A Map of Internalized Anti-Semitism for White Ashkenazi Jews in the U.S. Intended as a tool for personal healing and collective transformation transcendingjewishtrauma.com 5780/2020

Abandoning Surrounding Inability to discern Struggling In political organizing, seeking Assumption Jewish identity, oneself with Using historical between critique of to recognize protection by prioritizing relationships that bad things lineage, community Jews only catastrophes to justify over- the State of Israel potential personal with state power over allyship with will happen reactions, hyper-vigilance, and direct personal Changing physical other groups targeted by oppression and political allies and unjust solutions to Defensiveness; threat to the survival features through Isolation current injustices Personally or on behalf of the Jewish people surgical procedures or Perceiving an Fear of wider community chemical processes ever-acute threat Inability to accept of violence criticism without Remaining silent when anti- Assimilation and hiding Changing name feeling threatened Semitism surfaces for fear of Projecting historical or rejected losing status, being discounted, Drive for Security Denying Jewish Identity traumas onto targeted, or attacked current realities Sense of Superiority Shaming, blaming, and Powerlessness Upward mobility Vigilance in pathologizing one’s self and Clinging to the idea that Obsession with maintaining social one’s community for not easily Jewish ideas and ways of social approval to Erasing from our collective status, individually or consistently assimilating into memory evidence of non-Jews doing things are better, and collectively make up for lack of Difficulty forgiving and white Christian societal norms taking risks to keep Jews safe smarter, and more trustworthy self-approval/lack forgetting, personally of perceived safety or collectively

Feeling like a Terror: Relating to one’s self, one’s victim, personally Fear of the unpredictable rise and fall of attempted annihilation and expulsion nature, one’s body as inferior Believing that or collectively Jews are not Derived from repeated periods of mass anti-Jewish violence in Believing that Disgust and actually worth Christian Europe, transmitted as intergenerational trauma, triggered Jewish oppression contempt for fighting for by overt and covert anti-Jewish rhetoric & present-day violence. Self-Hatred is exceptional Jews who Believing the world exhibit Jewish is “out to get us” Denying one’s true self; stereotypes Sense of Otherness: leading to disconnection, Not belonging, not being inherently desired or connected, no right to exist self-loathing, anxiety, Desire to distance oneself from Jews Derived from repeated attempts at extermination, which led Jews in depression who display unassimilated behavior Focus on mistakes Relentless drive many countries, over generations, to internalize the message that Jews instead of successes Judging one’s are “the problem,” that something about us is wrong or bad. self harshly Disregarding and minimizing the realities and political role of anti-Semitism; believing that oppression against Jews is not relevant or significant enough to address in progressive spaces

Distrust in the Sense that one is never Drive for Acceptance by reliability and capacity Belief that one is authentically or fully Way of Perfection: of others; if I don’t do not Jewish enough part of the group Denial of the You must do more to it (right), no one will Overly critical of self and others Existence of the make up for who you are Belief that one Urgency is too Jewish Oppression Belief that one is too much or never enough

Own the Believing stereotypes and Desire to demonstrate that the Judging one Sense of Not Belonging banks and colluding with conspiracy Jewish people are indispensable and Desire to Control another harshly the Media theories that Jews: worthy of keeping safe

Distrust Hyper-viligance, panic, Unrelenting Of Jews who have Of those outside, worry, hurriedness, anxiety, desire to Efforting to prove our different political beliefs, or perceived to Are untrustworthy, Are currently over-protectiveness, over-reactivity, manage integral contributions in affiliations, identities, or Of Jews who be outside, of undesirable, plotting to take difficulty slowing down various aspects of society religious practices convert to Judaism Jewish community greedy, conniving over the world