Are Jews The New Blacks?

Every since Daniel Golden’s The Price of Admission and Jerome Karabel’s The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and in many other sources such as Ron Unz’s influential “The Myth of American Meritocracy,” Asians have been described as the “new Jews” because, like Jews in the past, they are now the victims of “diversity”-justified discrimination in university admissions and hiring.

One odd, generally unnoticed irony of the Jews’ experience with discrimination is that not long after discrimination against us as Jews wound down — that is, after we came to be regarded as just like other whites, at least for admissions and hiring purposes — we continued to suffer “diversity”-justified discrimination, now as indistinguishable members of the “over-represented” majority.

Although anti-semitism has long simmered just beneath the surface of the black community, ready to be ignited by demagogues like Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan, for a good part of the last century Jews and blacks, as both victims of discrimination, were thought to be natural allies. Although that alliance has significantly frayed, over the years the two communities have continued to have one strong, at least apparent identity of interest: they are both among the most loyal supporters of the Democratic party.

That loyalty remained strong in 2016. Although according to exit polls 57% of “whites” supported Trump, 71% of Jews supported Clinton.

If that support continues into the future, it may be time to describe Jews as the new blacks. Now that Obama has become the first American president to side openly with the enemies of Israel by refusing to block a Security Council censure (or not openly, according to Senator Tom Cotton, but “cowardly,” because “he doesn’t even have the courage of his own convictions to vote for it”), it will be interesting to see whether Jews continue to support Democrats in the same numbers. Closely related, it will be equally interesting to see whether those Democrats, progressives, and major media outlets (but I repeat myself) who were so eager to taint Trump with the support he received from a handful of alt-right racists will hold Obama and the Democrats who continue to support his decision responsible for the enthusiastic support his decision has received from Israel-haters the world over.

Say What? (7)

  1. Ronald Alonzo December 26, 2016 at 12:44 pm | | Reply

    John – Now that Obama is completing his terms, there has not been a good analysis of The puppeteer that drives Obama. To me it is clearly Valerie Jarrett and yet no one dares touch her. Trump is the old Post World war America, and America values have shifted with the way X generation/Millennials think – The US raison e’etre is bad for all minorities – The only North American /premiere society is Wasp and Scot Irish – Any one outside of that clique is a minority. The Jews are the intellectual conscience of the European Society that occupied the New World after the discovery in 1492. Keep in mind as that happened the Catholic kings of Spain had expelled the Jews and Muslims out of Spain also in 1492. The Western World at that time was Spanish influenced- The Pope was Spanish – Borja (Borgia) The protestants were not Roman catholic.

  2. Helene Rosenberg December 26, 2016 at 1:51 pm | | Reply

    If American Jews think that they can avoid anti semitism in its most virulent, global, UN inspired form, they better review the WW II experiences of the European Jews. Obama has deliberately unleashed an anti semitism that will not stop at our open borders. Thank God we will have a President who will support our allies rather than our enemies. Obama has shown his true anti semitism so obvious to so many of us from the beginning.

  3. Frederick J Aziz December 26, 2016 at 3:05 pm | | Reply

    What took the American Jews so long to figure it out?

  4. Frederick J Aziz December 26, 2016 at 3:10 pm | | Reply

    With Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton granted respectability by the democrat party for all these many years, why were Jews still voting democrat? There is nothing new in the democrat party. Same old players. Same old statements. Same old vote buying.

  5. sestamibi December 26, 2016 at 6:06 pm | | Reply

    This is but one of numerous articles on the same theme I’ve read since the election. Here’s a tip for you: there ain’t NOTHING that will dissuade Jews (and here speaking as one myself) from voting Democrat. Not as long as we seem far more concerned with transgender bathrooms and forcing Christian bakers to provide cakes for same-sex weddings than we are with the fate of our brothers and sisters in Israel. In fact, all too many of us are actually Palestinian sympathizers and BDS supporters.

    On the other hand, we may have already reached “peak Jew” in this country, since so many of us have intermarried and are not bringing up the few kids we have as Jewish. The Jewish future in America belongs to the Orthodox, with their large families and GOP voting habits (at least at the presidential level). As one Jewish blogger once put it, in fifty years we will be regarded as a curiosity, a boutique religion whose adherents are poor, dress funny, and have lots of kids.

  6. Steve Bond December 26, 2016 at 7:46 pm | | Reply

    Prime Minister Netanyahu had the best and frankly the only response this unthinkable & dastardly act perpetrated by a lame duck lame brained pathetic excuse for a leader, and that was, finally…..he cut off financial support to the UN (approx. 30,000,000 shackle’s)and withdrew ambassadors to Senegal & New Zealand and stopped all commerce not only with these pathetic nations but warned all that they will face the same if they continue to oppose Israel untruthfully and with false accusations.

  7. Wesley Young December 26, 2016 at 8:13 pm | | Reply

    What’s missing here is mention of the dichotomy with Jewry.
    There are those who favor assimilation and those who support the Homeland.
    Most American Jews favor assimilation because, for the most part, there has been far less evidence of discrimination in America. They see the existence of Israel as the cause of any discrimination they experience. If Israel didn’t exist, everyone would like them. Of course nothing could be farther from the truth. Any country that starts to experience problems use Jews as the scapegoats. We see it in Britain, France, and other European countries.
    In America, there is all this talk about Islamophobia, but hate crimes against Jews are still more than any other group. If Israel ceased to exist, Jews around the world would find themselves as welcome as a Jew in an Arab country today.

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