6 | FEBRUARY 17 • 2022 

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued on page 11

1942 - 2022

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opinion
How Others See Us Really Matters 
T

here is no simple way to 
describe “Jewishness,
” 
even among Jews. For 
better or worse, how others 
define us seems 
to be what really 
matters. 
When Whoopi 
Goldberg com-
mented that 
the Holocaust 
was “not about 
race” during 
the ABC television show The 
View, she set off a firestorm of 
anger as her words went viral. 
Subsequently she was branded 
an antisemite and ABC sus-
pended her from the show for 
two weeks so that she could 
reflect upon her words.
Appearing on The Late Show 
with Stephen Colbert on CBS 
later that day she attempted to 
explain her words by observing 

that both Nazis and Jews were 
white. 
Hitler and Nazi Germany 
defined Jews as a race. They 
asserted a blood-based phi-
losophy which viewed Jews as 
racially inferior, sub-human or 
Untermenschen, as opposed to 
their self-perception as being 
the “Master Race” or the Aryan 
Herrenvolk. They went to great 
lengths to scientifically “prove” 
that Aryans were physically 
and intellectually superior, that 
Jews posed a biological threat 
to pure Germans, possessed a 
hereditary, unpleasant odor and 
had distasteful physical charac-
teristics. 
Neo Nazis and white suprem-
acists also see Jews as a race 
and adapted the basic Nazi 
doctrines. They also make it 
clear that they regard Jews as 
non-white. Contrary to what 

Whoopi and others may think, 
not everything is black and 
white. Even when Jews look 

white, there are those who see 
us as “others.
” 
Goldberg also ignored, or was 
unaware, that many Jews do not 
appear white. For example, Jews 
from Cochin, India (also called 
“Malabar” Jews or Kochinim) 
are not white, nor are Ethiopian 
Jews. Yet, DNA testing has 
shown that despite differenc-
es in appearance, all Jews are 
“related.
” 
Two surveys, using genome 
surveying devices, published 
in 2010, found that Jewish 
communities from Europe 
(Ashkenazi) and Middle 
Eastern, central Asian and 
Caucasus (Sephardi) countries 
all share genetic ancestry that 
can be traced back to Israel. 
In fact, studies have shown 
that Jews are the genetic broth-
ers and sisters of Palestinian, 
Syrian and Lebanese Arabs. 

Robert L. 
Kern

Whoopi Goldberg

RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK

