Jews Don't Count

by David Baddiel

Significantly, one of the things that marks Jewishness out as different from other ethnicities is that it can be hidden. One of the many contradictory beliefs held by antisemites is that Jews are incredibly, obviously Jewish—because they all have big noses and swarthy skin and dark hair and are fattened up with their own greed—and simultaneously difficult to spot, which is what allows them to get under the radar of non-Jews and work their despicable secret doings. This is why the Nazis were able to have cartoons of Jews that depicted them in a very recognizable, uniformly grotesque manner—big noses, swarthy skin, dark hair, fattened with their own greed—but also extensive and complex checks for spotting Jews. And, of course, the requirement of Jews to wear armbands that identified them as Jews. This ability to hide is important in the omission of Jews from identity politics, because most identities, sexual ones aside, are fairly impossible to hide. Jews can hide; they can pass as non-Jews. So the assumption appears to be that because they are not immediately visible, they don’t suffer racism. Jews don’t really suffer from being considered different, because they don’t look different. But consider what the woman at the wedding said. She doesn’t tell people she’s Jewish, because “people don’t like them.” Which would suggest that Jews don’t really suffer from being thought of as different as long as people don’t know they’re Jews: as long as they, like gays in the closet, hid...