the former Soviet Union are called "dark(y)" or various European ethnic minorities have their otherness amplified but at the same time....could come to America and be seen as "white."

Jewish peoplehood is complex and Nazism recognized that raiding synagogues wasn't how to go about their work. One Jewish grandparent was eerily similar to one Black great grandparent in determining otherness

This dance across other people's definitions of who you are and what you are is part of the frustration. But I need to offer a story.

The Karaites are a Jewish minority that does not practice many of the elements of Rabbinic Judaism that was born in the Middle Ages.

According to one story a community of Karaites were slated for liquidation and a rabbi stepped up and said "no they aren't Jews..." it wasn't a last minute sleight, he genuinely wanted to save them despite the obvious contentions between the two communities.

Being Jewish is really bigger than being a part of a house of worship. Its not like being part of the Christian ecclesia (church) or Muslim ummah (brotherhood/sisterhood). You are literally mishpochah...family. religious or not, observant or not, etc.

In Jewish peoplehood, yes there are people who are religious but not observant...there are Jews whose story doesn't begin in summer camp or Hebrew schools and Jews who are part of other communities but still have connection to and membership in Jewish peoplehood.

Being honest with myself I can see all of the intersections and carefully navigate those ideas and language because the fine print matters. Our precision reveals our openness to possibility and commitment to listening.

Its really important to acknowledge shifting understandings and know that one size rarely fits all.