Expanding the DEI Conversation: Antisemitism, Religion, and Racism

When people tell me that they are uncomfortable including religion in DEI programming, I remind them that antisemitism is not only about faith. It’s racism against Jews.* (see NOTE below)

Because Jews are an ethnoreligious group, addressing antisemitism requires us to challenge DEI’s tendency to separate conversations of religious inclusion from conversations about race and ethnicity.

If you are excluding discussions of anti-Jewish hate from your programming on antiracism or DEI, on what basis? Let's look at some of the familiar arguments.

TRUE OR FALSE?

1. Antisemitism has played no role in the history of racist discourse and is separate from European racism.🔥

FALSE. Scholars have demonstrated that the history of modern antisemitism is related to the development of scientific racism during the Enlightenment. European modernity's pseudoscientific, racist persecution of Black people, Jews, and Muslims are interconnected phenomena.

2. Antisemitism is a thing of the past.🔥

FALSE. In fact, there has been a staggering rise in antisemitic incidents the US, Canada, and Europe in recent years and post-October 7.

3. Jews are privileged and powerful and cannot be "victims" of racism or bias.🔥

FALSE. In fact, we only need to look at Nazi Germany to see how this belief in Jews' "power"--which echoes classic antisemitic tropes--was used to scapegoat Jews for discrimination and, eventually, extermination.

Leaders, the uptick in hate--especially antisemitism and Islamophobia--is real. What intentional steps are you taking to address the marginalization of religious minorities and ensure that your culture is welcoming for all?

*NOTE:

• I'm not minimizing the significance of religious inclusion; rather, my point is that the context of ethnicity and racialization has been equally important for Jews since the late 19th century. Of course, the historical relationship between anti-Black racism, anti-Muslim/anti-Arab racism, and antisemitism in the modern world does not inoculate Ashkenzi Jews (Jewish people of Central or Eastern European ancestry) against racism—in the past or present.

• The purpose of this article is not to imply that antisemitism is the same as anti-Black racism in the US, or that race ought to be the privileged framework for understanding anti-Jewish bias/hate. Both faith-based and ethnic/racial frameworks are crucial to understanding who Jewish people are, as well as the traumatic history of European antisemitism and its legacy for us today.

• Finally, on a more personal note, my discussion of antisemitism as "racism against Jews" is not an effort to elide my own whiteness. I plan to explore Jews’ complex relationship to whiteness—as well as the experiences of Jews of color globally—in a separate piece.

  Image description: Graphic illustration of stock figures of people in diverse colors.

  mage credit: ajijchan/iStock/Getty Images Plus

  https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/05/23/diversity-statements-are-new-faith-statements-opinion