I'm happy to announce I'll be spending
this month guest-blogging at
The Faculty Lounge. I may still post independent content here -- we'll see how things go -- but I'll certainly be sure to provide pointers to any content I put up over there. I opened my stint
with a reflection on the talk I gave (with Analucia Lopezrevoredo) this past Monday at San Diego State on Mizrahi Jews and intersectionality. It's a bit of a heavy opener, but I've never been afraid to come out swinging.
One of my Facebook contacts attempted to post this comment (in response to your passage about 'Ashkenazi Europeans') after I shared your article on my wall, but I was told that it was immediately removed/rejected. Assuming you are in contact with whoever runs that page, she wants to know why it was removed.
ReplyDeleteHere is the comment in question: "Whether Ashkenazi Jews "are" or "look" white - this is irrelevant to antiSemitism and irrelevant to reality. Genetically, and by history, we are all a tribal people of the Levant, indigenous to the Middle East regardless of how many times we were exiled from our homeland."
My two cents: while it's certainly not my place to dictate Ashkenazi identity, I know I would be extremely peeved if people started referring to me as a "Mizrahi Arab" (as opposed to a Mizrahi Jew/Judean/Israeli). I imagine this is how most of my friends interpreted your passage. And I agree that it only serves to reinforce anti-Israel propaganda (i.e. modern Jews are indigenous to the countries they recently lived in or immigrated from, not to Israel).
Great article, otherwise. Don't get me wrong here.
I'm the one who tried to post that. I also attempted:"Jews are historically and genetically a tribal, indigenous people of the Levant regardless of how many times we have been colonized and expelled from our homeland. Race is a social construct and does not exist as a scientific reality. Thus skin color is not relevant to the issue of Jews and antiSemitism."
ReplyDeleteFYI, your comments are out of the spam filter on TFL (which has a notoriously oversensitive filter -- it captures all of my comments, for example).
ReplyDeleteSo only certain people can post comments there?
ReplyDeleteIt really is just an overactice spam filter. My comments are caught in it all the time.
ReplyDelete