Not Baghdadi Enough?

Hello and wishing a belated chag ha’atzmaut sameach (happy Israeli independence day) to all those who celebrated it last week!

Recently, I read a fascinating and very thoughtful article in the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper. Journalist Sigal Samuel wrote about her experiences at the ‘Jews of Color National Convening’ in New York City. This gathering provided a space for Jews from a diverse variety of non-Ashkenazi backgrounds, including Middle Eastern and African American, to meet, share their experiences, and discuss social and political issues. As someone who doesn’t identify as a Jew of colour (mainly because I’m, well, white), I don’t think it’s my place to discuss whether or not such spaces are necessary. However, the article did raise some questions, not to mention some uncomfortable emotions, for me with regard to my own Jewish identity.

I am what my mother has long referred to as an ‘Ashkefardi’ Jew. Most of my family is of Ashkenazi descent, with roots in Eastern Europe and the Netherlands, among other places. However, my grandmother is Sefardi and grew up in the Baghdadi Jewish community of Calcutta (Kolkata), India. I’ve always treasured my Iraqi-Indian roots, taking pleasure in our holiday customs and unique foods and using expressions in Judeo-Arabic and Hindi in addition to my grandfather’s Yiddish witticisms. I consider myself equally Ashkenazi and Sefardi, and find it infuriating when people (mostly Ashkenazim) try to tell me that I am Ashkenazi solely because this is my father’s ethnicity. (This is based on an idea that local customs are handed down through the father’s side, but that isn’t necessarily true for my family, and besides, I like to think that I can determine my own ethnic and cultural identity.) As it so happens, Ms. Samuel has written about her own roots in the Baghdadi community, although her family comes from Bombay (Mumbai), not Calcutta. She joyfully writes of how attending the convention gave her the opportunity to meet with her ‘Mizrahi sisters from Bombay and Baghdad’, women who understood references from her Baghdadi culture, the ‘story’ of her family. A story that my family shares, too.

Yet it was precisely Ms. Samuel’s ‘reunion’ with her fellow Baghdadis that brought up conflicted feelings for me. A picture of this encounter shows three smiling, olive-skinned women. All three have dark, curly hair and brown eyes, and the caption underneath shows that they all have surnames which clearly reflect their Middle Eastern heritage. Ms. Samuel recounts that this physical similarity helped her to bond with her newfound ‘sisters’, as they swapped tips on the best products for their curly hair. I read with a smile as Ms. Samuel described her delight at finally finding a group of people who also knew what halek was (date syrup traditionally eaten at Passover, if you were wondering). But I couldn’t help thinking – I am a pale skinned, blue eyed, wavy-haired woman with an anglicised, originally Polish surname. Growing up as a Jew in the UK, I was to a large extent part of the dominant Ashkenazi culture, whose narrative often leaves little room for Jews of other ethnic backgrounds. My lack of outward resemblance to these proud Mizrahi women exacerbated the fact that I don’t fully understand the struggles that come with being a ‘Jew of colour’. At least one part of my culture is widely represented and seen as the norm, and I don’t need to worry about not fitting into ‘white’ spaces, Jewish or otherwise, based solely on my appearance. And I wondered, with a pang, if I could be counted as part of a Sefardi ‘sisterhood’ – whether I was ‘Baghdadi enough’.

However, this disturbing gap in my ability to relate to my Baghdadi brethren also helped me realise that I had difficulty relating to how some participants in the convention defined us – and, by extension, ‘Jews of colour’ – in the first place. The article frequently uses the word ‘Mizrahi’ to describe Jews of Middle-Eastern descent, but it’s not a term I use to describe my own heritage, partly because, rightly or wrongly, I understand the term within a specific Israeli context, and partly because it’s not a term I’ve ever heard my Baghdadi relatives use to define themselves. In fact, my grandmother had never even heard of it when I asked her about it a few years ago, using the broader term, ‘Sefardi’, instead. Further, I was somewhat confused to read of the (Muslim) head of the Arab American Association’s emotional reaching out to her ‘Arab Jewish brothers and sisters’. Whilst this was undoubtedly a moving call for solidarity and unity, as the partial descendent of Jews from Arab countries, I have not heard any of my relatives describe themselves as Arab. Maybe if our family had come to the UK straight from Iraq (where my great-grandfather was born) instead of via India, things would have been different, but my grandmother’s generation was already further removed from Arabic culture than that of her parents. Whereas my great-grandparents spoke Judeo-Arabic and my great-grandfather enjoyed listening to Arabic music, these elements of Iraqi culture were not passed down to their more westernised children. Further, it has always seemed to me that Iraqi Jews were enough of a distinct ethnic group that it would be inappropriate to define them solely as ‘Arab’. All of which is to say that Baghdadi identity may be harder to define, or more flexible, than it initially appears. Indeed, from what my grandmother has told me, the Baghdadi community in British-ruled India occupied a kind of ‘in-between’ position – not quite Indian, but not fully accepted as British either. This suggests that, to some extent, their ethnicity was a matter of perception.

This is not to say that those Middle Eastern Jews who identify as Jews of colour or as Arab Jews should not do so, or that they should not be able to embrace their ethnic and cultural identities. Rather, I want to think about how the diverse ways in which Jews choose to identify themselves ethnically can allow for internal conflict as well as celebration, a conflict Ms. Samuel touches on in her description of Jews of Middle Eastern descent who initially believed they were ‘too white’ or ‘too privileged’ to attend the gathering in New York. I’m not sure how to balance creating a space where Jews of colour can feel safe and included with providing room for everyone who wishes to be part of it, and I’m not sure I’d be able to enter such a space without feeling like an imposter. However, I hope that through being able to articulate our own, fluid identities, our own stories, in an equal and inclusive way, we Jews can create a rich and nuanced view of Jewish culture, one in which everyone feels that they are ‘enough’.

Never Again? Yom HaShoah and Modern-Day Anti-Semitism

More than anywhere else I have set foot, what remains of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp embodies loneliness. Long, desolate stretches of green interspersed with hunched barracks filled with the scrawled graffiti of decades of thoughtless visitors. Looming before it all, that stark, red watchtower, gateway to hell, now a landmark that local people cycled by without a second glance. I was seventeen, there as part of a government initiative with many other students my age, from a rich variety of cultures and faiths, yet it was here, in this loneliest of places, scene of so much death, that I started to come to a terrible realisation – that maybe we, the Jews, really are all alone in the world.

Growing up in London, I was taught always to be grateful to Britain. Indeed, I still am. My grandfather, of blessed memory, was a Holocaust survivor who, thanks to the heroic efforts of Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld, was able to escape Nazi-occupied Vienna and come to Britain on the Kindertransport at the age of fifteen. His father and most of his extended family were murdered. Were it not for the decision of the British government to welcome my grandfather and other Jewish children from Austria, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, I certainly would not be here writing this today. Yet, even after reaching the safe haven of Britain, my grandfather encountered anti-Semitism. His landlady expressed surprise that he did not have horns, and the term ‘Jew-boy’ was used to describe any individual seen as stingy or miserly. This type of anti-Semitism wasn’t the hate-filled violence that my grandfather was subjected to when he was arrested on Kristallnacht. It was casual, almost benign, lurking just below the surface.

Fast-forward nearly eighty years, and this latent anti-Semitism has taken other forms. Over the past few weeks, I have watched from the USA as British politics becomes engulfed in a debate over anti-Semitic comments made by members of the Labour Party and the National Union of Students. Those coming under criticism apparently see themselves as fighting against social injustice and inequality, and would surely never identify as racist. Yet it seems that this commitment to justice and tolerance doesn’t extend to Jews. What’s more, others, in an attempt to defend their colleagues who have made bigoted remarks, have denied that their comments were anti-Semitic at all, and even that there is no problem with anti-Semitism within their party. It is easier to attempt to silence Jews’ concerns than admit that we might be qualified to recognise our own oppression.

Despite current events on university campuses and beyond, I don’t think such anti-Semitism is confined to one political group or ideology. Some of the tropes used, such as the implication that Jews control the media, have existed for many years previously and will no doubt be perpetuated in ever-changing forms over the years to come. Growing up in the UK and attending university there, I rarely experienced direct anti-Semitism, and certainly was not subjected to any physical violence on account of my religion. Yet anti-Semitism would raise its head where it was least expected – a casual comment during a school debate, graffiti reading ‘Jihad 4 Israel: Kill Jews’ that the bus to school drove by every day during Operation Cast Lead, terms of abuse hurled out of passing cars, a drunken friend’s thoughtless slur. Little reminders that, however secure I might have felt in an open, tolerant, society, I wasn’t quite welcome, did not quite belong.

Today is Yom HaShoah, the day in the Jewish calendar on which we remember the millions of Jews savagely killed for the sole reason that they were Jews, the Gypsies, gay people, disabled people, political prisoners, members of religious minorities, and countless others who died horrible deaths because they did not fit into the Nazis’ twisted worldview. The culmination of centuries of anti-Semitism, in which Jews were now seen not only as Christ-killers, but as subhuman. Do I think the bigoted remarks of a few misguided individuals somehow herald a second Holocaust (God forbid)? Do I think Jews have no future in Europe, as some would claim? Do I think all non-Jews secretly hate Jews and want to wipe us off the face of the Earth? The answer to all these questions is a resounding ‘no’. And yet…The subtle and not-so-subtle instances of anti-Semitism I’ve encountered over the years, the current reminder that anti-Jewish hatred can flourish even in the most liberal circles, puts me in mind of the fact that in many respects, early-1930s Germany also seemed like an open, tolerant society. That in order to carry out their ‘Final Solution’, the Nazis needed the assistance of many thousands of ordinary people across Europe, whether actively taking part in the extermination or simply turning a blind eye. And I can’t help but wonder, if such a thing were to happen again, if Jews once again found themselves under threat of annihilation, how many people would care enough to help stop it? Would the world learn from its previous mistakes?

I hope so. But I’m not sure.

May the memory of all those murdered in the Shoah be for a blessing.

Glossary:

Kindertransport: German for ‘Children’s Transport’ – the scheme under which the British government allowed thousands of Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia to take refuge in the UK just before the outbreak of World War II.

Kristallnacht: ‘Crystal Night’ or ‘The Night of Broken Glass’ – the night of 9^th November, 1938, which saw widespread anti-Jewish pogroms across Germany and Austria. Jewish property and synagogues were destroyed and Jews suffered violence, humiliation, arrest, and deportation to concentration camps.

Operation Cast Lead: Israeli military operation against Hamas in Gaza during the winter of 2008-9.

Shoah: Hebrew term for the Holocaust, meaning ‘destruction’.