Discussion for article #236418
Not to excuse it, but McCleary isn’t a name that typically pops up in a lot when playing Jewish Geography.
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I read the article, and I, as well as many commenters, was troubled by it’s failure to acknowledge that there are many Jews on campus for the BDS movement. What’s disturbing about this revelation is that it shows that lack of other voices might have been willful.
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I had a college friend whose very Irish Catholic name (dad) didn’t match his Jewish faith (mom).
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My sister is Jewish married to my Irish Catholic brother-in-law. All her kids have been raised in both faiths to some greater and lesser degrees, and will chose for themselves according to my sister, which religion if any they choose to follow later in life. Its really not that uncommon.
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As a Jew (by birth) with a very non-Jewish sounding name (Scandinavian in origin), I’ve often experienced the same thing when speaking on matters related to Israel and Jewishness.
In fact, a NYT reporter asked me similar questions in 1988 when I was a member of the Democratic National Convention Platform Committee and I introduced a platform plank calling for negotiations for a two state agreement. (At the time it was considered radical and soundly defeated - funny how something that once both parties viewed as anathema became mainstream foreign policy in a relatively short period of time. I’d also introduced a similar plank in 1984 as a Jesse Jackson member of the Platform Committee and Mondale’s foreign policy maven - Madeline Albright - and the Platform Chair - Geraldine Ferraro - and all the operatives from the other campaigns went into overdrive to make sure the debate was short and the motion immediately rejected.)
After the Platform meeting in 1988 - when I had identified myself as Jewish in my remarks - the NYT reporter quizzed me with questions like “You say you’re Jewish? That doesn’t sound like a Jewish name?” “How Jewish are you? Do you go to synagogue?” I believe the throwaway line in the story that ran about the meeting described me as a “self-identified secular Jew.”
25+ years later, I guess some things don’t change.
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Ira has my blond hair, blue eyes, and light complexion. We hardly fit the cartoonish stereotype held by many. (I guess that’s why it’s called a “stereotype”.) In public, his poor mother (a brunette with brown eyes and a dark complexion) is occasionally asked by total strangers, “Are you the nanny?”
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The chiefs at the NY Times were shocked, SHOCKED, that a Jewish litmus test was in effect at The Newspaper of Record! For decades, critics of the Times labeled it “The Holocaust Update” because of its intense focus on stories about the Jewish experience of news and the world. None of this is actually news.
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You also don’t typically associate names like O’Higgins with Latinos. . .Unfortunately, you can’t always go by someone’s name. I mean, I’m Latina and my last name definitely doesn’t fit.
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You think you know a guy, and then…
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Yeah, but the Bernardo part is a dead giveaway.
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If only they had religious freedom laws in NY.
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Oy vey! Good thing he wasn’t a schwartze!
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Well played.
Well, I disagree with most of the comments here. If I understand the situation, a reporter was interviewing an advocate of BDS who said he was Jewish and then gave a very non-Jewish name. I would think that the reporter wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t follow up with a couple questions that went to the veracity of the person’s claim. Now, it may be that the reporter was snotty when he did it or asked silly follow-up questions (e.g., were you a Bar Mitzvah), but the fact of the follow-up seems to make sense to me and was wholly appropriate.
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Like McCleary, I have a classically Irish name from my father’s side but am a Jew as my mother was — when I perform, I refer to myself as “Judeo-Celtic”. But I know a great many people of similarly mixed heritage and for the reporter to make a fuss over it seems odd. Odd as well, however, is for McCleary to complain first of a “Jewish litmus test” and THEN to complain that no Jewish BDS supporters are mentioned in the article — though the reporter’s questions about McCleary’s background sound awfully ham-handed, short of mental telepathy she would have had to ask something about McCleary’s Jewishness for McCleary to get the results he wanted. I suspect if he had been quoted in the Times, he would have kept his complaints to himself.
As for the journalistic judgement not to quote Jewish BDS supporters, well, yes, obviously there are such people — just as there are reactionary African Americans. Fox News trots them out all the time to suggest they are anything but a small sliver of black opinion in general. The BDS movement does the same thing for the same reason with Jews. But while the majority of American Jews are critical of Israel’s actions, those same Jews are supportive of Israel’s existence. BDS groups like Jewish Voice for Peace are agnostic on the issue of one state or two and happily to ally themselves with open supporters of the former, which is a euphemism for the end of Israel. They are therefore no more representative of American Jews than Allen West is representative of African-Americans. Their absence in an article on this topic is a completely legitimate editorial decision.
Well said. I have a classically British last name-- thanks to my aggressively assimilationist grandfather. And we have seven spectacular grandchildren-- all with Scottish or Irish last names, and all Jewish. BDS is happy to trot out a Jew or two who favors BDS, but the overwhelming majority of us do not, whatever we may think of any particular Israeli leader.
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sure, cause a jew would never marry a non-jew. it’s not like having a jewish mother counts.
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oops…
And Cohen is an old Irish name.