Jews Challenging Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Racism

Introduction

“Numerous groups within Jewish communities are working together to challenge Islamophobia — from the Muslim ban to attacks on mosques and in the streets. Community efforts abound. For many Jews, standing in solidarity with Muslims is new. Some Jews and Jewish groups have been building partnerships for years with Muslim and other targeted groups, which have been tirelessly leading efforts against Islamophobia and racism. At the same time, many Jewish organizations — including those speaking out against Islamophobia — have also participated in furthering Islamophobia and racism.

“More and more members of Jewish communities are forcefully speaking out against the egregious, unconstitutional, deeply harmful Islamophobic policies of this administration. But how can we make clear in our words and deeds that we will be consistent in challenging Islamophobia in all its manifestations — without conditions; without a litmus test; without a “but”; without privileging some lives over others; without doing cartwheels and back flips (or just being bullies) to keep Israel or US imperialism out of any discussions and organizing; without trying to be gatekeepers?”

—Donna Nevel, “Challenging Islamophobia in All Its Forms: What About the Mamilla Cemetery?”

 

This handout includes the following sections:

 

This handout includes the following sections:

  • Some Context for Thinking about Jews and Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab Racism, and Other Forms of Racism
  • The Islamophobia of the U.S. Jewish Establishment
  • Jews Taking Action Against Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Racism 

Some Context for Thinking about Jews and Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and

Other Forms of Racism

While other JAAMR handouts provide analysis about ways to think generally about anti-Muslim racism, our focus here is on issues that relate specifically to organizing as Jews within and outside Jewish communities.  We think it especially important to think about and raise here some relevant issues, including: perspectives of Mizrahi Jews (“indigenous to the Middle East, North Africa, parts of Asia and the Balkans”) who challenge Ashkenazi-centric assumptions and dominance; the whiteness and white privilege of Ashkenazi Jews—essential to address in anti-Islamophobia work, as well as in larger anti-racist struggles (in and beyond Jewish communities); and the pivotal role of Israel in shaping the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism of some U.S. Jews and communal institutions.

 

Arab Jews and the Struggle against Anti-Muslim and Anti-Arab Racism and Other Forms of Racism

  • “When I am asked where I am from, I can never give a simple answer. That my family is from Baghdad, and that they are also Jews, startles many Americans. I usually have to go through the same detailed explanation about my origins. In the U.S., where the Arab-versus-Jew discourse exists, it has been virtually impossible for me to insist on the hyphen, that I am an Arab-Jew.”  (Ella Shohat, “Dislocations: Arab Jews and Multicultural Feminism—Interview”)
  • “I am Mizrahi. I’m a Jew, and like many Mizrahim, I’m also an Arab. We Arab Jews have a unique perspective to offer on the Syrian refugee crisis, and on the Islamophobic and anti-Arab backlash that we are seeing in this country and across the globe. For me, anti-Arab racism is not something abstract. It’s not something that needs a historical analogy to feel visceral. The hatred and fear directed toward our Arab and Muslim friends is an attack on the Arab heritage of Mizrahim and on our rich history as Jews.”  (Keren Soffer Sharon, “For Many Jews, Anti-Arab Racism Hits Home”)
  • “I need to reclaim a beautiful, rich, and vast history of Arab Jewish culture that spans centuries, and which has been largely erased through forced assimilation into whiteness and Ashkenazi culture, most notably through Zionism. I need to remember the role that white Ashkenazi Jews have played in systematically oppressing, discriminating against, and exploiting Mizrahim and Jews of Color in Israel/Palestine, in ways that culturally reverberate for Mizrahim in America.  And I need to realize the incredible potential that lies ahead for Jewish communities when we recognize the critical role that Arab Jews can play in grassroots, global movements for justice — particularly in ending Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism within the Jewish community and beyond.

“As Arab Jews, our very existence calls into question some of the most basic values that our mainstream Jewish community has tragically come to hold about the ‘threat’ that Palestinians and Arab Muslims in general pose to our collective safety.” (Keren Soffer-Sharon, “Mizrahi Jews, Jews of Color, and Racial Justice”)

 

Ashkenazi Jews, Whiteness, Islamophobia, and Other Forms of Racism

  • “Insisting on the singularity of Jewish scapegoating . . . erases the fact that it is precisely through Jewish participation in other American traditions of scapegoating that white Jews have built upon their legal whiteness to secure social acceptance. As Julius Lester wrote: ‘In America Jews became white because there existed a people called blacks.’ Today, we continue to see the power of oppositional identification through expressions of Jewish Islamophobia. As Jewish fascists march at ‘anti-Sharia’ rallies and mainstream Jewish institutions funnel contributions to Islamophobic hate groups and smear Muslim civil rights leaders, we might add to Lester: in America, [white] Jews can remain white (and part of an invented ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition) because there exist a people called Muslims.” (Mark Tseng-Putterman, “Fear and Isolation in American Zion”)
  • “So long as Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism are alive, we must remember that white supremacy and Christian hegemony are also flourishing. And those systems target Jews and Muslims alike, regardless of Arab or European heritage. Ashkenazi Jews occupy a powerful position in speaking out against this injustice because of the access to whiteness that European Jews have been granted in this country.”  (Keren Soffer Sharon, “For Many Jews, Anti-Arab Racism Hits Home”)
  • “As both a Jew and an African American, I recoil from the white supremacy and antisemitism on display this week [at the 2017 Charlottesville white nationalist and Nazi rallies]. I have been gratified to hear Jewish leaders and organizations call for the destruction of racism, speaking eloquently about the shared history of oppression Jews and African Americans have faced.

“Yet, I confess to a certain discomfort in the many appeals to recognize the twin evils of antisemitism and anti black racism in Charlottesville. I’ve thought about this a lot over the past week, and here’s what I’ve realized: for Jews, Nazi symbols evoke a terrifying, traumatic past. For African Americans, they evoke a terrifying, traumatic, unending present. White Jews may be shocked at this undeniable evidence of US racism, African Americans merely see more of the same. Black people did not need to be reminded by hoods and swastikas that we live in a dangerously racist country.

“White Jews are NOT under the same level of threat as people of color. In short, white Jews need to accept that they are white, and that whatever harassment or humiliation they may experience from anti-semites, they nevertheless dwell under the all encompassing shelter of white privilege. Police do not murder them in custody, their votes are not systematically undermined, they do not overwhelmingly live in poverty or adjacent to poverty. The 2 documented lynchings of American Jews, though horrific, pale in comparison to the nearly 4000 lynchings of black men, women and children in US history.  The lifestyle and life expectancy of the average white Jewish American is not materially different from that of the white, non Jewish majority; there is no institutional antisemitism.”  (Lesley Williams, “White Jews: Deal with Your Privilege and Call Out Jewish Support for White Supremacy”)

  • “Cause the media loves to frame Jews as white people (ignoring Jews who are also Black or Brown people) and white people as reasonable and give white people credit for everything, when we know, for myself even, so much of my analysis around Islamophobia and my ability to do any work on it all [as a white Jew] has been shaped by the leadership and analysis of Muslims who are people of color, QPOC, immigrant Muslims deeply committed to solidarity with Black communities, and Palestinian and Black organizers of various faith traditions. We need to make sure they get credit for their work, and we need discernment around when we should speak as JVP and when to center Muslim or POC voices rather than white Jewish voices.” (Quote from Noah Rubin-Blose in “What Does Solidarity Look Like? Questions & Lessons in Organizing against Islamophobia: An Interview with Beth Bruch and Noah Rubin-Blose”)

Islamophobia and Israel

  • “Islamophobia plays a key role in building and sustaining public and U.S. government backing for Israel. Right-wing Christian and Jewish groups dedicated to denying the fundamental rights of Palestinians deliberately fuel fear of Muslims and Arabs (commonly assumed to be Muslims) to push their agenda in the Middle East. Unwavering support of Israeli policies contributes to the characterization of Muslims and all Arabs as the ‘enemy’ and to the perpetuation of Islamophobia, or the failure to speak out against it. A money-Islamophobia-Israel network—bound by ideology, money, and overlapping institutional affiliations—both furthers a rabidly anti-Muslim climate in this country and helps bolster the state-sponsored Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian policies adopted and promoted by the U.S. government.

“In the post-9/11 United States, those who are, or who are perceived as, Muslim or Arab live in a country driven by the domestic and global ‘war on terror.’ That ‘war on terror’ overlaps with the U.S. alliance with Israel. Many within and outside the Jewish community view the U.S. focus on the domestic and global ‘war on terror’ as integral to ensuring Israeli security and maintaining the United States’ ‘special’ relationship with Israel. Islamophobia shapes, and is shaped by, an interventionist U.S. foreign policy and support for Israeli policies.”  (Network Against Islamophobia, “FAQs on U.S. Islamophobia and Israel Politics”)

  • “As long as Jews are encouraged to believe that scary Muslims are hiding under every American bed, the idea is perpetuated that support for the Jewish state is a zero-sum contest between favoring Israel and favoring Arabs and Muslims. For too many American Jews, smearing Islam is seen as a legitimate expression of Zionism.” (Matthew Duss, “Some Zionist Groups Stoke Fear of Islam for Political Profit”)

In the name of pro-Israel advocacy, many mainstream Jewish groups are, therefore, willing to support anti-Muslim ideologues and to back—or remain silent about—anti-Muslim government policies and actions.  They, thereby, communicate clearly to their Jewish constituents—as well as to right-wing forces outside the Jewish community—that racism is acceptable in the service of Israel.

For examples, see “The Islamophobia of the U.S. Jewish Establishment” and “Jews Taking Action Against Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Racism.”

For some discussion of the links between anti-Muslim racism and prominent Jewish pro-Israel advocacy groups, see, for instance:

Arab Jews Challenging the Dominant Ashkenazi Pro-Israel Narrative

  • “I am an Arab Jew. Or, more specifically, an Iraqi Israeli woman living, writing and teaching in the U.S. Most members of my family were born and raised in Baghdad, and now live in Iraq, Israel, the U.S., England, and Holland. When my grandmother first encountered Israeli society in the ’50s, she was convinced that the people who looked, spoke and ate so differently—the European Jews—were actually European Christians. Jewishness for her generation was inextricably associated with Middle Easterness. My grandmother, who still lives in Israel and still communicates largely in Arabic, had to be taught to speak of ‘us’ as Jews and ‘them’ as Arabs. For Middle Easterners, the operating distinction had always been ‘Muslim,’ ‘Jew,’ and ‘Christian,’ not Arab versus Jew. The assumption was that ‘Arabness’ referred to a common shared culture and language, albeit with religious differences.” (Ella Shohat, “Reflections by an Arab Jew”)
  • “When Zionist history does refer to what might be termed ‘Judeo-Islamic history,’ the narrative usually consists of a morbidly selective ‘tracing the dots’ from pogrom to pogrom as evidence of relentless hostility toward Jews in the Arab world, reminiscent of that encountered in Europe. The notion of the unique, common victimization of all Jews everywhere and at all times, a crucial underpinning of official Israeli discourse, precludes historical analogies and cultural metonymies, thus producing a Eurocentric reading of ‘Jewish History,’ one that hijacks the Jews of Islam from their own geography and subsumes them into the history of the European-Ashkenazi shtetl.”   (Ella Shohat, “The Invention of the Mitzrahim”)
  • “We cannot fully understand the experiences and histories of Mizrahi Jews unless we also confront the ways Zionism and the State of Israel contributed to—and in some cases, may be the source of—Mizrahi Jewish oppression. And in the United States, the cultural articulation that equates Jewishness with whiteness, without accounting for the impact of Zionism on Jewish racial identity, furthers and perpetuates white Ashkenazi dominance in Jewish spaces. The collective impact of this is to allow progressive white Jewish communities in the United States to avoid confronting racial oppression within the Jewish community, within the United States more broadly, and within Palestine/Israel.” (Tallie Ben Daniel, “Antisemitism, Palestine, and the Mizrahi Question”)

The Islamophobia of the U.S. Jewish Establishment

The Islamophobia in mainstream U.S. Jewish communities rests largely on attitudes toward Israel, Palestinians, and Muslims, including the idea that Israel is an essential bulwark against the Arabs/Muslims who are supposedly intent on overthrowing “western civilization.”  As a result, key pillars of the Jewish community have, in various ways, allied with ideologues who strongly support conservative or far-right forces in Israel and foment anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate.

Below are a few examples of Jewish institutional support for many of anti-Muslim individuals and groups that are key parts of the “Islamophobia network in America.”

  • “AJC, ‘Global Jewish Advocacy’:  AJC has opposed the religious-based firing of a Muslim woman; hired a Director of Muslim-Jewish Relations; opposed legislation targeting ‘Sharia (religious) law’; and formed a Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council.  Nonetheless, it support[ed] Islamophobia through Executive Director Davis Harris’ virulently anti-Muslim message, broadcast biweekly . . . [between 2001 and 2015] on CBS radio stations.  It [has normalized] Islamophobia through promoting anti-Muslim books on the airwaves; publicly describing as ‘necessary’ Rep. Peter King’s 2011 anti-Muslim congressional hearings; and remaining silent when Trump first called for a Muslim ban.  AJC has received several hundred thousand dollars from funders in the Islamophobia network in America.
  • “Anti-Defamation League (ADL):The ADL has backed mosque construction, condemned anti-Muslim hate speech and acts, opposed state anti-Sharia laws and Trump’s Muslim ban, and issued “backgrounders” on various anti-Muslim ideologues.  However, the ADL engaged in illegal spying, starting in the 1950s, on Arab-American and other progressive groups; and has a long history of labeling Muslim community groups as ‘terrorist sympathizers’ and trying to exclude them from the public sphere. The ADL was notably silent during the many years in which the NYPD engaged in discriminatory surveillance of Muslim communities, even giving an award to the commanding officer of the NYPD Intelligence Division that had implemented the surveillance program.  The ADL has taken money from such funders of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate as the Adelson Family Foundation.  The ADL Foundation has given grants to Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism.
  • “Jewish Federations: The Jewish Federation of North America has 147 local member federations and 300 network communities in the United States and Canada. While each federation is autonomous, support for Israel is central to their common mission. Some Jewish federations have strongly supported Muslims: when arson destroyed a mosque; an Islamic center sought to expand; and Trump proposed Muslim Ban 1.0 (publicly criticized by 125 local Jewish federations) [and later Bans]. But some federations have helped amplify anti-Muslim hate by sponsoring public events featuring anti-Muslim extremists . . .  Some have accepted hundreds of thousands—even millions—of dollars from foundations that are part of the Islamophobia network in America. Some federations (or their affiliates) have given substantial funding to groups run by some of the country’s most prominent Islamophobes. Some have provided support—through word, deed, or silence—for Islamophobic campaigns, actions, and individuals: opposing the building of an Islamic center; or having as a keynote speaker at major events the Commissioner of the NYPD during a period of religious profiling and pervasive violation of Muslims’ civil liberties.
  • “Jewish United Fund (JUF) of Metropolitan Chicago, the funding arm of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago (Jewish Federation): JUF has recently stressed the importance of interfaith partnerships, especially with Muslims. Yet, JUF has supported Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism and provided major funding to Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum.  JUF also accepted $5.1 million in 2013 from the Donors Capital Fund, a leading funder of Islamophobia. JUF refused to condemn Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon, whose Breitbart news outlet regularly promotes both anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic ideologies.”  (“A Guide to Who’s Who in NAI’s ‘Following the Funding’ and ‘Jewish Organizations and Islamophobia Modules’”)
  • JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa), “founded in partnership” with the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC),” “ostensibly works to educate US American Jewish communities about the histories and cultural practices of Mizrahi Jews,” but uses “the experiences of Jews of color and Mizrahi Jews in particular to justify the occupation.”  JIMENA leaders include the co-founders of the David Project (a right-wing pro-Israel watchdog group that led a campaign against mosque construction)—Advisory Board Chair Avi Goldwasser and Advisory Board member Charles Jacobs.  Jacobs also co-founded the anti-Muslim Americans for Peace and Tolerance, described anti-Muslim hate-monger Pamela Geller as a “Jewish heroine,” and was denounced by 74 Boston-area rabbis, who called on him “to discontinue his destructive campaign against Boston’s Muslim community, which is based on innuendo, half-truths and unproven conspiracy theories.”  One JIMENA newsletter links readers to the full text of “A Guide to the Galaxy of Islamic Anti-Semitism,” published in the pro-Israeli settler movement Arutz Sheva and written by a Middle East Forum staffer, which alleges that “a unique Jewish hostility in Islam appears to have been a continual thread throughout Muslim history.”
  • Religious Zionists of America: While RZA-Mizrahi claims that the views expressed by the organizations listed in the “helpful resources” section of its website do not represent its own views, it does encourage its members to contact such anti-Muslim, anti-Arab groups as: StandWithUs, which issued a comic book featuring Captain Israel that depicts Palestinians as vermin; the David Project, which “helped foment an eventually unsuccessful, multi-year Islamophobic smear campaign to prevent the construction of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center and Mosque”; and Arutz Sheva, which has published articles by and interviews with Pamela Geller, who has been described as “the queen of Muslim-bashers.”  In 2017, RZA-Mizrahi sponsored a talk by Alan Dershowitz, a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Gatestone Institute, “an organization known for spreading anti-Muslim conspiracy theories” that promotes a host of virulently anti-Muslim and avidly pro-Israel public figures.
  • “Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), ‘the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States’: The ZOA is unapologetically anti-Muslim. It has sponsored talks by Pamela Geller and refused to condemn her repugnant anti-Muslim bus ads.  ZOA President Morton Klein has supported profiling Muslims and Trump’s Muslim ban; and accepted (with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer) the Freedom Flame Award from the Center for Security Policy, the organization headed by anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney.” (“A Guide to Who’s Who in NAI’s ‘Following the Funding’ and ‘Jewish Organizations and Islamophobia Modules’”)

Jews Taking Action Against Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Racism

In recent years, Jewish groups and individuals have taken numerous public actions to challenge anti-Muslim and anti-Arab racism.  They have, for instance:

  • Shown up at international airports in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and elsewhere right after the new Trump administration announced its Muslim Ban;
  • Canvassed, often with Muslim partners and immigrants’ rights and racial justice groups—from Seattle to Raleigh NC, Miami to Denver—urging local businesses to prominently post signs with statements like ”Refugees Are Welcome Here” and “Stop Profiling Muslims”;
  • Held Chanukah actions in 25 communities, holding signs shaped like menorah candles, each making a commitment to opposing a different facet of Islamophobia;
  • Spoken at numerous rallies organized by Muslims and other impacted communities that protested local and federal government anti-Muslim, anti-refugee policies;
  • Sent an open letter of protest to Atlanta area rabbis, the Atlanta Jewish Federation, and synagogue trustees after a prominent rabbi delivered a Rosh Hashanah sermon that described Muslims in “a racist and dehumanizing manner”;
  • Spearheaded an interfaith coalition that got the Washington, DC landlord of the Clarion project—a leading purveyor of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate—to cancel Clarion’s lease;
  • Organized against multi-year anti-Muslim hate campaigns in Boston and New York City;
  • Carried out a “defunding Islamophobia” media campaign in Chicago that revealed the financial links between the local funding arm of the Jewish Federation and some of the country most prominent anti-Muslim ideologues;
  • Supported the controversial expansion of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, TN;
  • Organized a panel in New York City that linked the police targeting of Muslim communities with stop-and-frisk tactics that primarily target young Black and Latinx men.

Curriculum Modules and Handouts

Together with PARCEO and with extensive feedback and input from Muslim educators and activists and members of JVP across the country, we helped develop the NAI curriculum, resources and handouts listed below.

Islamophobia and Israel

Goal:

  • To gain a deeper understanding about the relationship between Islamophobia and Israel politics, particularly how it is promoted and manifests itself

Jewish Organizations and Islamophobia

Goals:

  • To develop an understanding of the history or current complicity of certain mainstream Jewish organizations that have promoted Islamophobia
  • To hold ourselves and our communities accountable to the ways we perpetuate or promote Islamophobia AND to be sure we are, in fact, challenging all forms of Islamophobia
  • To analyze and think critically about who our partners are in the Jewish community in the fight against Islamophobia and about what it means to oppose all forms of Islamophobia

Handouts:

  • National Jewish Federations and Islamophobia
  • The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Islamophobia
  • The American Jewish Committee (AJC) and Islamophobia
  • A Guide to Who’s Who in NAI’s “Following the Funding” and “Jewish Organizations and Islamophobia Modules”

Following the Funding

Goals:

  • To develop an understanding of how certain mainstream Jewish organizations have been funding anti-Muslim hate groups
  • To reflect on how to hold these groups accountable for the ways such funding perpetuates and promotes Islamophobia
  • To think critically about who our partners are within the Jewish community in the fight against Islamophobia, and what it means to oppose all forms of Islamophobia

Handouts:

  • Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago(JUF)/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago
  • Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, and Sonoma
  • Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, and Combined Jewish Philanthropy (Greater Boston’s Federation)
  • A Guide to Who’s Who in NAI’s “Following the Funding” and “Jewish Organizations and Islamophobia” Modules

Planning an Action

For individuals and groups that want to plan an action or are currently organizing a campaign or action against Islamophobia.

Organizing Against Islamophobia and Racism: Coalition Building

Goals:

  • To be thoughtful and principled in our organizing
  • To work within our communities and also together with groups from within Muslim communities as well as others working to challenge Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism
  • To be part of the broader movement for justice and against all forms of injustice and systems of oppression

Handouts for the NAI Workshops and Modules

Almost all of the curriculum modules above refer to these handouts.  Note that the JAAMR website contains updated and revised versions of several of these handouts.

Facilitator Guide

This Facilitator Guide offers background and ways for using the Network Against Islamophobia (NAI) workshop curriculum and modules as well as practical support for creating an inclusive and welcoming learning environment. We encourage critical thinking and reflection to enable participants to interact with the materials in different ways. The NAI curriculum was designed using a popular education or Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework. PAR is a framework for engaging in research and organizing for social justice that is rooted in a community’s own knowledge, wisdom, and experience.​ This framework is helpful for facilitation, because it allows for participatory and experiential engagement with the material and with each other during the workshop sessions.