jewishmagpie:

So I’ve had a little bee in my bonnet over the non-Jews who refuse to accept that Jewishness is more than just being a person who follows Judaism as a faith. Who deny that Jewishness is also about ethnicity. And I could talk about where Jews came from, and our insular communities and bloodline traditions that connect us all the way back to before we were forced out into the diaspora, but a lot of people overlook that. 

Instead, I’m going to do something different. 

This is for everyone to reblog if they’d like to show that Jews have never just been “white people” or random people that followed Judaism. I present to you the historical antisemitism that very few either know about or want to acknowledge.

“Gentiles only.”

“It is hereby represented that the makers and signers of this lease are of Aryan descent and the lessee does hereby agree that he or she/and/or they will not ask to sublet this apartment to anyone of Semitic descent.”

[Link for easier reading.] TL:DR; the secretary of the golf club denied that there was a sign that said Jewish players were banned at the entrance – and that the signs were only in the locker room and the office. The signs read: “After June 20th this club will be operated for Gentile patronage only.”

“Privileges of the swimming pool are extended only to approved gentiles.”

“Gentiles only.”

“Gentiles only” and “Members & guests limited to gentiles of North European ancestry.”

This is just a small selection.

It wasn’t “Christians only.” It was antisemitism due to us being seen as a separate – and unwanted – ethnicity.

This is exactly why I say that the “But being Jewish is just about religion!” arguments are both moot and hurtful.

Antisemitism may have started because of religious in-fighting, but the majority of antisemitism hasn’t been like that for a long, long time. And just because some non-Jews find it hard to wrap their heads around Jewishness being about ethnicity too, that doesn’t mean that our ethnicity magically disappears.

Antisemitic non-Jews were the ones that enforced how different and separate we both were and still are. And we’re not going to allow non-Jews to strip us of our identity just because we happen to look a certain way today – black, white, Asian, Arab or whatever else. It’s just not going to happen.