Expanding our Understanding of Jewish Identity

Providing education on authentic and diverse Jewish identity is an essential strategy to honor the fullness and dignity of the Jewish community and combat the proliferation of harmful and narrow depictions of Jews and Judaism. Facing History’s lesson What Does it Mean to Be Jewish? along with the recent webinar Beyond a Single Story: Exploring the Diversity of Jewish Identity serve as introductions to the expansive nature of Jewish identity with abundant expressions of contemporary Jewish life, pride, and joy.

As an ethnoreligious group, Jews share common religious, ethnic, and geographic origins. In modern times, Jews may identify with any one or more of the following: a shared belief system, values, practices, culture, lineage, or peoplehood. This complexity and fluidity is what can make Jewish identity so unique—but also difficult to define and understand for many non-Jews. 

Jews make up less than 1% of the global population—and as a small minority on a national scale, there are many communities in the US where people simply do not know any Jews. When exposure to Jewish identities and communities is limited or when a particular Jewish identity dominates one’s exposure, perceptions of what it means and looks like to be Jewish can become quite narrow. Even in places with little to no Jewish presence, the ubiquitous nature of antisemitism over centuries can lead to the flourishing of false narratives about Jews and antisemitic tropes. Furthermore, if students only learn about Jews in the context of the Holocaust, they may walk away from school with a perception of Jews only as victims of genocide—with the horrific imagery of concentration camps the only visual reference of Jewish people that they possess. They may also come to believe that Jews are a people of the past, not the present. 

Many components of Jewish identity surfaced in the Beyond A Single Story webinar. Facing History’s Senior Program Associate Phredd MatthewsWall spoke with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who identifies as Korean and Jewish and serves as senior rabbi for Central Synagogue in New York City, and Canadian filmmaker and educator Sara Yacobi-Harris, who identifies as Black and Jewish and produced the film Periphery as well as the Facing History film To Be A Black and Jewish Woman. They discussed their intersectional identities, Jewish joy, false narratives about Jews, and hopes for Jewish youth.

Layers, Not Fractions: Intersectional Identities 

Regarding their intersectional identities, Rabbi Buchdahl expressed appreciation for her parents, who never made her “feel like [she] was half-Korean or half-Jewish, but got to be 100% all of it all the time.” This inspired Yacobi-Harris to cite a line from a Yumi Tomsha poem: “I am made of layers. Not fractions.” However, in the larger world, both have been challenged over the authenticity of parts of their identities or have had external narratives superimposed upon them. Sara, the subject of To Be A Black and Jewish Woman, illustrates this challenge when she recalls being told she couldn’t possibly be Jewish and Black as a little girl and felt like she had to justify her identity. Similarly, Yacobi-Harris described her younger self as someone who was often “flinching and waiting” for someone to say something that diminished her whole self—until being forced to create a sort of armor as protection from the “flattening” of her identity. In the What Does It Mean To Be Jewish lesson, students spend time reflecting on a video by psychologist John Amaechi about where and when we feel comfortable sharing certain aspects of our identity and when we “zip up” parts of ourselves for self-preservation. 

Buchdahl echoed Amaechi when she reminded listeners that we’re all navigating complex identities—some visible, some invisible. She has found that the best way to handle confusion or challenges to her identity is to not respond defensively: to “not let it get inside,” but rather to show how comfortable and secure she is in her own identity and seek connection over common ground. “Belonging to myself allowed me to be able to weather spaces where I don’t have control over how others are going to respond in a certain way to me,” Yacobi-Harris added. In To Be a Black and Jewish Woman, Sara sums up this approach at the end of the film: “No matter what, I’m never going to shy away from being Jewish. And no matter what they [those who express hatred against Jews] thought, I do not care. I am me.”

Racism and Antisemitism

When it comes to harmful external narratives about Jews that need to be dispelled, Buchdahl listed the idea that “Jews are a race” as a particularly dangerous concept frequently used by enemies: from Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus to the Catholic Church in medieval Spain and Portugal to Nazi Germany. 

Yacobi-Harris debunked the harmful narrative that “all Jews are white,” which “flattens the realities of how diverse Jewish communities actually are.” According to a 2021 Pew Research Center report, 15% of American Jews ages 18 to 29 identify with other racial or ethnic categories. “Our very presence debunks the myth that Jews are white,” Yacobi-Harris noted. Buchdahl added that more than half of Jews who live in Israel are Mizrahi—of Middle Eastern, North African, and Asian descent—many of whom have melanated skin tones.

Adding further nuance to the subject of  Jews and whiteness, Yacobi-Harris asked that we do not erase the racialized experiences of Jews who may pass as or even identify as white but are not considered so by white supremacists—they also experience hatred and bigotry. She described this segment of the Jewish population as experiencing “conditional whiteness,” a label granted by the dominant society in a country like the US that can also be taken away.

Buchdahl broached another complex topic: philosemitism, the special interest in, respect for, or admiration of the Jewish people. Buchdahl warned that philosemitism can become problematic when it reinforces certain stereotypes about Jews, such as the racist and false idea that Jews are inherently good with money—which can quickly transform into the “Jewish Greed” antisemitic trope. The Global Domination/Power trope portrays Jews as the ultimate privileged people who deserve the “punching up” delivered by those who espouse the underlying false narratives that Jews control the government, the media, and the economy. Buchdahl cited the Colleyville synagogue attack as a prime example of how the perception of Jews as powerful can lead to antisemitic violence.

Be More Jewish

When asked what advice they would offer to Jewish students who were listening, Yacobi-Harris emphasized the importance of being able to identify and understand the particulars of antisemitism so they’re not second-guessing when they encounter bigotry. The lessons What Does It Mean to Be Jewish? and Expressing Diversity in Jewish Identity both include activities that use the film Still to examine the ways in which encounters of antisemitism (in this case, a violent one) can lead to identity suppression among young people. 

That said, both speakers agreed that it’s important to not make one’s whole identity about fighting hate. Buchdahl offered, “Be more Jewish!” She went on to explain that young people should lean into the joy,meaning, tradition, and community that can be found in their Jewish identities. For both Yacobi-Harris and Buchdahl, stories—ancestral, biblical, and familial—have been instrumental in shaping their own identities. Yacobi-Harris added that making authentic connections and spending time with people who share her identity are both rich sources of joy. Buchdahl referred to Sara’s expressions of Jewish identity in the film as an excellent example for other young Jews: “her dignity, her confidence, and pride—she’s a stronger Jewish and Black woman because her identity is not rooted in responding to the hatred.” 

As Sara puts it herself in the film’s opening: “My Jewish identity is comfort, comforting, and love.”