Whoopi Goldberg's Holocaust remarks could lead to better relations

Whoopi Goldberg's high-profile rewriting of the Holocaust and the strident backlash against it could be a watershed moment in race relations, particularly between Blacks and Jews.

When Goldberg regains her public platform, she could provide much-needed nuance to the national dialogue on race if she imparts the lessons of why she was so dead wrong in dumbing down as fighting between two groups of white people the Nazi slaughter of 6 million Jews.

The first lesson: Competing for victimhood only clutters the conversation and detracts from the fight against bigotry. To be sure, people of color are an obvious and easy target for racism. But the logic does not work in reverse.

When it comes to Jews, haters tend to hit their mark — even those of us with pale skin.

Lori Gilbert-Kaye's white skin provided no cover when a gunman on the last day of Passover 2019 opened fire and killed the 60-year-old Sabbath worshipper at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California. Nor did Rabbi Josef Neumann's light skin save him that same year when an attacker who traveled to the upstate Orthodox Jewish hamlet of Monsey hunted Jews in a home as they celebrated Hanukkah. The attacker repeatedly stabbed the 72-year-old rabbi, who was left in a coma before succumbing to his wounds.

Although Jews comprise less than 2% of the U.S. population, reported hate crimes targeting Jews made up nearly 60% of all religion-based hate crimes in 2020, according to FBI statistics. Where was the shield of white privilege? Where was it during the Holocaust?

The talk show host’s education on bigotry would not be complete without understanding that demographics take the wind out of her original assertion, that Jews can be classified as a homogeneous white group; Jews come in many colors.

Jews, like other Americans, are growing more racially and ethnically diverse, according to a Pew Research Center study released last year. While most Jewish American adults identify as non-Hispanic white, 8% identify with other racial or ethnic groups. That share is higher, 15%, among Jews ages 18 to 29.

Moreover, 17% of Jews, and 29% of Jewish adults under the age of 30, said they live in households in which at least one child or adult is Black, Hispanic, Asian, or other nonwhite race or ethnicity, or multiracial.

Nor is Israel the white colonialist entity its enemies purport it is. Most Israeli Jews are Mizrachi, meaning of Middle Eastern and North African descent, while only about a third of Israeli Jews are Ashkenazi, or of European background.

You would be hard-pressed to distinguish my Israeli cousin Avi as Jewish were he sitting among a group of Cuban immigrant diners in Miami’s Little Havana.

The intense recoil to Goldberg’s misguided assertions are welcome. Until now, recent history shows that slights against Jews have been met with a ho-hum response or no response at all.

The often-lackluster response to antisemitism may be due in part to a belief that Jews enjoy white privilege. Understanding that history and demographics prove otherwise is a lesson at least as important as the calls to forgive Whoopi Goldberg.

Correcting the dangerous narrative she put forth will help ensure Jewish civil rights are protected, too, and bring us all closer to dialogue and reconciliation.

This guest essay reflects the views of Allan Richter, a journalist who lives in Smithtown.