Jews Don't Count

by David Baddiel

Jews, therefore, as far as progressives are concerned, don’t represent anything outside of themselves. No victory is claimed by championing their experience, and this leads to a subtle—and unconscious—exclusion.

it is the prerogative of those on the receiving end of any specific racism to define that racism.

It is a progressive article of faith—much heightened during the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd in 2020—that those who do not experience racism need to listen, to learn, to accept and not challenge, when others speak about their experiences. Except, it seems, when Jews do. Non-Jews, including progressive non-Jews, are still very happy to tell Jews whether or not the utterance about them was in fact racist.

being white is not about skin color, but security. It means you are protected because you are a member of the majority culture.

When it is pointed out to him that sometimes anticapitalism blurs into antisemitism, his first instinct is to protect the anticapitalism and dismiss the antisemitism with irritation.

Either way, racists say Jews aren’t white. Problem is, progressives, in general, tend to think they are white and, therefore, not really deserving of the protections progressive movements offer to non-white people facing racism.

I said earlier that being white was not just about skin color, but about security. That’s what white privilege represents. White really means: safe.