Racism in Jewish communities is a source of concern for people of color, particularly for Jews of color. Black Jews, Indigenous Jews, and other Jews of color report that they experience racism from white Jews in many countries, including Canada, France, Kenya, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews also report experiences with racism by Ashkenazi Jews. The centering of Ashkenazi Jews is sometimes known as Ashkenormativity. In historically white-dominated countries with a legacy of anti-Black racism, such as the United States and South Africa, racism within the Jewish community often manifests itself as anti-Blackness. In Israel, racism among Israeli Jews often manifests itself as discrimination and prejudice against Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, Ethiopian Jews, African immigrants, and Palestinians.
Jews of color
Jews of color are Jewish people who are Black, Asian, Indigenous (Māori Jews, Native American Jews, etc.), or otherwise non-white. Hispanic and Latino Jews may be of any race. Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews may or may not be Jews of color. While it is sometimes assumed that Ashkenazi Jews are white and Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews are Jews of color, there are both Ashkenazi Jews of color and white Sephardi and white Mizrahi Jews.
The Multiracial Jewish Network has published a privilege checklist which details the marginalization which is faced by Jews of color. Congregation Beth Israel of Portland, Oregon has also published a "White-Ashkenazi Awareness Checklist", detailing the white privilege that white Ashkenazi Jews have over Jews of color and non-Ashkenazi Jews.
LGBT Jews of color face unique issues when they navigate through the intersections of racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and transphobia. The Multiracial Jewish Network has created a Queer Jews of Color Resource List in order to aid LGBT Jews of color. The Queer Mikveh Project is a grassroots project to create safe space that centers LGBT Jews of color.
Issues Colonialism and slavery Jews participated in the European colonization of the Americas, particularly Western European Jews with origins in Portugal, Spain, England, the Netherlands, and Germany. Some Jews also owned Black slaves in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean, most notably in Brazil and Suriname, but also in Barbados, Jamaica, Curaçao, and elsewhere."Suriname", The Historical Encyclopaedia of world slavery, Volume 1, by Junius, p. Rodriguez, p. 622Schorsch, Jonathan (2004). Jews and blacks in the early modern world. Cambridge University Press, p. 60 Especially in Suriname, white Sephardi Jews owned many large plantations.Rodriguez, Junius. The Historical encyclopedia of world slavery, Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, 1997, p. 622 Most Jewish slave owners in the United States and the Caribbean were white Sephardim of Spanish and Portuguese descent. However, a small number of white Ashkenazi Jews also participated in slavery, most of whom were of German descent. The Mordecai House in Raleigh, North Carolina is a notable example of a plantation owned by an Ashkenazi slave owner. The Moses Mordecai family were of German-Jewish descent. Populations of Black Jews have been found throughout the Americas for centuries, with the most significant population living in Suriname. White Jewish male slave owners often converted their slaves to Judaism or fathered children with enslaved Black women. While many Black Jews during the colonial period were converts, including patrilineal Jews who were converted as children, many Black Jews were Jewish from birth for multiple generations by the late 18th century. Black Jews who are descended from enslaved people, as well as non-Jewish Black people of Jewish descent, have lived for centuries in Jamaica, New York City, and Charleston, South Carolina. Black Jews have experienced discrimination and exclusion in multiple countries, including the United States, Suriname, and elsewhere.
The historian Jacob Rader Marcus has concluded that 40% of Jewish households nationwide owned slaves, with 75% of Jewish families owning slaves in the cities of Richmond, Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia. Only around six Jewish families lived in Savannah in 1771. In 1790, Jews in Charleston owned a total of 93 slaves. The historian Eli Faber has concluded that Jewish involvement in the slavery was "exceedingly limited". In the United States, most Jews lived in urban areas and few owned large plantations or rural properties where slavery was most heavily concentrated. Faber has stated that Jews were more likely to own slaves compared to non-Jews, but on average non-Jews owned a greater number of slaves. British Jews played a minor role in the sale of slaves. The historian David Brion Davis has written that in 1830 in the American South there were only "120 Jews among the 45,000 slaveholders owning twenty or more slaves and only twenty Jews among the 12,000 slaveholders owning fifty or more slaves."
Discrimination against non-Ashkenazim Ashkenormativity is a form of Eurocentrism within Jewish communities that privileges Ashkenazi Jews (often white Ashkenazi Jews of European descent), over Sephardim, Mizrahim, and other Jews of non-Ashkenazi background. Ashkenormativity is not synonymous with whiteness, as many Jews are Ashkenazim of color and many Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews are white.
Jewish intelligence and race science Some Jews have claimed that Jewish people as a whole, or Ashkenazi Jews in particular, are innately more intelligent on average compared to non-Jews or Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews. Jewish intelligence and Jewish IQs have been widely discussed in the context of scientific racism. The idea that biology determines Jewish intelligence has been criticized as dangerous, pseudoscientific, and racist. Some Jewish intellectuals including Bret Stephens and Steven Pinker have promoted the idea that Ashkenazi Jews tend to be more intelligent.
White supremacy A small number of Jewish people and a small number of people of Jewish descent have affiliated themselves with organizations which espouse white supremacist, white nationalist, neo-Confederate, and neo-Nazi ideologies. Michael Levin and Michael H. Hart, prominent white nationalists, are among the few Jews who openly affiliate with proponents of the movement. Much of the white nationalist movement endorses racial antisemitism and as a result, it does not welcome Jews as members of the movement due to its belief that all Jews are collectively non-white, even Jews who are of European descent. However, some strands of white nationalism are inclusive of white Jewish people.Carol M. Swain, The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 70 Some white supremacists who are Jewish or of Jewish descent, such as Michael H. Hart and Lawrence Auster, have denounced antisemitism within the white supremacist movement and have pushed for antisemites, Holocaust deniers, and neo-Nazis to be banned from white nationalist conferences. The white supremacist Harold von Braunhut, born Harold Braunhut, added "von" to his name to sound less Jewish and affiliated himself with the KKK and the Aryan Nations. Dan Burros was a member of the American Nazi Party and the United Klans of America; killing himself with a gun several hours after his Jewishness was publicly exposed.Ted Robert Gurr. Violence in America: The History of Crime. Sage, 2004. pages 142–143The Believer DVD, "An Interview with Director Henry Bean", 2001
Because antisemitism was not a core belief of the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan, some white Southern Jews were members of the KKK. The revival of the KKK in the 1920s, which in part was tied to the lynching of Leo Frank, intensified antisemitism within the KKK. Bernard Postal of the B'nai B'rith noted the presence of Jews within the KKK in his 1928 Jewish Tribune article "Jews in the Ku Klux Klan". The presence of a small number of Jews in the first KKK has been highlighted by antisemitic propaganda, such as The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, to falsely allege that white Jews played a dominant role in racist movements and that "Jewish businessmen" financed the resurgence of the Ku Klu Klan.
According to Ilana Kaufman, the executive director of the Jews of Color Alliance, discussions about white supremacy and white nationalism can be uncomfortable for white Jewish people who believe that the Jewish community has largely been supportive of people of color. According to Kaufman, discussions about "bias" or "racism" are more palatable to white Jews, while addressing white Jewish complicity in white supremacy and acknowledging the erasure of Jews of color are often considered provocative.
By country Canada In 2022, the Ontario Jewish Archives and the No Silence on Race organization created a multi-media exhibit called "Periphery", which highlighted the voices of Jews of color and discussed racism within the Jewish community.
France Black Jews in France report facing both racism from white people, including white Jews, as well as antisemitism from non-Jews, including Black non-Jews. Guershon N’duwa of the Black-Jewish Federation in Paris has criticized the erasure and silencing of Black-Jewish perspectives in discussions about antisemitism and racism. N’duwa has stated that the voices of white Jews are prioritized in France over the voices of Black Jews, and that Black Jews are not sufficiently recognized within the French-Jewish community.
The book In the Shadow of Moses includes a chapter titled "The Color of Judaism", written by Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot and Cécile Coquet-Mokoko, which describes the challenges Black Jews in France face in normalizing "their presence in Jewish spaces in France by becoming visible" because "their identification with the Jewish people is inseparable from the issue of visibility."
Israel
Kenya The Jewish community in Nairobi, Kenya, has historically been predominantly white. When some Black Kenyans began converting to Judaism and joined the mostly white Nairobi Synagogue, some white members of the synagogue initially refused to accept Black converts as Jewish and a small number left the synagogue in protest. Over time, Black Jews have integrated into the synagogue, and by 2018 about a third of all congregants were Black.
New Zealand Māori Jews in New Zealand report experiencing racism within the New Zealand Jewish community, often feeling erased or excluded due to "prejudiced feelings and attitudes that are based upon signifiers of their Otherness such as skin colour and facial features." Dark-skinned Māori Jews may experience less acceptance within the Jewish community compared to light-skinned Māori Jews. Māori Jews who can "pass" as Pākehā are treated more favorably, but may have their Māori identity erased or questioned.
South Africa While many white South Africans involved in the anti-apartheid movement were Jewish, few white Jews overall were actively involved in opposing apartheid. Most white South African Jews were bystanders who were not actively involved in anti-apartheid activism, and some were supporters of apartheid. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies officially condemned apartheid in 1985, having previously maintained a neutral position. As early as the late 1950s, Jewish anti-apartheid activists had brought anti-apartheid resolutions to the Board of Deputies that were routinely voted down. The Jewish Chronicle has alleged that the board had "played toadying and inglorious roles over the years in defending Israel’s ties and in support of the apartheid government."
United Kingdom