In a comment thread about Ken Burns‘, Lynn Novick and Sara Botstein‘s The U.S. and the Holocaust (PBS), the six-hour doc about the prevalence of anti-Semitism in this country during the 1930s and ’40s, HE comment guy “bentrane” explained something:
“Let’s be correct here [and understand that] Jews are not a race,” he wrote. “They are members of the Jewish religion, which has members of many colors. If we are talking about prejudice against the Jewish people, we are talking about anti-Semitism, not racism.”
To which I replied: “But Woody Allen’s depictions of his Brooklyn-based Jewish family in Annie Hall and Radio Days and Crimes and Misdemeanors made it fairly clear that they were defined by a lot more than a nominal, going-through-the-motions investment in attending Jewish services at their local temple on Saturdays. They were a colorful ethnic tribe, outspoken and passionate and a bit coarse at times. Don’t forget how Allen made their appearances and behaviors seem especially pronounced when, in Annie Hall, he compared his family with Diane Keaton’s midwestern white-bread family (which included a ‘classic Jew-hating’ grandmother).”
Bentrane to HE: “Ethnicity is not race. And not all Brooklyn Jewish families are alike. My mother was a Brooklyn-raised Jew, and her family was solidly middle class, totally secular.”
HE to bentrane: “Speaking as a New Jersey and Connecticut-raised paleface, I can assure you that WASPs are as much of a tribe as Japanese-Americans or any other ethnic group living in this country and having bonded geographically for cultural reasons. You’re saying there’s no such thing as a racial component in U.S. whitebread culture (descendants of European tribes from England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, Russia, Italy)? Are you saying race is purely a matter of skin shade? This country is bursting with tribes. Zoomers are a tribe, etc.”
