opinion
Where Do Jews Fit Into Critical
Race Theory?
BY FRED L. PINCUS
U. J. Alexander / iStock / Getty Images Plus
I n the midst of the continuing national controversy,
Jews have debated whether critical race theory is
“good for the Jews.” Opinions are wide-ranging, from
those who think critical race theory is antisemitic to
those who are developing a Jewish version of critical
race theory.

A central tenet of critical race theory is that rac-
ism/white supremacy has been an integral part of
American institutions since our nation’s founding.

Rather than being a problem of individual white
attitudes, critical race theory proponents argue that
racism is structural or systemic. White people are
the dominant/oppressor group with power while
Black people and other people of color are the
subordinate/oppressed groups.

This, of course, brings up important questions:
Are Jews white? If so, are they oppressors with
white privilege? Must Jews fit into this oppressor/
oppressed binary?
Jewish critical race theory critics answer all these
questions with a resounding “No.” For example,
Commentary carried an article titled “No, Jews
Aren’t White: We’re Our Own Thing, and Whatever
Privilege We Possess is Conditional.” Author Liel
Leibovitz wrote, “Jews are just Jews, a difficult reali-
zation that has driven haters to distraction through-
out the generations.”
Several Jewish writers have argued that critical
race theory can be extended and used to better
understand the Jewish experience. They have pro-
posed developing a Jewish critical race theory just
as Latinos and Asians have.

In the 2020 issue of Social Identities, for example,
Daniel Ian Rubin argues that Jews occupy a “space
between” whites and people of color. Although
Jews have been largely recognized as white since
the end of World War II, “they found themselves
further separated from other minority groups in the
U.S. even though they still were not full accepted by
White society (nor are they fully accepted today).”
Sociologists have described Jews as a “mid-
dleman minority” group that lacks power over the
non-Jewish elite above them but that has power
over the people of color below them. Jews are both
oppressors and oppressed. This is not something
that is unique to Jews since, for example, Asian
people, many of whom currently own businesses
in Black communities, can also be described as a
middleman minority.

There are other issues raised by Jewish critics
of critical race theory as evidenced by an opinion
piece by David Bernstein, founder of the Jewish
Institute for Liberal Values, in The Daily Phil news-
letter. According to Bernstein, critical race theory
promotes antisemitism through its promotion of the
Jewish privilege trope, its failure to give Jews credit
for being successful in higher education, its promo-
tion of “equity” rather than “equality,” its attempts
to limit discussion about the nature of racial conflict
in the U.S. and its critique of the Israel/Palestine
conflict. It’s certainly true that the powerful, privileged
Jew has been part of a worldwide antisemitic trope
for centuries, and it’s also true that antisemitism
continues in the Trump years and beyond. Jewish
critical race theory scholars like Rubin would agree
with that. None of this is inconsistent with the fact
that Jews have privileges that people of color lack.

The critical race theory emphasis on equity
rather than equality is also important to under-
stand. The term “equality” usually refers to a com-
petition where everyone lines up at the starting
line and the “best” people cross the finish line first.

The term “equity” emphasizes a competition where
the winners are representative of the race/ethnic/
gender distribution in the population.

For a variety of reasons, Jews have been quite
successful using meritocratic criteria for college
admission, once discriminatory quotas were grad-
ually removed in the first half of the 20th century.

They are overrepresented among the winners in
the higher education race.

Unfortunately, these same meritocratic standards
have not worked well for Black and Hispanic
people because of a variety of discriminatory fac-
tors including segregated housing, underfunded
schools, discrimination in the labor market, etc.

Meritocratic standards yielded unequal results.

That’s why critical race theory scholars emphasize
equity rather than just equality.

In terms of the criticism that critical race theory
limits discussion of American racism, it’s not the sup-
porters who are banning books from schools, passing
laws restricting how schools can teach about racism
and calling for a two-sided discussion of slavery.

Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation
League, has warned Jewish educators that insisting
on a more “balanced” treatment of slavery could
also result in demands for teaching a “balanced”
view of the Holocaust. Greenblatt said, “Put simply,
you can’t teach the Holocaust without understand-
ing its origins in unchecked bias and how such
hatred then can be implanted in a society.”
Finally, since the issue of “legitimate” criticism of
Israel vs. antisemitic criticism has been broadly dis-
cussed elsewhere, I’ll not deal with it here. Suffice it
to say that exactly where the line should be drawn
continues to be contentious.

Critical race theory, and its Jewish variations, are
a useful way to understand the continuing racial
conflict in the United States and the role Jews play
in the “space between” as a middleman minority. JE
Fred L. Pincus is emeritus professor of sociology
at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a
founding member of the Baltimore Jewish Cultural
Chavurah. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
15