Jew[ish]

by Matt Greene

If Jews are successful and seen to be thriving in a system that suits their needs, they can serve as the scapegoat when the system stops working. Unlike traditional racism, which tends to be binary, relying on a few baseless stereotypes, anti-Jewish racism is quantum: Jews are at once weak beyond pity and powerful beyond belief.

Our whiteness can be revoked or reinforced simultaneously and according to whose agenda it suits at a particular moment.

For me, as I suspect for many Jewish people, an awareness of the contradictions that lie at the heart of my Jewishness is never far from the surface but, when push comes to shove, as it inevitably does, and as with all matters concerning race, the choice is not ours to make; it will be made by racists, on internet message boards, in parliamentary debates, on Twitter or Fox News, in the White House, in online manifestos and marching through universities with flaming torches held aloft.