Nouns, Adjectives and the Jewish Question

• In Event: Convergences: jewblack is blackjew

Abstract

What work is carried out by the word “Black” when paired with the socio- political category “Jews?” To address this question, I reflect on the ways in which 19th century racist fictions persist into the second decade of the 21st century. Deliberations about who is a Jew and what is a Jew are a discrete but persistent thread in efforts to define community and body? My point of departure proposes that public language is informed by a history of racism and therefore in contrast to references to a country or region of origin, the adjective Black always reproduces and reinforces itself as a noun of significance as well as a bookmark cautioning the presence of racial taxonomy.
The politicization of ancestry and appearance in the public arena since the late 1960s paved the way for biologization of identity and difference. At the same time, interest in “roots and routes” gained traction and popularized ideas about mixity and hybridity. In this context, the necessary prerequisite for speaking, writing or thinking about “Black Jews” was and remains comprehensibility of “white Jews,” a phenomenon that is most salient when Jews and Blacks are subjects of inquiry into legacies of alliance and antagonism. These considerations of collusion and collision lead to different representations of Jews, Blacks and decisively ground the idea of Jews of Color. One salient consequence of the topic of being and looking Jewish, is enabling the conditions of possibility for thinking about the visual impact of Jewish diversity in its current hypervisible and invisible forms. I will bring the discussion to a close by recommending the political merits of emphasizing “Just Jewish.”

Author

• Katya Gibel Mevorach, Grinnell College