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Meditations on a Jewish Subjectivity Roealin Krieger for the Degree Of Strategies of Sumival: Meditations on a Jewish Subjectivity Roealin Krieger A Thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Sociology and Equity Studies Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto OCopyright by Rosalin Krieger (20 0 0 ) National Library Bibliitheque nationale l*l of(.,, du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Biblbgtaphic Services senrices bibliographiques The authof has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une Licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Cana& de reproduce, loan, distri'bute or sell reproduire, prêter, distniou copies of this thesis in microfoq vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis oor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thése ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son autorisation. Title : Strategies of Sunival : Meditations on a Jewish Subj ectivity Degree: M.A. Year of Convocation: 2000 Name : Rosalin Krieger Graduate Department: Sociology and Equity Studies University: OISB-UT (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto) ABSTRACT This thesis is a reflective analysis of Jewish responses to anti- Jewish prejudice in Post World War II Toronto and an examination of the literature of various Jewish academics and a number of the author's family rnembers, including herself. Krieger concludes that Jewish self-hatred is both a concern of the scholars and laypeople, leading some to contemplate or attempt to "passW unnoticed in the Christian- ttmainstreamtlsociety. The goal of this dissertation is to challenge monolithic, ahistorical and simplistic discussions of the concept of "white privilegen. The history of anti-Jewish prejudice indicates that Jews have been and continue to be treated different- ly from other [Christian] whites . Secondly, this thesis is intended to address the lack of knowledge among most non-Jews with regard to the history of anti-Jewish oppression and its negative psychologi- cal effects on Jews, and to challenge the current notion that Jews are not oppressed, Writing about Jewish self -hatred and "passingM is perhaps not the most popular or understood research interest, let alone a subject fcr a thesis. When 1 tell people what 1 study, 1 am met with confusion or blank stares, 1 mean, "Jewish what?" or 9sthere such a thing?IV.Therefore it takes special people to support you when you choose to write about it. For the writing of this thesis, 1 wish to thank people that have both directly and indirectly helped it into being, that is., people 1 have had the pleasure to know personally and those who mentored me through their scholarship, political activisrn, and yes, the awful medium of television. First and foremost, I must thank my mother, Yaffa Krieger, who always believed in me when others told her not ta and who told me that 1 could do anything 1 wanted ta, even though she misunderstood me at times, and for, as she has reminded me over the years, taking al1 four of us al1 over the city without a car. As a graduate student , 1 am living part of her dream in that 1 earned a Bachelor' s degree and now a MasterfS. 1 love her for this, because she is truly happy for me. I must also thank the special people who have helped me with unwavering support and enthusiasm: Rinaldo Walcott, the busiest Canadian man in academia, for believing that 1 could be a promising graduate, our discussions about "living in betweenw black and white, and attending to al1 my questions and anxieties; Winston Smith for our conversations in the books tore about Gilman, racial-ethnic *codingIt in Seinfeld and the IV secret It iii lives of old Hollywood stars; Greg Malszecki, for being open and caring as 1 muddled through women's studies at York University; Roger Simon, a true mensch, for always being a phone-cal1 or e-mail away and enjoying a good laugh; f inally, Arun P. Mukherjee, my greatest teacher at York University, who introduced me to the essays and activism of Audre Lorde, the literature of Anita Desai, and who by example taught me to publically challenge bigotry in the classroom. For the actual writing of this thesis I must thank two very special people: Grace Feuerverger and Sandra Acker. 1 thank them for joining my thesis committee without me having to beg them; for their insightful comments, suggestions and keen editing skills; for fixing my awful spelling and knowing what to keep and what to discard; most of all, for their courage to preserve my vision of the thesis. Finally, this thesis is deeply in debt to the work and visions of the following writers, scholars and activists : James Baldwin, Dionne Brand, Bonnie Burstow, Angela Davis, Frantz Fanon, Sander L. Giirnan (who answers your e-mail the next day) , Audre Lorde , Melanie Kaye/Kantrowit z , Manning Marable, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Adrienne Rich, Evelyn Torton Beck, and Cornel West. A final, but special thanks to the staff at the help-desk on the third floor computer lab at OISE-UT. Thank you all. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One Jewish Identity: Why Does it Appear to be so Difficult to Characterize? Chapter Two Introduction Chapter Three Literature Review Chapter Four Mom, Dad and 1: Self-Hatred, l1Passingltand Identity Chapter Five Conclus ion Sources 128 " [The Jew] forgets bis [sic] Jewishness, or hides it...That is because he has ... admitted the validity of the Aryan sys- tem ...Evil is Jewish. Everything Jewish is ugly. Let us no longer be Jewsvt --Frantz Fanon Black Skin, White Masks (1967) 1 am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus shows. .. When they approach me they see only my surroundings , themselves, or figments of their [irnagination] - indeed, everything ...except me...lt is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although, it is most often wearing on the nervesH --Ralph Ellison Prologue, The Invisible Man (1989) CHAPTER ONE OQHY DOES IT APPEAR TO BE SO DIFFICULT TO CHARACTERIZE? A Discuision of Jewiah identitiea, Blacki.88 and Whiteaesa, in Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century North Aaaetica In the sumrner of 1995 1 was at a bus stop having (what 1 thought was) a private conversation with a classmate about how 1 choose ta identify as a Jew. For me, being Jewish has turned into more of a cultural and historical link based on historical rnemory versus religious practice. 1 am what is now called msecularw or I1ethnicIt.A woman nearby listened eagerly and rny colleague and 1 noticed that she was anxious to interject and finally she did. Çhe, asked me, how can you cal1 yourself Jewish and not be religious? 1 spent the next hour (the bus at York is always slow) rnaking my case about how 1 I1workI1at I1beingl1Jewish culturally by engaging in Jewish issues of political concern (anti-Jewish prejudice), by having a sense of a collective history and legacy, by reading Jewish essays and fiction, by being socially active, while also partaking in Jewish holidays. For non-religious Jews like me, " Jewish ident ity has been an intractable existential and intellectual problem. Some type of performance -- an act and not merely a gesture -- is sufficient but not necessary ...to maintain a Jewish identity, a sense of belonging to the Jewish c~mmunity~~ (Gibel Azoulay, 1997 :134) . I made my argument. To my surprise, in the end, she respected my concept of Jewiahness with a smile. In this chapter, 1 shall take this discussion on Jewish identity further by showing the multiple ways that Jews have 1 assumed authorship of their identities in relation to the practicalities of life in a non-Jewish world, in the late nineteenth century Europe, and throughout the twentieth century in the United States and Canada. Here are what are considered the historical and contextual I1rnainl1 concepts in Jewish identity: religious (belief, rituals), secularlethnic (cultural, historical continuity, memory, and political), nationhood (a measure of one's llloyaltyllto Israel) , a I1raceI1 (Semite, racial other, white, non- white), and in terms of the history of persecution, especially regarding the Shoah (Holocaust). 1 shall show that Jews historically (like other "othersN) have complicated and blurred the demarcations of blackness and whiteness. As anthropologist Ruth Frankenburg states, Ir [whiteness is] the most [politically] significant ...dominant space. [Even though] whiteness can have no meaning: as a normative space it is constructed precisely by the way it positions others at its bordersIr (231). Regarding Jewish and blackness, Katya Gibel Azoulay asks pertinent questions, that also will be addressed, IlIf Jews are not a tlracialitcategory, then how do we find a language to describe the identities of children of Jewish and Black parents?" furthemore, "How does this cohere with the idea of Blackness as a cultural and political identity?" (13). Finally, any discussion about Jewish identity would have to include a discussion on anti-Jewieh pre judicel in different periods and '1 do not like to use the term "anti-SemitismN to describe al1 anti-Jewish prejudice. The continuous use of the term, not coined by Jews, is problematic. As Am Pellegrini arguesIw[naming] every incidence of hostility against Jews *anti-Semitismtlsuggests that the forms and meanings of hatred of the Jews are themselves contexts, to better understand how Jews have historically defined themselves in what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls their Ifposition in a hierarchically organized system of titlesm (1991:120; Gibel Azoulay, 1997:7) .' Like Katya Gibel Azoulay in her study, Black.
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