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How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America Paperback – October 1, 1998

by Karen Brodkin (Author)

4.2 85 ratings

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The fashion identities in the context of a wider conversation about American nationhood, to whom it belongs and what belonging means. Race and ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality are all staple ingredients in this conversation. They are salient aspects of social being from which economic practices, political policies, and popular discourses create "Americans." Because all of these facets of social being have such significant meaning on a national scale, they also have major consequences for both individuals and groups in terms of their success and well-being, as well as how they perceive themselves socially and politically.

The history of Jews in the United States is one of racial change that provides useful insights on race in America. Prevailing classifications have sometimes assigned Jews to the white race and at other times have created an off-white racial designation for them. Those changes in racial assignment have shaped the ways American Jews of different eras have constructed their ethnoracial identities. Brodkin illustrates these changes through an analysis of her own family's multi-generational experience. She shows how Jews experience a kind of double vision that comes from racial middleness: on the one hand, marginality with regard to whiteness; on the other, whiteness and belonging with regard to blackness.

Class and gender are key elements of race-making in American history. Brodkin suggests that this country's racial assignment of individuals and groupsconstitutes an institutionalized system of occupational and residential segregation, is a key element in misguided public policy, and serves as a pernicious foundational principle in the construction of nationhood. Alternatives available to non-white and alien "others" have been either to whiten or to be consigned to an inferior underclass unworthy of full citizenship. The American ethnoracial map-who is assigned to each of these poles-is continually changing, although the binary of black and white is not. As a result, the structure within which Americans form their ethnoracial, gender, and class identities is distressingly stable. Brodkin questions the means by which Americans construct their political identities and what is required to weaken the hold of this governing myth.

Print length

264 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Rutgers University Press
Publication date

October 1, 1998
Dimensions

6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

081352590X
ISBN-13

978-0813525907
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brodkin (Caring by the Hour), a professor of anthropology at UCLA, synthesizes much recent scholarship to assess the shifting notions of race?and changing objects of racism?in the U.S. She points out that racial inferiority has been ascribed to waves of immigrants only when they were used as unskilled labor. She notes how "Jewish whiteness became American whiteness" after WWII, when Jews began to speak as whites and Jewish intellectuals "contrasted themselves with a mythic blackness." A self-described secular Jew situated in leftist academic circles, Brodkin somewhat awkwardly weaves familial reflections into her otherwise academic book. While intriguing, Brodkin's treatment is hardly exhaustive. She argues that her New York parents and grandparents "lived in a time when Jews were not white"; however, that focus on Jewish racial self-assignment obscures the somewhat murkier role of Jews in the South, as well as those who ran shops or provided social services in the inner cities of the North. She repeats her overall thesis?that racism and the construction of racial identity is the foundational principle of American identity and American capitalism?over and over, but her argument is no more convincing for all the repetition.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"An insightful interpretation of the complexities of Jewish ethnoracial identity, in the context of a multicultural America stratified by gender, race and class that is both theoretically rich and deeply personal. By interrogating how Jews were integrated within the framework of whiteness. Brodkin illustrates just how difficult it may be to deracialize American society and culture." -- Manning Marable

Review

"An insightful interpretation of the complexities of Jewish ethnoracial identity, in the context of a multicultural America stratified by gender, race and class that is both theoretically rich and deeply personal. By interrogating how Jews were integrated within the framework of whiteness. Brodkin illustrates just how difficult it may be to deracialize American society and culture.", Endorsement

From the Back Cover

The history of Jews in the United States is one of racial change that provides useful insights on race in America. Prevailing classifications have sometimes assigned Jews to the white race and at other times have created an off-white racial designation for them. Those changes in racial assignment have shaped the ways American Jews of different eras have constructed their ethnoracial identities. Brodkin illustrates these changes through an analysis of her own family's multigenerational experience. She shows how Jews experience a kind of double vision that comes from racial middleness: on the one hand, marginality wit regard to whiteness; on the other, whiteness and belonging with regard to blackness.

Class and gender are key elements of race-making in America. Brodkin suggests that racial assignment of individuals and groups constitutes an institutionalized system of occupational and residential segregation, a key element in misguided public policy and a pernicious foundational principle in the construction of nationhood. Alternatives available to non-white and alien "others" have been either to whiten or to be consigned to an inferior underclass unworthy of full citizenship. The American ethnoracial map-who is assigned to each of these poles- is continually changing, although the binary of black and white is not. Brodkin questions the means by which Americans construct their political identities and what is required to weaken the hold of this governing myth.

About the Author

KAREN BRODKIN is a professor of anthropology at UCLA. She is the author of Caring by the Hour and Sisters and Wives, and co-editor with D. Remy of My Troubles are Going to Have Trouble with Me.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rutgers University Press; 58879th edition (October 1, 1998)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 081352590X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0813525907
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #85,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #32 in Jewish Social Studies
- #65 in History of Judaism
- #269 in Discrimination & Racism

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4.2 85 ratings

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Interesting analysis of one of Americas most misunderstood minorities

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2020

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You either need a deep understanding of Jewish life and history in America or a good theoretical grounding in critical analysis, BUT this is a good book for understanding the evolution of Jewish life in America as well as the assimilation of Jews and other eastern/Southern European people into American society. Not overly academic and enough personal anecdotes from the author to make more compelling.

11 people found this helpful

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Vegasrebel

Interesting subject and very good analysis

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2022

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As an Indian American, member of a non-white model minority that wishes to emulate Jewish success, this is an important book for me. The history of Jewish immigration and life in the early twentieth century, to the late twentieth-century acceptance as "whites," is depicted well by the author. It says plenty about our foundation, race relations, and gender biases. It will be interesting to see how Asians, non-white and brown people of a model minority will ever be accepted as "whites," or not. Time will tell.

7 people found this helpful

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Alison Black

Incredibly Valuable!

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2015

Verified Purchase

Incredibly valuable in terms of historical evidence and explanation for understanding the complex roles Jews have played in American society and their changing placement in American social hierarchies. This book was helpful in exploring the ahistorical myth of the model minority.

16 people found this helpful

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Martin Rothenberg

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2016

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A deep penetrating view of America, about Jews but much broader. A must read book.

10 people found this helpful

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Nancy

Good Analysis of Assimilation and Whiteness

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2020

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What I liked: The focus on how not just Jews, but other European immigrants, were considered “not quite White” until they were allowed into the mainstream with post WWII policies that excluded blacks. Jews, Irish, Italian and other ethnic immigrants became White at the expense of Black Americans. Also appreciated the analysis of misogyny played and the role capitalism in creating a necessary underclass.
What I didn’t like: The academic language made it a bit of a slog to read. I can’t even count the times she used the word “hegemony/ic” and there were many times that a more straightforward syntax would have been preferable. The sections in which the author used her own family’s story were most relatable.
All in all, an interesting addition to the analysis of Whiteness.

19 people found this helpful

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Vincent S. Garcia

Wonderful historical tale of the Jewish race.

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2016

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Wonderful historical tale of the Jewish race.

6 people found this helpful

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Nathan C

Leftist "history" based on no evidence

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2014

The main thesis, that Jews were not regarded as White people until after world war two, is not supported by evidence provided in the book.

The 1790 naturalization act restricted naturalization to White people, and yet no one in the 150 years of racially restricted nationalization law tried to argue that Jews should be excluded from citizenship because they weren't White. "White" was a legal category in America then as it is now, and Jews were considered legally White. In the south with legal segregation Jews were part of the White group, they rode on the White carriages and drank out of the White fountains. Brodkin maintains they weren't considered White by the general population. However, nearly all of the "evidence" Brodkin relies on <I>doesn't even mention Whiteness at all.</i> It is almost all a litany of grievances about supposed antisemitism unrelated to the main question, at least one of which I have found relies on egregious misrepresentation, on page 29 she misrepresents the work of Henry Goddard as claiming that his IQ testing of Ellis island immigrants proved a low intelligence for immigrants in general, something he explicitly denied. In general only one side of history is presented, we are told of an antisemitic 1893 New York Times article as evidence that Madison Grant's ideology was not a fringe phenomenon(page 29). We are not told that 3 years later the New York Times would be owned by a Jew. Quotas for Jews at Ivy League universities are mentioned but it is never explained that the justification used by proponents to argue for those quotas was that Jews were overrepresented as a share of their population. We are told that there is little mobility for Jewish workers(page 34), and left to wonder if there was much mobility for native born protestants in that era, she provides no evidence there was. Endless antisemitism and not one mention of Louis Brandeis, or David Yulee, or Judah Benjamin. She frequently points to Jews and non-Jews alike from that period claiming that Jews were of a "distinct race" or "one race," ect. This does not show anything about whether they were part of the White race, "race" and "ethnicity" were used interchangeably in this period.

The theme of Jewish alienation runs strong in the book, and throughout most of it the author seems to forget what her thesis and title are. The main question "were Jews considered racially White in the era of 1800-1945" is rarely even addressed. "Whiteness" does not seem to her to mean what most people then or now would identify it as meaning, to sum it up to her it means whichever group is doing the oppressing at the moment, before 1945, White protestants, after 1945, all Whites. Brodkin is a liberal like any other, with nothing good to say about America or it's traditional inhabitants. I have seen numerous times liberals point to this book as an example of "history," it is not a work of history but an incoherent rant.

28 people found this helpful

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Ralph Jr

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2014

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THE SOCIAL LADDER CLIMB

6 people found this helpful

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