Against Analogy
JVL Introduction
A thoughtful set of reflections on white Jews showing solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
In recent weeks various establishment Jewish bodies in the States have rushed to support the agencies of law enforcement.
It forces radical Jews to confront their communities’ instincts to side with the forces of law and order – of white supremacy.
So many are turning to Jewish history of oppression and rebellion: We, too, have been victims.
Natural, but wrong, says Ratskoff: white Jews in the movements should not seek similarities, but highlight the differences.
Resist the impulse to understand anti-Blackness through antisemitism, stop abdicating responsibility, and recognise ones complicity with the white supremacist police state.
This article was originally published by Jewish Currents on Tue 9 Jun 2020. Read the original here.
Against Analogy
To build solidarity in this moment, white Jews should resist the impulse to highlight similarities between histories of antisemitism and anti-Blackness.
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I spent most of my adult working life driving a London Taxi(black cab) and many of my colleagues were ( I’m retired) Jewish. Jewish London Taxi drivers is something of a racial cliché, so I should point out this is a reality based on a historical connection that dates back to the English Civil War (yes we did have one of those) when Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Republicans arranged with Dutch Jewish leaders for thousands of Jews to come to London to run the London cab trade. For the previous three and a half centuries it was illegal for Jews to live in England. Cromwell figured the Jews would, as a consequence, be loyal to him, at a time when two and a half thousand men and horses represented a potential army and possible threat. The connection between Jews and cab driving is diminishing but is still strong.
Cab driving is an oppressive form of employment. You are in constant opposition with other cab drivers, illegal cab drivers, other drivers in general, the passenger on your cab, pedestrians, cyclists, police, parking wardens, protesters who block your way, politicians who support protesters, impose speed limits, close roads, instigate one way systems, infact humanity in general. Cab drivers are by necessity right wing and reactionary.
What I’m trying to say in a very round about way(no pun intended) is that many of the people with whom I associated were very right wing Jews who allowed me to join in their conversations because of my mother’s Jewishness and my consequent direct connection with Whitechapel and the fact that my wife was also Jewish from Stamford Hill, daughter of a cab driver. My Socialist views and sympathy with the plight of Palestinians, immigrants of colour, poor and vulnerable people in general, were not appreciated and many of our conversation became heated and I was frequently condemned as being anti Semitic for holding such views. To my mind it was nonsensical and counter intuitive that people with a such a long collective history of being oppressed, should have such vehement racist and reactionary views, but that is the fact of the matter. It’s not, I’m sure, that Jews, per se, are all like this (I’ve met many Jewish Socialists over the years) but many are and do align themselves with right wing aspirations and support Israel’s government for being like that too.
Fascinating indeed, especially about the class foundation of political interests and attitudes. A bit of pilpul, if I may; it is interesting too that sixty years after Elizabeth I’s rather grudging help to the Dutch proto-capitalist revolutionaries (remember reading about Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen?) the English and Dutch had just agreed a treaty to end the first (1652-4) of the four Anglo-Dutch naval wars, this transfer took place. Some influence of the geopolitical background, surely?
The Anglo-Dutch relationship continued to be of interest: after the first phase of the English revolution was triggered by a Scots invasion in 1638, the second phase began with a Dutch invasion in 1688. (Both were coordinated with English supporters – traitors if you will…). And English resentment at Dutch success in capitalist world hegemony, as well as Dutch success in standing off James II’s well equipped but hesitant army, remains with us in such pejoratives as “Dutch courage” “going Dutch”and, arguably “Dutch cap”…
Not forgetting the Dutch part in the West Indian slave trade…..(But the GLU is waiting eagerly for me to continue listing the different religious buildings they brought to Aruba, Curacao etc – do you know what I mean?).
What a complex web they weave….Sometimes, we are told, it is our political duty to suppress the truth….
A salutory caution against knee-jerk responses – as is the thoughtful post by Michael Ryan.
Jackie Walker was targeted for pointing out that the roles of cultural/historical victimhood and the that of oppressor are not exclusive categories.
Zionism is the working proof.
The ongoing persecution of Jackie Walker is I suspect down not only to Jewish chauvinism (keenly supported by reactionary gentiles who hope to get the kudos by osmosis) but also to outright anti black racism. Moreover to ask why Jews should be considered to be exempt from a history of salve-trading is to provoke squeals of self-deceiving horror at this ‘blasphemy’. Intone after me thrice “no Jew could ever trade in slaves”. Or read Israel Shahak whose reflections have yet not been exiled from the web. We will know the LP has recovered any allegiance it ever had to basic democratic standards and natural justice when Jackie at least is asked to come back to join us – and apology would be in order.
An excellent piece, and certainly has me reflecting (further) on my own prejudices. Certainly any sense of my own superiority is fuelled in great part by history lessons in the 1950s and early 60s which extolled the “self-evident” greatness of the British Empire, and which encouraged me to rejoice in my own part in it. It was a telling of history which was riddled with absurdity and anomalies – it’s only in the last year that I’ve really twigged that for more than three hundred years those much vaunted “English” kings who followed The Conqueror didn’t even speak English. How ridiculous, therefore, that, as a latter day Englishman I was supposed to take pride in rulers who would have regarded those ancestors of mine who dated back to the England of the early middle ages as beneath contempt, unworthy of property rights or any sort of natural justice.
And this is surely the one analogy that can be drawn down the ages: the moment when those who either have power, or, though powerless themselves, subscribe to the dominant narrative, regard anyone else as being of less worth – however benignly that scorn may be expressed – they open the door to oppression, often overt, more usually hidden, and no less pernicious for that.
In other words, the question that I need to ask myself, regardless of my past – Saxon, Scots or Jewish; and I need to throw gay into the mix – is: to what extent do I operate racial or other hierarchies in my own psyche? And, having asked this question, rather than engaging in self-indulgent guilt as a means to exonerate myself, I need to own it and notice each and every occasion when I act in accordance with my own prejudices. Furthermore, if prejudice is born, as I am sure is the case, out of fear. The next question to ask is: in my encounter with the “other” what am I frightened of?