Once jews were accepted into american society as fully white, white privilege extended retroactively. jews did not become white because they succeeded in spite of racism. No they succeeded because of white racism. jews were always classified as white however, their whiteness was not white enough compared to the nordiac whites who lay claim to this land. Nevertheless their whiteness was always “white,” as we know it today, in relation to Black people. This became even more pronounced during the social and economical shifts following wwll which reconfigured whiteness in such a way as to allow them (particularly jewish men) the entitlements that being white brought (like the g.i. bill and access to the suburbs). This privilege also extends to how we talk about their past, the holocaust in particular, in comparison to slavery.



