Hong JS-309: Reflection on “Jews Don’t Count”

In “Jews Don’t Count”, David Baddiel contemplates on the circumstances of the modern-day Jews in a socioeconomic perspective. Through his personal experience and the popular culture, David Baddiel reveals the awkward situation Jews around the world faced: persecuted by both left and right politics. There are two main themes in “Jews Don’t Count” including the “low-high status” racism on Jews and the argument on the “whiteness” of Jews’ identity.

David Biddiel claims that Jews are probably the only ethnic group which suffered racism for being both rich and poor. Because of the refugee status of Jews in world war II and the occupations Jews chose, they were being labeled as “lying, thieving, and dirty” by the racists. Like many other first-gen immigrants and refugees, racists love to mislead public opinions by blaming them for unemployment issues, societal instability… In one of Nazi German’s famous slogan “Jews are lice, they cause typhus”, it reflects on Nazi’s idea to consider Jews as subhuman and spread the diseases. When Germany occupied Poland and created the Jewish Ghettos, the impoverished living situation allowed the disease to spread quickly, while the public health system advanced racism toward Jews in regard to diseases. In addition, this racist stereotype remains over the past century. In 2020, when the riots broke out in Paris against Israel action on Palestine, the crowd shouted “dirty Jew” and “dirty Zionist shit”. Here, it’s depressing to see how people are associating all the Jews with Zionists. Biddiel, in particular, identified himself as a secular Jew which isn’t religious or associated with the state of Israel. Many other Jews like Biddiel who were born in a Jewish family which fleed from Nazi Germany, grew up learning the stories of their parents. They are the creatures of the age, not in any way have to be the same, think the same, or believe the same. However, in public eyes, this isn’t the case. The subhuman image of jews isn’t only being reflected through the Nazi propaganda, it also exists in many modern-day conspiracy theory. In those theories, Jews are portrayed as “humanity’s secret master” who controlled the global financial system and directed the public opinions through media controls. Baddiel listed numerous of celebrity’s public endorsements of this idea such as John Cusack; however the example that came to mind is Mark Zuckerberg. As a graduate from phillips exeter and Harvard, Zuckerberg became the earliest billionaire in human history. Yes, he is a Jew, and yes, he is the top five richest person in the world. But the tweets and public media around the world “suspects” Zuckerberg is a robot, a “Lizard” and those voices seem to have no problem at all. Isn’t this metaphoring the submanism of Jews? And if the people don’t understand the Jewish history context, they will be confused why this is such a matter. Jews in many American popular country are associated with capitalism which many left-wing commuist are opposing of. Biddiel highlights the outsider view of the leftists and how they believe that the Jews are the haves, and they are the have nots. So any attack on the rich Jews is considered a rebellion instead of racism from their POV. Although I agree with Biddiel’s claim, I would like to argue that Jews are not the only group being subjected to this type of racism. For the Chinese ethics in the United States, the poor Chinatown workers were usually being subjected to the dirtiness and lower class. In some extreme cases, like the 2021 Atlanta Spa Shooting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Atlanta_spa_shootings. Chinese immigrant is also being labeled in a sexual way. On the other hand, due to the rising Chinese economy in the past decades, there are ongoing M&A activities abroad. And the rich Chinese capitalists are usually being labeled as “buying everything in the world” and “colonialism”. So this is a fundamental issue about racism, it doesn’t only exist in one particular group and certainly won’t stop in one particular group. 

“Are Jews white?” is a debate which has been going on for a while. David Biddiel believed that Jews are not white due to the fact that Whiteness is complex and cannot be judged just through appearance. For instance Yekkes Americans have nearly no physical difference than the White Americans, and if they don’t claim they are Jews, nobody will notice the difference. Therefore, some Jews decided to hide their identities by changing their last names and not reveal their Jewish origins. Many Maghrebi Jews can be easily identified as Jews due to their physical characteristics. However, regardless of the skin color and physical characteristics, Jews don’t possess the same amount of securities that the white people have. The majority and minority mindset are different, White American didn’t experience discrimination, genocide, and prejudice that older generation Jews had experienced. And those differences won’t be solved through money and power. Biddiel underlines the hierarchy of racism existing in the system, in which the Y words are not as serious as the N word in the public eyes. And the majority opinion on the issue of Jewish oppression is that if you are a Upper East Side Jew who has a summer house in Southampton, you are privileged. Which I think it’s true, if you are rich regardless of your ethnicity, you can enjoy more goods and services than the others. But as a whole group, Jews had suffered the most miseries than any others. Therefore, it’s not fair to use several people’s privilege to reflect the entire group’s privilege. It’s truly about how people feel, just like the introduction in Biddiel’s twitter account biography which is a simple of the word “Jew”. It reflects Biddiel’s belief of who he is: a Jew, not Jewish person. Only the acceptance of himself can lead him to find his true self. Although Biddiel didn’t give us the direct answer to his question about “Jewish Whiteness”, we can see clearly that Jewishness is far different than whiteness and cannot be treated equivalently.