Critique of “The Parents of Baywoods – Intersections Between Whiteness and Jewish Ethnicities”

Ironically I approached this article with a sense of vested interest. I never wanted here on the blog to reveal my own sense of ethnicity. I thought it would be unnecessary. However, while I still feel that it should not matter what I look like, what I believe, etc., whatever else is included in an ethnic identity, I thought that relating my personal experience to the text would better show how insubstantial I find many claims to be in making a sort of “anthropology of multiculturalism.” Here in this chapter of The Great White North? someone was describing and analyzing an “ethnic identity” to which I myself subscribe. Perhaps I could show the problems of theorizing cultural standpoints as intersections between categories by using the personal sense of repulsion I felt for a theory that was attempting to theorize a cultural standpoint that I actually and consciously live out. I say actually and consciously subscribe because with my own particular experience with and of Judaism, in some sense cultural identity is a decision. That is the interesting thing with Judaism. It can be whatever you determine it to be, as long as you are given the freedom of self-determination. When you are not, that is, when others determine who you are or the related yet perhaps even more dangerous determination of who you are supposed to or ought to be, the question of identity is no longer a question but a mark of personality.

Perhaps my reading of the article was conditioned by a sensitivity towards and about the identity type that I thought was being defined and identified for readers of The Great White North?. Perhaps it is my “ethnic sense of collective marginalization”—or, in Levine-Rasky’s terms, “experience with fighting discrimination and living in segregation” that leads me to question whether one single article can fairly represent the Jewish experience of Whiteness (141). If I am Jewish, I ought to identify with Levine-Rasky’s claims. If the arguments in this article do not resonate with my own experience, Levine-Rasky’s analysis of Jewish behaviour towards immigrants in “Kerrydale” becomes problematic. Her analysis rests completely on a collective identity of Jewishness, or a “Jewish” response to multiculturalism.

Levine-Rasky at first claims to be skeptical of such an ethnic explanation of behaviour given by her friend Pam, saying: “I believed that I was different than Pam. Pam’s question to me, however, presumed a shared intelligibility between us based on an acknowledgement of everything we had in common…Her question was a request for confirmation that I was a member of her group”(136). While Levine-Rasky does not explicity ask this question in her article, she relies upon a shared understanding—or shared intelligibility—of the cultural stereotype of the Jew. That is, Levine-Rasky analyses the behaviour of an entire ethnic group in 8 pages. She does not try to break down this problematic conception of “her group,” but instead uses it to ground her explanation of Jewish attitude and behaviour towards multicultural education.

Levine-Rasky claims outright to be engaged in an analysis of not just the “intersections of middle-classness and whiteness, but whiteness as refracted through the Jewish ethnic identity”(135). This presupposes that there is in reality one Jewish “lens” that refracts whiteness. There is one Jewish “way of seeing” that changes the whiteness of Jews and whiteness as perceived by Jews. So why, if I consider myself Jewish, did I feel that Levine-Rasky’s lens was slightly out of focus for me? Why did I feel, reading the text, that I needed a slightly different prescription?

In dealing with my own charged reactions to the text, I wondered whether or not we can learn anything about personal experience from written articles that attempt to understand different socio-cultural “Intersections”—that is: 1) whether or not we can in fact first delineate all of the points of Intersection as the intersections of categories constitute personal identities, and 2) whether or not we can, after identifying these points of Intersections, describe and derive explanations for the collective behaviour of an ethnic/Intersectional group and furthermore build comprehensive sociological systems from these explanations of “general behaviour”.

With these concerns in mind, I turned to the text itself. Levine-Rasky writes, in an analysis of two women’s views about the Jewish attitude of prioritizing education:

“Jews hold themselves up as the image of the self-made citizen who conquered barriers and made it. They attribute their success to qualities associated with Jewishness: hard work, dedication to education, high expectations, and independence. These are detached from considerations of when and where the Jews arrived here—the need for their skilled labour, the preference for professional occupations at a time when universities were opening up to Jews, benevolent societies to assist needy Jewish families, and experience with fighting discrimination and living in segregation”(140-141).

I will not here address the faulty premises of how the spiritual conditions of Jewish experience are detached from material conditions of their existence. Nor will I argue against Levine-Rasky’s vision of the collective historical Jewish immigrant experience, or “when and where the Jews arrived here.”

I will ask the questions of:

-- Who are the Jews that Levine-Rasky is describing? Could she be more specific or would that be problematic with respect to coming to a comprehensive conclusion for her argument? When Levine-Rasky writes "Jews" in the context of an anthropological social theory--does it entail every single Jew? Is there a difference between "Jews" in general and specifying "Every Single Jew"?

-- Are these qualities associated with Jewishness real? If they are, I not only as a Jew but as an individual take offense at the level of presumption used to perpetuate a stereotype that explains behaviour. If they are not, then Levine-Rasky’s argument loses its internal soundness. Because how else can Levine-Rasky assemble the data taken from 25 Jews to give a comprehensive explanation of the quintessential attitude? By relying on these very same sterotypes: that is, by taking “qualities associated with Jewishness” and using them together to elucidate a single Jewish attitude.

This attitude becomes a ghoulish caricature later in the text. In a paragraph discussing “clustering,” “survivor mentality,” “little community,” “phobia gestures,” and “ghetto thinking,” Levine-Rasky asks us to consider “the overly controlling Jewish mother always fretting about the whereabouts of her children.” She continues:

“I suspect many Jews of my generation will recognize this habit. Fearing an accident, my former in-laws refused to let their children attend summer camp. The parents of a Jewish boyfriend forbade their two children to fly on a plane together for fear that ‘[G-d] forbid something should happen.’” (145).

While the author herself tells us that this is a stereotype, in describing so vividly these images that come together to create an understanding of the Jew and using them as the foundation for an argument about why Jews ‘keep to their own’ when it comes to community and choices of schools, Levine-Rasky is implying a complicit understanding of the Jewish caricature as characterized by her description. How this can be helpful in understanding the actual experience of Judaism against and within a Canadian backdrop is beyond me. To me the characterization of Jews as an ethnic group creates a chasm between a theoretical ethnic standpoint and individual persons: I worry (what a Jewish trait!) that someone who is not "in the fold" will learn that this is the way all Jewish people are when it comes to these things. They will then, as Levine-Rasky herself does, use this stereotype to formulate an explanation of characteristic Jewish behaviour.

Levine-Rasky explicitly states that “many Jews” will “recognize this habit.” This is dangerous on two accounts: 1), already stated, because this means that there is a Jewish “habit” to recognize, and 2) because Levine-Rasky is herself Jewish. Why this is an issue for me will hopefully become clear in this critique taken as a whole. It has to do with the relation between personal experience and theoretical generalization. In a book that has but one article about the Jewish intersection with Whiteness, it may be that readers from all ethnicities will understand Levine-Rasky’s take to be representative of an entire ethnic experience. Readers may feel justified in believing this to be the case because of how Levine-Rasky makes clear that she is herself Jewish. For some reason, that gives her more credibility or qualification to speak on behalf of the entire Jewish population. Yet as someone who identifies with being Jewish, I am repelled by Levine-Rasky’s writing. This speaks to the extremely pluralistic, I would go even further to say individualistic and personal nature of Judaism which is entirely negated by Levine-Rasky’s generalization of the Jewish character. To me, Levine-Rasky has no more special claim to speak for Judaism or about the “essence” of Jewish experience than any other sociology student, period. And while I may be biased, I would say that no sociology student formulating a theory from a set of data collected from a mere 25 people has any claim to any understanding of any particular position, even one so constituted by “Intersectionality.”

In the final section of her article, Levine-Rasky again sums everything up effortlessly. She explains that

“Jewish identity is ambiguous. Ambiguity is manifest in appeals for Jewish authenticity and for membership within the White, Christian majority. In general, Jews want to sustain dos pintele yid (the Jewish essence) but within the framework of dominant Christian society (147).

Levine-Rasky, whether intentionally or not, portrays the Jew as appealing for membership within the White, Christian majority, and wanting to work “within the framework of dominant Christian society.” I cannot help but think that her portrayal of the Jewish attitude towards dominant Christian society is one that is acquiescent, somewhat harmonious, respectful, and attracted. One might portray the Jewish attitude toward dominant White Christian society in an alternative way, a way which has unfortunately been left out of The Great White North. One might view the Jewish relation to dominant White Christian society by asking oneself the quintessential question that White Christians have put to Jews throughout history: “Assimilate or be killed.”
While the Inquisition is not operating at present in most Canadian cities, the question is one that is constantly posed to everyone who is not an original member of the “dominant White Christian society.” In order to sustain life, in order to make money, in order to live in contemporary North American official society, one must conform to the White Christian way of life. Does it matter to anyone that according to the Jewish calendar, this year is 5767 and not 2007? No, this year Jews and every non-Christian, non-Roman sent their children to schools that start in “September 2007.” Does it matter that those children have “Christmas” and “Easter” vacation? No, every child of every individual and personal ethnic background celebrates Christmas in that it constitutes a Civic holiday.

My point is that as a self-determined Jew living in North America today, just like many Jews throughout ages of persecution, I know about the difference between the official rules of society, set by Christian systems of belief, and those written in the personal code of Jewish Ethics. But instead of resulting in the phenomenon that, as Levine-Rasky puts it, “Jews may feel the risk of their difference or they can forget it, but they want to evoke Jewishness, too, by choosing schools and neighbourhoods that feel Jewish,” this difference, the individuality that comes out of this difference, highlights the importance of an individual interpretation of both Jewishness and dominant White Christian society. That is, no matter who you go to school with, your Jewishness is something that manifests itself however you determine it. But this determination must be something that is undertaken on an individual basis. That is, I come back to what I keep trying to say in the course of this blog: culture means what we make it mean, each for ourselves on an individual basis. The problem arises when we attempt to generalize, and create blanket theories or categories about certain collective experience. For any grouping implies the assumption that everyone who is grouped under that identity will be represented by that identity. And I hope to have shown, through my own critique of Levine-Rasky’s article, that this is most definitely not the case. I repeat: WE CANNOT HAVE REAL KNOWLEDGE OF ANYONE THAT IS NOT LEARNED ON A PERSONAL BASIS. I will not give up my Jewishness nor will I allow Levine-Rasky to speak on my behalf. I speak for my own Jewishness, and in turn I encourage people around me to speak on their own personal behalf. I will not categorize someone by placing them in a standpoint of intersectionality. It is against my own personal Ethics. I am aware that my personal Ethics has partly been informed by the written tradition of Jewish wisdom. Yet to take a generalized definition of Jewishness and in turn apply it to my person, limiting my understanding to that of the “Jewish perspective,” is to make that definition determine who I am. And I reiterate: when others determine who you are or the related yet perhaps even more dangerous determination of who you are supposed to or ought to be, the question of identity is no longer a question. It is simply a title that colours the entire book.