During a conversation at the Seder table on Tuesday, a man asked me why I thought women’s groups (and I included UN Women) who say “believe all women,” #metoo, stand up and for women, abandoned Jewish and Israeli women after October 7.
It’s a question that has plagued me. People on the street and in the media refused to believe that women were raped, killed, and kidnapped in the weeks after. Even now, the women, some released while others still captive in Gaza, remain largely forgotten by the world.
The answer seemed obvious to me, they’re Jewish. But it’s more nuanced than that. Because it’s not just this conflict. It’s how Jews and Jewish women are perceived – as White and privileged, and therefore outside of the group of marginalized people that requires inclusion. They are excluded because they are treated as the ones oppressing and excluding others. The framework of DEI does not include Jews.
Jews and Jewish women aren’t all white (look to the Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews of Northern Africa and Middle East). Jewish women attending a music festival or living at home on a kibbutz did nothing but live their lives and yet their victimization merits nary a word, in traditional or social media. At most, there’s been an interview or two of women kidnapped, raped, and ultimately released by Hamas.
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