Reply to Is the refernece "he/she looks very Jewish" benign or an insult?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am not Jewish. I am black. I say that to say I can't speak for exactly how a Jewish person would feel about the statement. I can only speak for how I feel when someone says something similar to me.

I would ask the speaker "What do you mean by that?" and see what comes next. My guess is that it won't be something good.

When I've encountered similar statements, it is usually meant to be derogatory. If your Jewish friend has confided in you that he/she finds it insulting, you should be the brave and bold white person who is willing to take a position that will bring you discomfort for the good of all. The weight of addressing discriminatory/hurtful statements always falls on the person being singled out and they are left having to navigate addressing the disrespect, their hurt feelings and self esteem and then having to defend against a typical white person who will rudely push back if they are called out on their bigoted behavior.  It will be all about that person's feelings on being called a bigot instead of the person they actually offended.

Please, stand up for your Jewish friend and call the other person out on their unacceptable comments. Right now, you can hide and ignore the rude comments because they don't affect you. By the way, if you've ever wondered what white privilege is and if you have it, this is one of those situations. [/quote]

I’m not sure white privilege really comes into the equation here — Ashkenazi Jews are white. [/quote]

I'm an Ashkenazi Jew and let me tell you -- that's a whole other can of worms.

Before I explain, let me say up front that I KNOW THIS HAS BEEN USED BY NAZIS AND ANTI-SEMITES.

That disclaimer said: There are arguments to be made that Ashkenazi Jews are not, in fact, white if you define white as Caucasian or Anglo-Saxon.

Why? Well, we are Semites. We have a phenotype that is distinct from the of Anglo-Saxons.

Culturally and religiously, we have historically been--often violently--excluded from Anglo-Saxon European Christendom.

Now, I understand that many of us appear white--we often have light skin--but that doesn't mean we're really from the same ethnic, cultural, or religious group that anthropologists and sociologists normally consider part of being white.

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