It’s time for Jews to become intersectional

This question seems to be asked any time a major political development is revealed, especially in the Diaspora. One might ask, for example, if Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is good for the Jews; many asked if Obama’s election in 2008 was good for the Jews; and there have been any number of pieces questioning whether or not Syrian refugees are relevant to American Jews.

The newest installment, no doubt inspired by his reliance on anti-Semitic rhetoric and jokes to garner popularity and the now well-known Holocaust references of some of his followers, combined with his invitation to AIPAC’s policy conference, seems to be: “Is Donald Trump good for the Jews?”

There are many good reasons to ask that question — but at the same time, we lose something every time we do.

Over the last half century, American Jews experienced unprecedented levels of socioeconomic and cultural upward mobility. While once we were an immigrant group against which discrimination was commonplace, anti-Semitism, while still present in the United States, is nowhere near as prevalent as it was at the beginning of the 20th century.

The societal privilege we gained is what allows us to even ask the question of whether or not a certain politician or policy is “good for the Jews” in the first place. But this question isn’t the one we should be asking, and its existence is indicative of a far more deep-seated problem within the Jewish community.

As Jews became part of the white middle-class in the United States, we lost our racial and economic minority status. Today, however, we still cling very closely to our minority status and our history of persecution both in the United States and abroad. Despite this, we’re still fully complacent to remain as solidly middle-class as we might want to be.

And this paradox — claiming to still be a minority because of our past, while also asserting that we are part of the majority in the present — has major consequences for the ways in which we see ourselves in the United States. It means that our narrative of triumph over persecution and adversity leaves out Jews of color, queer and transgender Jews, and Jews who are still experiencing socioeconomic hardship. The list can, and does, go on.

Being both a minority and part of the majority means that we’ve lost sight of what it actually means to be a minority in the United States. When we ask if someone is good or bad for the Jews, we not only limit the answer to a certain segment of Jews, but also exclude from our answer other minorities for whom that same policy or presidential candidate might be detrimental.

Which brings us back to the topic of intersectionality. Somewhere along our upward socioeconomic climb to the middle class, we lost sight of the fact that we were once genuinely minorities, and used to face the consequences thereof. As we moved away from urban immigrant enclaves and into middle-class suburbs, we forgot that Trump might be good for the Jews, but will be terrible for other minorities who have not experienced the same upward mobility that we have.

The question of whether or not Trump — or anyone — is good for the Jews desperately needs to be broadened. If we’re so keen to remind ourselves and the world around us that we were once victims of systemic discrimination and anti-Semitism, then we must also leverage that same collective memory of second-class citizenship alongside our relatively newfound majority status to make the United States better for those who have yet to experience that shift. It is time for Jews to become intersectional.

The same discrimination that we faced in the U.S. is still present for any number of ethnic or racial minorities here, but we’ve become blind to it. We cannot forget it — and we have the charge to fight against it. This is why I found Trump’s invitation to AIPAC so upsetting. In what is sure to be a pandering to the some 18,000 pro-Israel Americans who assembled in Washington, D.C. this week, the focus has solely been on whether or Trump can be good for the Jews.

AIPAC’s initial refusal to allow protest of Trump’s speaking engagement speaks volumes about the position of American Jews today, as well as our tone-deafness to the oppression of those around us. When we focus solely on whether Trump is good for us, the Jews, then we forget that being good for us should be intrinsically tied to being good for other religious, racial, and ethnic minorities in our country today.

If we truly want to remember the fact that we once were a minority in the United States, then we need to remember what that meant to our ancestors who had to live with the consequences of minority status. And we must not forget those who still have to live with those consequences.

And to answer the question: No, Donald Trump is not good for the Jews — but the reason that he isn’t goes beyond his personal, casual anti-Semitism and the virulent anti-Semitism of some of his followers. We must come to this conclusion not just because of his personal prejudice against Jews, but also his racism, xenophobia against both Latin Americans and Muslims and misogyny.

We, as American Jews, need to assert ourselves in the conversation about intersectionality — but the only way for us to do that is to be intersectional ourselves.

Amram Altzman is a student at List College.