Yes, I have been wondering about that myself way before October 7, 2023. Even if you want to look up children''s group pictures online from all different background dancing, the same thing. Why is that?
Because the world despises Jews and doesn't want to elevate them to equal societal status. If they were in commercials it would mean that the world accepts Jews as representative of "one of us", and they can' t have that. Quite simple from their point of view.
I prefer sarcasm, myself. My retort is:"What do you mean? I don't look like a Nobel prize winner to you?". But, I hear you with all my blonde and green eyed self and 100% Jewish with a PhD! Lol.
In my time, fashion magazines have shown all manner of women as ideals: white, black, Asian, Latin, Native. My whole teen years, I waited to see a glamorous fashion model with a big nose. One who “looked Jewish.” I never did. In the 50 years since, the only one I can count is Sarah Jessica Parker. The self hatred is quite internalized; when I was growing up, everyone who looked Jewish was pronounced a “mieskeit,” meaning someone so hideously ugly only their mother could love them, if that. When I walked down the street, perfect strangers would roll down their windows and bark at me, I was such a dog because I had a big Jewish nose. People regularly pointed and laughed, saying, “Boy do you look Jewish,” and more often than not these were Jews talking. Decades after that nose was surgically removed so I could function in life, a Chinese friend saw a photo of me with my Jewish nose and said, “Aw, you look cute!” She herself was embarrassed about having a flat nose, too Chinese, so she loved big noses. At that moment I realized OMG, I wasn’t a mieskeit, I was just dealing with toxic ubiquitous antisemitism.
No, they used to say it as an insult, no one thought she was actually good-looking. Everyone said to me, “You look like Barbra Streisand,” with a giggle, although I looked nothing like her, and they didn’t mean, “Wow you look like this glamorous film star,” they meant, “Yeah you have a big nose like her.”
Well, my blonde haired, blue-eyed father dodged a few bullets because the Germans who captured him as a Polish POW, released him along with the goyish soldiers, assuming that he was a Pole. The thing is the Poles who he served in the Army with were more than eager to point out that he was a Jew. Fortunately, the Nazis just laughed at the "dumb Pollaks" and released him with the others.
When I was in my twenties, I discussed this question with my father; someone at work had said I didn't look Jewish. I don't recall saying anything. But my father suggested that the next time it happened, I should say "my father is Jewish, but people say I look like me mother." And when they asked about my mother, to say "she's Jewish too". And then walk away.
I never had to use it in real life, but the reaction would have been interesting.
I enjoyed everyone’s personal comments but I was most moved by Joshua’s passionate love for being Jewish. Thank you, Joshua, for filling me with love for our history and how resilient and generous we are to share our gifts with a world who hates us. I wouldn’t trade being Jewish for anything. I consider it to be a privilege to call myself a Jew
As a very aryan looking gentile who took my husbands very Jewish surname, I have frequently gotten the comment, “you don’t look Jewish.” It’s offensive. Rather than saying”I’m not Jewish”- none of their business really anyway - and it would hurt me to “prove them right” … I just say “I’ve been told that before” in as chilly a voice as I can muster.
While washing my hands in a locker room a young Asian man saw the star dangling from my neck and said I didn't look Jewish. When I asked him what Jewish looked like, he said "Adam Sandler".
Even before 10/11, antisemitism was on the rise in the “progressive” movement, the one the republicans called woke.
The most liberal friend I have had- or did have- you know the one who worked his whole life fighting racism as a school teacher then a professor of Education, the one who started programs to fight bigotry, made the most antisemitic cat call I have ever received. “You are not Jewish because you don’t go to the synagogue”. And yes he knew my genetics are 100% Eastern European Jewish.
So maybe the Repugnuts have been right all along, so called progressives after all, are “woke” in the false terminology of what they really mean.
Are progressives ignorant antisemites who speak in those terms but are willing to learn or are they stupid antisemites who don’t want to learn and this are the most dangerous because they are subversive? I’m afraid it is the later. Yes, I am a Jew with 3000 years of history in my genes and yes you are a bigot who is too stupid to learn.
I always feel Jewish..................whether I am alone or with somebody...................it is clearly part of my DNA..................and I am proud of it................I am one of the lucky ones, my parents left Berlin and arrived in Australia in October 1938.................ellen goodman
Yes. Many people said I didn't look Jewish and I'm ashamed of the ambivalence the remark evoked in me. I guess I learned the ambivalence from my mom, a blue-eyed natural blonde. She staunchly refused going to "restricted" restaurants and hotels, even when her gentile friends assured her that no one would know she was Jewish. At the same time she took great pride being able to "pass for white" and teaching me to do the same. I think that we have a lot of healing to do as a nation and part of this involves embracing our Jewish identity in all of its aspects. But we should not be too hard on ourselves for taking the insult as a compliment. The compliment is not that we look gentile but that we adapted, survived and thrived in a world that hated us.
Excellent piece.
Notice, if you will, that every ethnicity appears in TV commercials except for Jews. There are women in hijabs, why not men in kippas?
Because Jew-hatred or fear of Jews is in the DNA of far too many gentiles.
Yes, I have been wondering about that myself way before October 7, 2023. Even if you want to look up children''s group pictures online from all different background dancing, the same thing. Why is that?
or women in kipas
Because the world despises Jews and doesn't want to elevate them to equal societal status. If they were in commercials it would mean that the world accepts Jews as representative of "one of us", and they can' t have that. Quite simple from their point of view.
Crosses everywhere but not a Magen David around an actors neck.
I prefer sarcasm, myself. My retort is:"What do you mean? I don't look like a Nobel prize winner to you?". But, I hear you with all my blonde and green eyed self and 100% Jewish with a PhD! Lol.
In my time, fashion magazines have shown all manner of women as ideals: white, black, Asian, Latin, Native. My whole teen years, I waited to see a glamorous fashion model with a big nose. One who “looked Jewish.” I never did. In the 50 years since, the only one I can count is Sarah Jessica Parker. The self hatred is quite internalized; when I was growing up, everyone who looked Jewish was pronounced a “mieskeit,” meaning someone so hideously ugly only their mother could love them, if that. When I walked down the street, perfect strangers would roll down their windows and bark at me, I was such a dog because I had a big Jewish nose. People regularly pointed and laughed, saying, “Boy do you look Jewish,” and more often than not these were Jews talking. Decades after that nose was surgically removed so I could function in life, a Chinese friend saw a photo of me with my Jewish nose and said, “Aw, you look cute!” She herself was embarrassed about having a flat nose, too Chinese, so she loved big noses. At that moment I realized OMG, I wasn’t a mieskeit, I was just dealing with toxic ubiquitous antisemitism.
Barbra Streisand
No, they used to say it as an insult, no one thought she was actually good-looking. Everyone said to me, “You look like Barbra Streisand,” with a giggle, although I looked nothing like her, and they didn’t mean, “Wow you look like this glamorous film star,” they meant, “Yeah you have a big nose like her.”
I love this. And I’m not Jewish at all.
Well, my blonde haired, blue-eyed father dodged a few bullets because the Germans who captured him as a Polish POW, released him along with the goyish soldiers, assuming that he was a Pole. The thing is the Poles who he served in the Army with were more than eager to point out that he was a Jew. Fortunately, the Nazis just laughed at the "dumb Pollaks" and released him with the others.
When I was in my twenties, I discussed this question with my father; someone at work had said I didn't look Jewish. I don't recall saying anything. But my father suggested that the next time it happened, I should say "my father is Jewish, but people say I look like me mother." And when they asked about my mother, to say "she's Jewish too". And then walk away.
I never had to use it in real life, but the reaction would have been interesting.
I enjoyed everyone’s personal comments but I was most moved by Joshua’s passionate love for being Jewish. Thank you, Joshua, for filling me with love for our history and how resilient and generous we are to share our gifts with a world who hates us. I wouldn’t trade being Jewish for anything. I consider it to be a privilege to call myself a Jew
All. The. Time. Now I just say something like “wow is that supposed to be some kind of compliment?” Grrrr.
As a very aryan looking gentile who took my husbands very Jewish surname, I have frequently gotten the comment, “you don’t look Jewish.” It’s offensive. Rather than saying”I’m not Jewish”- none of their business really anyway - and it would hurt me to “prove them right” … I just say “I’ve been told that before” in as chilly a voice as I can muster.
While washing my hands in a locker room a young Asian man saw the star dangling from my neck and said I didn't look Jewish. When I asked him what Jewish looked like, he said "Adam Sandler".
Don't really know what that means.
Even before 10/11, antisemitism was on the rise in the “progressive” movement, the one the republicans called woke.
The most liberal friend I have had- or did have- you know the one who worked his whole life fighting racism as a school teacher then a professor of Education, the one who started programs to fight bigotry, made the most antisemitic cat call I have ever received. “You are not Jewish because you don’t go to the synagogue”. And yes he knew my genetics are 100% Eastern European Jewish.
So maybe the Repugnuts have been right all along, so called progressives after all, are “woke” in the false terminology of what they really mean.
Are progressives ignorant antisemites who speak in those terms but are willing to learn or are they stupid antisemites who don’t want to learn and this are the most dangerous because they are subversive? I’m afraid it is the later. Yes, I am a Jew with 3000 years of history in my genes and yes you are a bigot who is too stupid to learn.
In a survey recently one of the questions was whether I was more concerned about antisemitism from the left or the right.
I haven't seen the results of the survey, but interesting question.
The left. The left used to be a buffer from the extreme right. No more in my experience.
In my experience, the left wasn't really a buffer. Here are some of the results from one of those surveys: https://jppi.org.il/en/19730-2/?utm_source=kolhaam
Interesting to reflect on. In my lifetime, no one ever told me I didn't look Norwegian when I so advised. Or told me I did.
Sometimes I feel like I look Jewish, I don’t know what heritage my father had? Who knows!
I always feel Jewish..................whether I am alone or with somebody...................it is clearly part of my DNA..................and I am proud of it................I am one of the lucky ones, my parents left Berlin and arrived in Australia in October 1938.................ellen goodman
Yes. Many people said I didn't look Jewish and I'm ashamed of the ambivalence the remark evoked in me. I guess I learned the ambivalence from my mom, a blue-eyed natural blonde. She staunchly refused going to "restricted" restaurants and hotels, even when her gentile friends assured her that no one would know she was Jewish. At the same time she took great pride being able to "pass for white" and teaching me to do the same. I think that we have a lot of healing to do as a nation and part of this involves embracing our Jewish identity in all of its aspects. But we should not be too hard on ourselves for taking the insult as a compliment. The compliment is not that we look gentile but that we adapted, survived and thrived in a world that hated us.
Thank you! Some great responses up my sleeve now.