Abstract
In this personal reflection, the author interrogates the question of whether she is a Jew of Color. She explores the lack of consensus about clear definitions for this category and raises questions about how the category has been defined over time. Specifically, the author examines three main ways in which researchers, individuals, or institutions have been setting the parameters to decide who to include in the category of Jews of Color, identifying both their strengths and limitations. As those engaged in pro-inclusion work will continue to use different approaches and orientations to the category of Jews of Color, she argues that clarity regarding the classification schema employed to define Jews of Color is a critical starting point for discussing Jewish American diversity.
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Notes
I have continued doing research on Syrian Jews after completing my doctorate in 2019. The term Jew of Color has come up on rare occasions since.
Although American census categories do not include Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) as an option to choose in terms of race, both academic and public discourse increasingly interrogates the ways in which MENA Americans are racialized, including efforts to change census categories. See for example Maghbouleh et al. (2022).
Questions around Hispanic identification and racialization in America are complicated. The US Census Bureau asks a two-part question of respondents, first inquiring about Hispanic identity, and then broaching the question of racial identity. Other organizations proceed differently (see for example how the Pew Research Center measures US Latinos’ racial identities).
The problem is compounded by groups and individuals who take the definition of white (and whiteness) as unproblematic as well. While I do not focus my attention on this issue, it does manifest in my discussion below when mentioning (for example) white Sephardic Jews. Let me here acknowledge the complexity of white as a category as well, without always writing “white” (or “whiteness”) in quotation marks in what follows.
See, for example, a recent community study of the Jewish population in LA (Aronson et al. 2022).
If we include the local studies in the way that Counting Inconsistencies did, the category—and its ensuing JOCs population estimate—would expand to take into account non-Jewish people of Color who belong to Jewish households.
Moreover, there is important work needed to investigate whether an effort is being made alongside these narrow categories to better understand why certain populations have been undercounted (for example, relating to “Jewish sounding” last names). The most recent Pew study on Jewish Americans did not rely on distinctive Jewish names for sampling—avoiding one of the main aspects of sampling design that can lead to undercounting JOCs.
I lean towards this orientation especially at this point in time where the scholarly work around the category of JOC is so nascent, fresh, and at times political. As the category gains greater clarity, the schema I prioritize for the definition of JOC might change.
References
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Bitton, M. Personal Reflection: Am I a Jew of Color? Negotiating Competing Definitions of JOC. Cont Jewry (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-023-09478-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-023-09478-x