How not to anger a JOC

/ jewsofcolourCAN

How not to anger a JOC

I`ve realized that most Jews who are white have a hard time dealing with Jews who are black or any other colour. Heck Jews who are darkly tanned are confronted with bigotry at shuls or other public places where they expect to be treated accordingly as a fellow Jew and not as some sort of racial pariah stalking out to steal a wallet as everyone is singing Aleniu. Nor are we here to attack you with our black on black crime that apparently you know so well. We are Jews who bleed and weep when terrorist attacks occurs to when swastikas are spray painted on the synagogue door. However this cannot penetrate the skulls of a lot of Jews who can pass as white and I`ll list them out for you,

  1. Stop asking if we converted, none of your darn business if we did or didn`t.
  2. If you like to constantly stare at us, take a picture it might last as long as your processing “Black Jew”
  3. Not all of us left Ethiopia or are Ethiopian, why are you asking for?
  4. No we cannot spice up your food because we`re black. Kugel not spicy enough for you?
  5. Do not ask us if this is the first time we have had Jewish food, some of us have been eating it as long as you have.
  6. Stop setting us up with other black p.o.c., the jungle fever isn`t good enough for your white passing children?
  7. When you see us at Limmud, why the automatic assumption we`re there to learn more. Trying to say something you can`t because it might sound bigoted?
  8. Never tell us we`re overreacting to racism, if we are stop overreacting to anti-Semitism.
  9. Black on black crime? You mean Jew on Jew violence, sounds really stupid right?
  10. Purim, can you stop with your black face, and hanging Afro-American dolls to represent Haman please?
  11. Just because you don`t see something as racist, doesn`t mean it isn`t racist. Brain cells are overworking on this Im sure.
  12. You have white privilege, sorry!! You`re white passing. Change that name and that religion, you`re a regular Joe Smith mishpocha!
  13. When you can use the term mulatto, shvatsa, nigger, and negro in regular conversation…ten points you`re a racist!
  14. Stop bringing up Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and complain how the Black community needs to stop supporting them. They don`t represent all Blacks just like Netanyahu and Likud represents all Jews.
  15. Boy you guys love to talk about the good old days when Blacks respected us, we helped them fight for civil rights. Question: Were you there marching with MLK Jr Or Black Lives Matter to say that now?

This list is just a few things Ive heard over the years. It isn`t extensive nor does this list conclusive. While you can sip your tea of noncompliance or unwillingness to listen, more and more JOC(Jews of Colour) will eventually be lost and go off the derech.

A Jew is a Jew no longer works for JOC who have simply had enough of bad treatment and no good memories with the Jewish community. Notice how Drake is so avoidant to embrace the Jewish people of his own? (His bar mitzvah video doesn`t count) At certain times it feels like I`m pushing for integration in synagogues across the country and even across North America. So to establish some kind of kosher labeling system for JOC, I`ve created your shul is racist rating,

  1. 1.Non-Racist membership
  2. Somewhat Racist
  3. Incredibly Racist
  4. Ⓤ Racist
  5. Steaming hot racist membership, JOC beware!

This isn`t safe spaces, this is a safe place to be an observant Jew within an observant community in any stream of Judaism.

9 thoughts on “How not to anger a JOC”

  1. This post is a bit racist. Any unknown person who comes into a shul are asked these questions no matter the concentration of melanocytes in their skin.
    They need to determine if a person is a Jew or gentile as only Jews will receive Aliyot to the Torah or other honors. Also, a giyyur ( conversion) needs to be a kosher one as in orthodox.

    Also this spurious equating of racist BLM to Martin Luther King is just so wrong. Yes, our family walked with and supported Martin Luther King and AAs during the civil rights movement.
    Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, Martin Luther King was an idol, hero of mine as a Jewish American.
    Just as MLK’s family has said, if MLK were alive today he would NOT indentify with nor partner with BLM.

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    • This comment is a bit ignorant. One major misconception in your comment is that this post is talking about “Any unknown person”. No. The conversation is about Jews of COLOR. Not any random Jew, but Jews of color and how their experiences in the Jewish community are different from white/white passing Jews.

      You think Jews of color are asked about their Jewishness based on the context of service participation?? I’ve been asked every time about my Jewishness randomly just out of pure racist curiosity. During services, at some shuls, no one asks me whether I’m Jewish because they automatically assume I am a goy converting.

      You are obviously white or white passing, because any Jew of color can relate to at least 2-3 points listed here. I can relate to 7.

      Sorry the post made you feel uneasy. Maybe you should take the time to learn from this experience, and stop projecting your guilt and get over your hurt feelings, because there is absolutely NOTHING racist about this post.

      For future reference, you should look up ‘racist’ too so that you can accurately use it next time.

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      • Hi, I wrote a long reply that I tried to post and seems to have disappeared? In any case the gist of it was in response to this line: “most Jews who are white have a hard time dealing with Jews who are black or any other colour”

        Is it really ‘most Jews who are white’ or is it a subset of the white Jews in the shuls you frequent in some almost entirely white, Ashkenazi community in the NY area? Just saying, there is no ‘whitey’ just as there is no ‘black man’ (as a construct, who all act the same and have the same opinions, etc., etc.).

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      • “This comment is a bit ignorant. One major misconception in your comment is that this post is talking about “Any unknown person”. No. The conversation is about Jews of COLOR. Not any random Jew, ”
        This part of your response is a bit ignorant. I was mentioning how this happens to nearly ALL new people unknown to the local Jewish community; it doesn’t matter if the person is a “Jew of color” or not.
        (What does that mean anyway? Many Jews if they don’t have olive skin to begin with , once bit in the sun, turn olive or dark anyway. Plus, this post uses the teerm “JOC” but explicitly discusses being a Black Jew.)

        I saw a blonde Jewess get questioned at a chabad about her Jewishness simply bc she was new and unknown AND probably also bc she had blonde hair as it is rare and she had light skin. I suppose perhaps bc very few Jews have blonde hair.
        As it turns out she had 3 Jewish grandparents and 1 goy, but was halakhically Jewish from birth as her maternal GM was a Jewess.

        No, I am not guilty at all, whatsoever.

        Of course, I cam empathize with a few of the points given, some of them are reasonable especially 4,5,6 and 15.

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  2. “most Jews who are white have a hard time dealing with Jews who are black or any other colour”

    Do you mean, white Ashkenazi Jews in the NY area? I wouldn’t know. In the synagogue my parents go to in Denver there is one black family which is a family of converts (they converted through that community so everybody knows this already, no need to ask). Here in my small community in Israel there are Ethiopians, a Korean-Jewish family, and the entire rainbow of colors of Jews. The skin color most likely to signal a person who is not halachically Jewish is white. That said, aside from your ascribing certain behaviors of certain people in a certain place to ‘most white Jews,’ I’m really sorry these experiences are common enough to make you feel that way. I wish you luck in raising awareness of the multi-racial nature of Am Yisrael. I think most of these ‘don’t say XX to an XX (type of person)’ articles, and it is really a genre at this point, can be summed up by ‘don’t be a jerk.’

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    • Eitan, hi. You point out that there are Jews of color in your community. As a mother of a Jew of color, I can assure you that there is racism in your small community, my son having experienced it there. Certainly there were fewer racist remarks or questions there, than there were in a certain other city in Israel that we lived in, but I can tell you that this blogger is right on.

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