Who Counts as a Jew of Color — and Does it Even Matter?

This piece is a response to Hen Mazzig’s “What Is a Jew of Color?”

A slew of incidents across the United States have caused no shortage of unrest for Jews in the West, from rising anti-Semitism to social media posts claiming Anne Frank had white privilege. Because Jews constitute a minority across the globe, the way in which identity politics categorize groups based on degrees of marginalization has forced many Jewish people worldwide to reflect on their varying experiences of privilege. In response, a rift has emerged amidst the Jewish diaspora, largely between Jews able to pass as white and those less able to assimilate into whiteness.

Amidst this Internet drama, a sort of victimhood pyramid has emerged within the Jewish community itself — one which unfortunately conforms to the same colorist framework we should strive to avoid as a Jewish nation united against anti-Semitism and white supremacy. Parallel to the struggle for Black rights in America, a narrative has formed among various Jewish diaspora groups that pits “white Jews” against “Jews of Color.”

But who qualifies as a Jew of Color?

Colorism — or the judgment of a people based on their skin tone — emerged across the world due to Western European colonialism. As a result, many have come to associate Ashkenazim with whiteness despite their Middle Eastern origins. Historically, however, non-Jews in Europe tended to otherize Ashkenazim as lording control over society. Nazis and other pogrom leaders in Europe used anti-Semitic caricatures in their witch hunts, and Mizrahim suffered under Islamic rule as inferiors. Now, many Sephardim and Mizrahim in the West face marginalization amidst an Ashkenazi majority, yet Ashkenazim still fall victim to the stereotype of holding excessive power.

Despite people with recent Middle East and North African (MENA) ancestry — such as Mizrahim, Sephardim and non-Jewish Arabs and Persians — technically falling under the “white” ethnicity on the official U.S. census, they are marginalized by negative stereotypes like terrorism and orientalism. In that respect, classifying Mizrahim and Sephardim as Jews of Color holds a degree of merit.

One reason to encourage classifying these diaspora communities as Jews of Color is the effect that this framing had with the California Ethnic Studies Bill. The California Ethnic Studies Bill, which sought to incorporate lessons on ethnicity and privilege in the state’s high schools, initially made no mention of Jewish people, suggesting that Jews have become associated with a sense of white privilege in American society. However, following a petition to the California Department of Education by the group Jews of the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA), a revised curriculum incorporated MENA Jews under the umbrella of explored ethnic groups.

The term “of color” stems from “colored,” the derogatory term placed upon Black Americans during the segregation era, and thus frames a person’s ethnic background as identifiable by their phenotype. Thus, while the term “Jews of Color” understandably classifies Jews unable to function as white based on appearance, “white Jew” frequently winds up as the default for Jews associated with Europe and the West — specifically, Ashkenazim. However, equating white-passing Ashkenazim as simply “the white Jews” not only portrays them as indistinguishable from their former European oppressors but also excludes all of the Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews passing as white in the West.

Categorizing Jews as “of color” actually serves as a point of erasure.

Therefore, depicting all Jews of recent MENA descent alongside non-white-passing Jews as the lump sum of those who are not “white Ashkenazi Jews” fallaciously conflates phenotype with assumed marginalization based upon geographic heritage. After all, although Sephardim and Mizrahim may not feel wholly represented by mainstream American Jewish culture, white-passing MENA Jews do not experience the often-daily fear of being killed unarmed by police or being followed around a store under suspicion of shoplifting — a reality faced by many Black Jews in the United States.

We don’t need the frame of “Jews of Color” or “White Jews” to acknowledge the lived realities of all Jews, including the atrocities suffered by some of our community members in the past and present. In fact, highlighting Ashkenazim as the Jews that have allegedly transformed into white people presents a dangerous binary that targets Jews with recent residence in Europe as the scapegoat diaspora community from whom other Jews should dissociate in order to appease intersectionality. That said, dispelling this dichotomous framework doesn’t mean that white-passing Jews are exempt from contributing to anti-Black racism and general colorism in our communities. White-passing Jews have a duty to ensure inclusion in our social and religious circles. And, when discussing anti-Semitism, white-passing Jews should clarify that we aim not to claim the same level of oppression as other minorities but instead to highlight the hypocrisy that we are singled out as white and non-Jewish MENA groups that pass as white are not.

As a half Ashkenazi, half Mizrahi Jew, I say it’s high time we as Jews stop identifying each other and ourselves according to the standards of Western bigotry.

Sarah Katz is an author, UC Berkeley alumna in Middle Eastern Studies, cybersecurity analyst at NASA and delegate candidate for the California Legislative Jewish Caucus.