Internalized Judeophobia: Peoplehood, Not Assimilation

Internalized Judeophobia, Explaining the Self-Hating Jew: Part VI

In Part V of this series we looked at key historical examples of failed attempts at assimilation. That predominant historical trail for better or for worse focuses on Ashkenazi Jews and their experience. Ashkenazi Jews typically hail from Eastern Europe, places like Russia, Poland and Germany. In a kaleidoscope of Europeans, they look like they are white. We saw how Ashkenazi Jews have been subject to Judeophobia in all its different manifestations: antisemitism, anti-Zionsm, etc.

Jewish history magnifies Ashkenazi experience due to several understandable reasons and coincidences of history. Ashkenazi Jews are the most documented. They happened to be living on the main stage of history for the greater part of the last thousand years. Their populations are the forefathers of western diaspora judaism, and they happen to have lived in societies with better historical record keeping. They also were the primary target for the Holocaust, which grants them eternal status in the Jewish collective memory.

Except in some specific Sephardic circumstances, the diaspora was heavily Ashkenazi. This remains so but was especially so until the 1950s and 60s in the diaspora. That is the moment when many Sephardic Jews fled North Africa for the west, as well as when Mizrahi Jews entered the equation. Sephardic Jews have roots in places like Toronto and Montreal, but are, for the most part, white presenting. Mizrahi Jews on the other hand, are not. They still constitute a small proportion of the population, but their existence throws a wrench in Jewish identity as well as provides a boondoggling effect on the primary attitudes and assumptions about western Jews.

Mizrahi Jews are Jews from the Middle East. They lived for two thousand years in modern places like Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Syria. Each of these countries until relatively recently had significant Jewish populations. Of course, there were a small number of Mizrahi Jews living in what is now Israel as well. After the establishment of the state of Israel, Mizrahi Jews either fled or were forced out of their countries of origin. Most relocated to Israel. Some came to Canada and the United States.

Interestingly, the global reunification of all Jews was supercharged through the creation of Israel. That destination became the ground where there was convergence of the separate Jewish sub ethnicities.These groups were able to blend via giving up aspects of their individual cultural quirks but moved the zeitgeist of Jewish peoplehood into something new. Israel acted as a scaffold by which they could create common ground.

In the diaspora, as far as assimilation is concerned, Mizrahi Jews are another short leap away from assimilation. Mizrahis have much darker skin tones. They often have strong accents, especially those who have arrived recently from the Middle East. This provides a terminus for assimilation, as they cannot be white presenting and say “Belgian”, “Canadian”, “American”, etc.

In the modern context, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews have the unique privilege of picking up all the challenges of not being white-presenting. We would expect this to offer express entry to the coalitions of intersectionality. In reality, Mizrahi & Sephardic Jews have yet to have been permitted access to these alliances.

Especially so if they refuse to recant any allegiance to Israel. Modern Mizrahi Jews are typically emigres from Israel - and their national heritage (broad political allegiance) tends to prohibit them from getting inside the door. They for the most part have left Israel as they are concerned about matters of safety. They are overwhelmingly liberal. The irony that the spaces they would naturally navigate to if not for their country of origin is drastic.

It needs to be stated that the majority of cases for diaspora Jews are still “white” or Ashkenazi. It is why the western caricature of a Jew is as a white person, an oppressor in the Middle East, and also why the ethnic facts on the ground in Israel are so damning to the narrative of Israel as a racist enterprise.

Under most circumstances, with enough effort, white Jews can blend in. Many Ashkenazi Jews could historically pass in some circumstances as white by changing names, or forgoing religious observance. There was perhaps a belief that hostility was contingent on visibility rather than identity.

This position was the perch where many diaspora Jews thought they were comfortable sitting prior to 2023. This was the illusion of assimilation. After October 7th, there came the phenomenon of October 8th Jews. October 8th Jews exist because they were forced to pick. Jews could continue on their slow crawl towards the asymptote of assimilation, so long as they passed the next purity test.

That purity test is an acceptance that Ashkenazi Jewish Whiteness was a driver of oppression. For Mizrahi Jews, that option isn’t possible. They can’t be called oppressors, they aren’t white. They can’t be called victims, they are Israeli. This short circuits the entire philosophy and topples the house of cards of intersectionality. Their very existence ought to dispel and expose the hypocrisy and gaping holes in the leftist coalitions. Mizrahi Jews have been forced out of their countries of origin. They have brown skin. They have strong accents. They tend to have left Israel because they disagree with the right-wing nature or religious aspects of their government. They are a minority in every sense of the word, and yet they are still not permitted.

This demonstrates the critical flaw, and a most tragic outcome. You have left leaning people of colour from the Middle East fleeing a war zone, and being denied access to support and succor from coalitions of the left. The egress is denied. Even the Jews that don’t appear Jewish in any way are unable to assimilate. Some ancient property within them, their experience of living a certain way omits them.

Which leaves one final group of Jews to examine – Jews by choice i.e., recent converts. These converts are perhaps the most brave and committed Jewish population there is. They have adopted the identity. They have done so for reasons of faith, love, commitment, or feeling. Modern experience shows us that converts are never allowed to join leftist coalitions. This is the same as the historical case. Converts to Judaism were considered blood traitors by the Nazis. It is something of a one-way street. It is counter intuitive though. It would stand to reason that if you weren’t Jewish 5 years ago, you could probably give that up now. But even those who have gone on the lengthy journey to join the Jewish tribe and have now somehow decided that it was just a phase for whatever reason, can never have been “not Jewish.” When you convert, it’s a bit like the Hotel California. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave.

Perhaps this is why the rabbis made it so difficult to become Jewish. There is a responsibility and a cost that comes with this. It is nearly impossible to “undo”. Converting to Judaism means picking up relatively few friends compared to many, many enemies. Suddenly that force of nature that is Judeophobia sets its target on the convert. It is unrelenting and constantly needs pushing back. There can be no uncrossing the bridge.

So what does all of this context around assimilation actually teach us about those who have internalized Judeophobia, i.e. - self-hating Jews? The fundamental point is that all of these verticals of Jewish identity – ethnic differences, religious observance, cultural, political, and values based aspects – combine into something immutable, greater than the whole, and nearly impossible to shed. That is the concept of Jewish peoplehood. That is the next core evolution in how to think about Jews. Not as a religious group, but as a “people”.

Being part of that “peoplehood” is the binary - it is in or it is out. It is also the battleground upon which “self-hating” Jews have to reckon with their internalized Judeophobia. The vastness of identity within the Jewish people, and those who are irrevocably tied to it, comes with clear downsides. We see this clearly with conversion candidates. Yet they still cross the threshold and become part of the peoplehood. Many Jews, if given a time machine, would not choose to be part of the peoplehood. So, when they have Jewish baked into their identity, it can be a source of resentment. Because to be Jewish is to be inexorably linked to history. It means carrying the weight of that historical memory. This is the first kernel of how Judeophobia becomes internalized. It is the path to self-hating. At last we will come to explore those mechanisms more broadly in the next part of this series.

The “how” though, is dependent on the context of “why”. Assimilation is impossible because of the binary of Jewish peoplehood. Rather than being a checklist, or a menu of options you can select from as the times suit you, it is an entrenched feature. This comes from the outside. History’s starkest proof is this: the Nazis, not the Jews, decided who was Jewish. The Nuremberg Laws consulted ancestry. A convert to Christianity, a secular socialist, an assimilated war veteran, all were classified by their genealogy. The same fact, unfortunately, still is present today. We see it whenever a Jewish institution is vandalized.

We saw that all too well with the tragedy committed by Hamas on October 7th. Among the victims in 2023 were peace-loving ravers and kibbutzniks who drove sick and wounded Gazans to Israeli hospitals. They were dedicated peace activists, some of the most politically dovish people in Israel, all murdered. Not to mention their support workers and English teachers, and even many Arab Israelis, were massacred. Their beliefs and choices did not function as an exemption.

Hamas, the Nazis, the Spanish, the Soviets, none of them ever really saw the nuance. They just saw an opportunity to paint an enemy for personal gain and a people that needed to be extinguished. Their hatred gave their movement a common enemy. A common enemy is a powerful uniting force.

There is no amount of assimilation or blending in that can prevent the identity from being assigned to Jews from the outside. It always ends up this way. The only path to control Jewish identity therefore is to claim it, with pride and with a positive purpose. Only with a deliberate commitment to making Jewishness fit into a Jew’s individual life, can Jews ever truly be part of the fabric of Western society. The Jewish identity is not a monolith, but it does have a soul, a zeitgeist that moves and morphs slowly through history. Today, that is Jewish peoplehood. A global club that can’t be quit. The antithesis to Jewish peoplehood is Systemic Judeophobia. When this prejudice and hate get internalized, we see the emergence of the self-hating Jew.