> Without wanting to enter the debate about Campbell's putative > anti-semitism, whether one "should" care about it, and so on, > I do want to ask, Ben, that you reconsider your use of the > word "racism" in your phrase about "being an antisemite or any other > form of racist." Hitler defined Jews as members of a race. > I don't. To me, a Yemenite Jew is just as much a Jew as a Canadian > Jew. Not all invidious "isms" are racisms, and the notion that > being Jewish is congenital and ineradicable speaks from the > position of the bigots. (Yes, I know that orthodox Jewish > law defines a Jew as anyone born of a Jewish mother and does > not recognize conversion, but the vast majority of the world's > Jews--of all races--are not orthodox.) I take pains to separate > myself from that language. I urge others do the same. Race, racism and anti-Semitism are all contested terms that carry a number of ambiguities and contradictions. We should recognize the political and rhetorical strategies of referring to anyone, Jews included, as being members of a particular race. If you examine the ideological underpinnings of racism and anti-Semitism, you can see there are a great deal of similarities. Both attempt to, in Allport's words, construct an Other. Both are predicated on a wayof seeing, not on any innate biological trait. And both remain embedded at the level of personal beliefs, but also institutional practices. I would agree that to refer to Jews as a race is indeed problematic. But I think it is important in our academic and activist work to link anti-Semitism and racism as the oppressive ideologies that they are, regardless of who is the victim of this kind of hate. Being a member of New Jewish Agenda, I'm going to make a plug for our forthcoming pamphlet and conference on anti-Semitism and racism. If you'd like to find out more, please send an email message to me. Steve Carr Dept. of Radio-TV-Film UT-Austin