For progressive white people, the false notion that Jews are white serves the purpose of dumping their white guilt onto the eternal scapegoat of the Jews. If progressive white people can construct Jews as the epitome and essence of all the evil committed by white people, they can then use Jews as a moral scapegoat to transfer their own guilt onto the Jews. This maintains their self-image of moral superiority by “standing in solidarity” with the oppressed third world while simultaneously standing against the oppressive “white” Jews. They thus place themselves on the oppressed side of the oppressed-oppressor binary with “white” Jews on the side of the oppressors and white progressives on the side of the oppressed.
Ironically this sense of moral superiority comes from the modern social construct of whiteness wherein “whites” are seen as morally superior to all other peoples who are seen as “barbarians.” In this way progressive whites are just a liberal version of white supremacists with conservative white supremacists using Jew’s non-whiteness as a moral scapegoat. This sense of moral superiority combined with a recognition of the horrors of colonialism, slavery, apartheid, and genocide perpetuated by white peoples gives progressive whites a sense of cognitive dissonance. This stems from their need to maintain their self-perception as morally superior while also needing to be able to condemn their own moral failings as whites.
One cannot simultaneously perceive themselves as morally superior and at the same time recognize that their actions prove they are the opposite of morally superior, hence the cognitive dissonance. The answer to this dilemma is the same answer it has always been, namely the scapegoating of the Jews. Jews have always served as the scapegoat for the majority culture’s sense of guilt which has allowed them to continue to perceive themselves as morally superior. Such a self-perception of moral superiority was often even the catalyst for violence against Jews.
Whatever the majority culture is guilty of they simply deny they are guilty of it and dump that guilt onto the Jewish people. This continues today, particularly among white progressives, Islam and Arabs, where they “recognize” the moral failings of their actions from a distance, but maintain their image of moral superiority by creating Jews as the essence of their moral failings, accusing them of the very things they are guilty of, thus cleansing their conscience of any wrongdoing and maintaining their image as a light onto the nations. In other words, they ignore their own whiteness and the guilt that comes along with it precisely by falsely “making” Jews white, as a kind of substitutionary atonement, so that instead of being crucified themselves, they give up the Jews in their place to be crucified on their behalf. Thus the real moral failings of whiteness can be criticized and punished while the actual perpetuators of those moral failings are exempt from such criticism and punishment. In order to expunge themselves they need someone to take their place as white people so that rather than having to take responsibility and simply admit they’re the problem, they blame the Jews, imposing and transferring on them their sins of genocide, colonialism, and apartheid.
In addition to “making” Jews white being about protecting progressive white people’s self-perception of moral superiority more generally, it’s also about ensuring their ability to continue their ancestor’s time-honored tradition of abusing Jews in a world in which racism is now deemed morally indefensible. If racism, at least in theory, is now indefensible but you want to continue your racism towards Jews, it has to somehow be made morally defensible. (Which in fact is how it’s always worked to some extent.) You do this by “making” Jews white and therefore impervious to the arrows of racism. Jews are thus “made” white in order to ascribe white privilege to Jews so as to take away any notion that Jews face racial discrimination. This creates a sort of smoke screen that allows the practice of racism towards Jews to continue unabated while being protected from any accusations of racism. Since Jews are now “white,” so the logic goes, they now benefit from white privilege and thus can’t be the victims of racism. Thus racism towards Jews is now deemed non-existent.
There is a similar tactic more conservative white people use towards other ethnic minorities when those ethnic minorities assert an action towards them is racist. In that scenario, the conservative white person replies, to let’s say a black man, that they are just “pulling the race card.” This is precisely a way to distract from the racism of the perpetrator, gas light its victims by delegitimatizing the black man’s attempt to not tolerate such racism and thus serves as a way to erase the act of racism. Essentially the phrase “you’re just pulling the race card” is a way to pretend racism isn’t happening so that it can continue to happen unbated. The same phenomena has been happening a lot to Jews since October 7th, particularly when Jews have rightly claimed that much of the criticism towards Israel is racism [antisemitism]. Many have accused those Jews of using antisemitism to deflect supposedly “legitimate” criticism of the Jewish state. In essence this is a way of accusing Jews of “pulling the race card.”
Moreover, “making” Jews white is a hall pass that in reality allows for Jews to continue to be victims of racism while those interested in enacting such racism can protect their conscious from any guilt associated from such acts of racism. “I’m not antisemitic, I’m just standing in solidarity with the oppressed and thus I am obligated to bring to light the evils of Jews and the Jewish state such as genocide, colonialism, apartheid, etc.” But again this isn’t really anything new. For centuries those who exerted their racism towards Jews protected themselves from any moral wrongdoing by believing that Jews were in league with the devil, were baby killers, drinkers of blood, perpetrators of the black plague, so that any actions towards Jews was seen as morally upright, as acts of justice against an evil force that must be kept at bay. Pretending Jews are white is just the newest iteration of construing racism towards Jews as an act of justice that protects the perpetrator’s self-perception as righteous and morally superior while covertly protecting their “right” to act racistly toward Jews.
Lastly, the reality of what was actually happening at the time, namely during the post-war decades, when Jews were being “made” white should be instructive. Namely, Jews were “made” white shortly after experiencing the largest genocide of our people, (murdered precisely because we weren’t white) as well as during the 25-year period after the Shoah in which Arab armies on multiple occasions attempted to genocide this ethnic minority, as well as during a time in which virtually all Jews were expelled from Arab countries in retribution for Jews re-establishing Jewish sovereignty in our ancestral homeland. A sovereignty which went against the Arab-Islamic supremacist belief that Jews are an inherently inferior and subjugated people only worthy to be ruled by Islam. Not to mention that it was during this time Jews in the Soviet Union were undergoing state sanctioned cultural genocide not dissimilar to what occurred towards Native Americans in the United States. For instance, the Hebrew language was outlawed and as a result, groups of Jews began to secretly study Hebrew, who then came under surveillance by the KGB. When caught they were arrested and imprisoned in the Gulag sometimes never to be seen again, simply for learning our ancestral language. Naturally Hebrew publishers were shut down, synagogues were closed, and Jewish communities were barred from recruiting rabbis to serve their needs. In general anything Jewish was criminalized and prohibited.
So given what had recently happened to Jews and what was currently happening during this time the idea that Jews were simultaneously now white is absurd. White people are not systematically genocided for being white, they don’t generally experience cultural genocide in which English, German, or another white language is suppressed and outlawed or where anything white is criminalized, they don’t have people attempting to genocide them three more times after just having experienced genocide, and they aren’t expelled from countries in mass because of white nations having political sovereignty. The whiteness of Jews and its accompanying privilege was a façade not actually congruent with the reality on the ground. In light of what was actually going on at the time bestowing whiteness on Jews after the Shoah would be similarly absurd as “bestowing” whiteness on black people after their emancipation at the end of the civil war, or on the Lakota tribe shortly after the massacre of Wounded Knee.
Now some might argue the act of “making” Jews white was a result of white guilt, a result of Western nations feeling bad for the holocaust. Yet given that more often than not Western nations refused to admit Jewish refugees into their countries in the aftermath of the Shoah, I highly doubt there was much guilt. Rather in light of the history of scapegoating Jews as evil incarnate and the post-colonial reckoning that happened after the war, I think it’s more likely the bestowal of whiteness was an insidious “gift.” One meant to allow racism towards Jews to continue more covertly after a time in which Western nations were forced to admit the horrors of the Shoah and recognize that the preceding centuries of racism towards Jews led to the mass genocide of 6 million Jewish people.
Calling Jews white is a profound act of racism. “Making” Jews white allows progressive whites to maintain their sense of moral superiority despite their own moral failings. While also giving them the ability to continue hating Jews as their ancestors have done for centuries. Jew’s imaginary “whiteness” is simply an externally imposed racist form of moral scapegoating created to aid the preservation of persecuting Jews in an era in which racism is supposedly no longer tolerable.
