Seattle 11, or An Essay Draft about Jews

I knew coming here just in time for Passover was a bit of a mistake. Though I've found Jewish community, and there are plenty of synagogues, let us be honest: Seattle is not New York. Your average non-Jew Seattleite has no idea there's a Jewish holiday going on, not only because they don't know many Jews, but because the stores are putting matzah in the aisle with the crackers, and gefilte fish next to egg noodles, and nobody seems to have heard of horseradish in a jar. Creamed horseradish, next to the ketchup? Yes. Raw horseradish, in the produce section? Yes. Bottles of Goldman's red and white horseradish in the kosher aisle? What kosher aisle? You mean the place with the Maneschewitz grape juice next to the egg noodles?

I've been answering a lot of questions about Passover this week - my roommate wanted to know if Passover food traditions have to do with cleansing the body, someone asked if matzah is "that stuff made with lamb's blood", and, perhaps more understandably, another Jew asked, "So why do beans and rice count as bread?" (The answers: No. No. It's complicated. And has to do with rabbis and geography.)

But there's been one other question that's come up twice, from two different people who do not know each other, who both are Black and were raised Baptist. One is my roomate's boyfriend, the other a student in my writing class.

"Is Jew a bad word? Isn't it correct to call someone Jewish, but not a Jew? Is calling someone a Jew like calling them the n-word?"

I've never had to articulate this before. My use of the word "Jew" has been intuitive for most of my life. I was lucky enough to grow up in a place where I never heard terms like "Jewing people down" or "kike". And yet, in both literature and history, I encountered the use of the word "Jew" as something derogatory. After talking it out with both these folks, I realized that the distinction is one that's very Jewish-specific, and was able to form some coherent thoughts on it.

Because "Jewish" is both a religion and an ethnicity, it challenges the assumptions we make about language. When referring to someone's religion, it's entirely appropriate to refer to them as "a Christian", "a Muslim," or "a pagan." In this context, it is appropriate - and to me, preferable - to be called "a Jew."

Ethnicity is a little more complicated. After all, many people identify as Jews without ever practicing the religion. If we look at other ethnic groups for precedent, it gets more confusing. We refer to people as "Latino" or "Asian." These are used as adjectives to modify some other identifier - "an Asian man," "a Latino professor." With race, it gets even more defined - would any politically conscious person of my generation ever refer to someone as "a Black?"

And yet, many of us Jews persist in identifying ourselves as "a Jew." What's more, some of us identify with the ethnicities within Judaism, calling ourselves Ashkenazi, Sephardic, or Mizrachi. I have used (and have heard) Jews resist using these words as adjectives, calling themselves "an Ashki", "a Sephardi", "a Mizrachi," though use of the adjective form is more common, as in "I'm a Mizrachi Jew." Does this mean other people shouldn't? Is there a parallel between Black-on-Black use of the word "nigger" and Jew-on-Jew use of the word Jew? I'm pretty sure there isn't. "Jew" isn't a derivative of another word, designed and meant to be used disparagingly.

I think, for some of us, it comes down to the question of central identity: what you're willing to use as a modifier, and what you want to hold firm. In Hebrew school, they once asked us:

"Do you identify as a Jewish American, or an American Jew?"

Many of us didn't get the difference; as assimilated kids, our identities were never challenged. Most of us didn't feel like our Jewishness excluded us from American culture. Most of us didn't know what it meant to choose assimilation over culture. It has already been chosen for us. Those of us who did get the distinction had very clear and specific preferences.

"I'm a Jewish American, because I love my country more than I love Israel."
"I'm an American Jew because my grandma says no matter where they kick us out from, we'll always be Jews."
"I'm an American Jew because I pray in the morning before I say the Pledge of Allegiance."
"I'm a Jewish American because I never pray."

I never forgot that lesson. My answer is not among those above. I had no answer at the time. Today, I'd say I'm an American Jew because when I'm in a foreign place, I look for communities of Jews before I look for communities of Americans. The rituals of Judaism create a home for me, even among strangers.

But of course, that's not the case for everyone. There are those Jewish Americans (or Jewish women, Jewish doctors, Jewish Canadians, or Jewish Marxists) who choose to centralize some other aspect of their identity. To call them "a Jew" would not be incorrect or cruel, and certainly not the equivalent of calling them a racial slur. But it might make them uncomfortable, especially if s/he isn't used to identifying solely as a Jew. In short: if you're unfamiliar with someone's identity, say they're Jewish. But don't be afraid that the PC police will come running after you for saying "Jew."

Unless, of course, you accompany it with a word like "dirty." There's no confusion about that.