An Open Letter to White Jewish Americans
Dear fellow Jewish Americans (who are also white),
This is not our time. This is not about us. This is about black people who have suffered at the hands of the systemic racism that fed slavery and police brutality in our country for the past 400 years.
This is not to say we haven’t known pain. We have.
But when I see Facebook posts denouncing the anti-Semitic graffiti on a synagogue in Los Angeles before acknowledging the murder of George Floyd and the horrific police violence happening at the protests across the country, I have to wonder where our community’s priorities are.
The takeaway from the events of the past few days is not that protests beget chaos. It is not that protestors are only looking to smash glass and loot. Rather, oppressed people who have no legal recourse to create change (or, at least, it hasn’t worked in the past) must take to the streets in solidarity with one another in order to be heard at all.
We should know better. Which is why we must help to create the space for our fellow citizens to grieve and protest to make their voices heard and enact the change our country so desperately needs.
Intersectional activism has not been easy for Jews. It forces us to reconsider everything we were taught growing up. It also forces us to consider the many privileges that come with being part of the approximately 90% of American Jews who are also white and Ashkenazi. We’ve been in a place where even having the security to ponder these questions is a sign of our privilege.
I get why the anti-Semitic graffiti on the Los Angeles synagogue in the wake of the protests is scary and especially offensive to Jews. Equating the politics of the State of Israel with the Jewish people is an anti-Semitic tactic, and one that the Black Lives Matter movement has had to contend with before. But this is not about us.
We’ve had our tragedies. And the black community has been there for us. Let’s be there for them.
Justice, justice, shall you pursue.
