Jews in the Historical Middle East? US Census Says Maybe
I’ve just become biracial, and, if you’re Jewish, you can be too. On the US Census, I’ve always described myself as white. This hasn’t been a difficult decision. In 1970, when I would’ve been old enough to respond to my own census questionnaire, the categories for “color or race” were “White, Negro or Black, Indian (Amer.), Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, Korean, Other (with write-in).” My Jewish grandparents came to the US from Eastern Europe, so the answer couldn’t have been more obvious.
Earlier this year, though, I found myself with an additional option. The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which decides how the government classifies population groups, added a new category to what is now called “race and ethnicity”: “Middle Eastern or North African” (MENA). This category is defined as “individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of the Middle East or North Africa.” The official US categories are now American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African-American, Hispanic or Latino, Middle Eastern or North African, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and White. Individuals can write in other groups and identify with as many as they want.
How exciting! If anyone can identify as having origins among the original peoples of the Middle East or North Africa, that would be Jews, who have been living there for well over 3000 years. Thus, I now identify myself as white and MENA whenever I am asked to describe my race and ethnicity–I’m biracial. Presumably any other white-presenting Jew could do so as well, while other American Jews could identify themselves as African-American and MENA, Latino and MENA, Asian and MENA, and so on. And why not? Jews declaring themselves biracial, or even MENA alone, could be a response to those who insist that all Jews are white. Besides, these days being biracial even has a certain cachet.
From a historical standpoint, though, Jews long hated any hint that they might not be white. Until 1870, only whites could become naturalized American citizens; from 1870 until 1940, only whites and Africans or those of African descent. And nonwhites in the US, citizens or not, suffered tremendously from discrimination and legal disabilities in many parts of the country (discrimination much worse than Jews already suffered on religious grounds). Even everyday language from the late 19th century on, referring to ethnic groups as races–the “Jewish race,” “Italian race,” “Polish race,” and so on–was threatening. Why would any Jew want to be considered nonwhite or biracial, even now? That question misses the key point about the MENA category – it’s not for Jews, it’s for Arabs.
During the first half of the 20th century, the racial status of Arabs in the US was ambiguous. Sometimes they were considered white but often they weren’t. In a 1944 Federal District Court case, however, Arabs were declared to be white, and the OMB formalized this status in 1977. Given America’s racial history, this should have been seen as a victory, and for a while it was. But as evidence of just how much the meaning of race has changed, increasing numbers of Arab-Americans came to want their own nonwhite category–it would, many thought, increase the visibility of Arab-Americans, get them included in hate-crime statistics, win them access to government benefits intended for minorities, and stimulate research on Arab-Americans.
The new category couldn’t be “Arab,” however. American tradition is that population groups are defined by geographical origins. Thus, MENA: “individuals with origins in any of the original peoples of the Middle East or North Africa.” But who were the original peoples? Babylonians, one might think, along with Assyrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hittites, Canaanites, Edomites, and, of course, Jews, along with other peoples. But those are not mentioned in the OMB definition. Instead, the so-called original peoples listed as examples are almost all residents of modern countries– “Lebanese, Iranian, Egyptian [original and contemporary], Syrian, Iraqi, and Israeli,” along with “Moroccan, Yemeni, Kurdish [an ethnic group without a country of its own], etc.” No Jews. (“Israeli” refers to the country established in 1948, and a substantial proportion of its citizens are not Jews.)
Of course, the nationalities listed are only intended as examples, and it’s easy to imagine thinking of Jews – a people, not a nationality – as included. But they’re not, and we all know what happens when a survey focuses on some examples and ignores others–the others are forgotten. What we have, effectively, is the historical Middle East with no Jews.
Defining the Middle East the way it has, the US government – intentionally or not – joins those who try to delegitimize Israel by claiming that there were no Jews in the historical Middle East. Many Palestinians argue that the original inhabitants of the region that is now Israel were Palestinians, not Jews. Jesus was not a Jew, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, has said; he was a Palestinian. The First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, described in the Bible–Jesus preached at the Second–never existed.
Most member states of the United Nations seem to share that view. In Jerusalem, there’s a site with two names: Jews call it the Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples stood; Muslims call it Haram al-Sharif, said to be the site from which Mohammed ascended to heaven. In resolutions repeatedly passed by the UN General Assembly, most recently in 2021, however, the location is called only Haram al-Sharif. France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, and 121 other countries voted for the 2021 resolution erasing Jews from Judaism’s holiest site.
It would be difficult to discover whether the MENA category was set up intentionally in a way that would effectively exclude Jews. But it’s hard to believe that it’s entirely a coincidence.
I think it would be a good thing if other Jews would join me in declaring themselves biracial, and to be very open about it. Doing so could help us stymie a subtle but unmistakable way of excluding us from among the original peoples of the Middle East.