Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism by Elly Bulkin

Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism Reviews

• 
  Nadav David

  Such powerful and enlightening reflections from these three rad women. It's quite telling how relatable, relevant and timely their arguments and perspectives are in this moment, 30+ years after it was published. They set such a great example of how to approach the work of fighting racism (and dismantling white supremacy) as people with completely different backgrounds while also combatting anti-Jewish oppression within our society and our movements (and doing so with context of how it functions differently than anti-Black racism). As a mixed-heritage (Iraq and Poland), Arab identifying Jew I was impressed by the way they integrated anti-Arab racism and Jews of Color into the conversation in the 1980's (certainly more room to grow in this analysis).
• 
  Aubrey

  Anti-alien laws in the United States remained despite a 1939 attempt to admit 20,000 children from Germany, 2/3 of them Jewish; the American Legion, one of the groups opposed to the Child Refugee Bill, maintained that "it was traditional American policy that home life should be preserved and that the American Legion therefore strongly opposed the breaking up of families."
  
  To acknowledge the complexity of another's existence is not to deny my own.

  It feels like it's been ages since I delved into hardcore social justice theory, but I am apparently still capable of keeping my head amidst all the quotes and references, even recognizing a few names here and there. Of the three authors, I found the third in order, Bulkin, the most useful and the first, Pratt, the most quotable, with the second and middle, Smith, offering a sort of segue between one status quo side of the question and the next as someone who is neither white nor Jewish. What I find these days to be of the most value is evidence that political violence enacted today has happened cyclically in the past, and it's harder to cover such up in the age of the Internet the interned Haitian refugees of the 1980s and the rejected Jewish children of the 1930s. Depressing, but intrinsically useful in the record of resistance both events spawned, thus giving people who don't know what to do today in the face of such government sponsored horrors a historically grounded plan of action, updated of course to the hyperteched realms of the 21st century. I especially appreciated the deep look Bulkin spent so much time on with regards to antisemitism, Israel, and Palestine, as similar trends of conversation and dividing and conquering still go on today, and it is necessary to tear each other part while the White Christian Powers That Be watch in genocidal delight.

  We are offered some false gains to keep us from making that choice to stand with women different from ourselves.
  
  The only reason who would consider trying to team up with somebody who could possibly kill you, is because that's the only way you can figure you can stay alive. -Bernice Johnson Reagon, "Coalition Politics: Turning the Century"

  Someone told me recently that they'd find reading this to be too depressing. I responded by saying that it's less depressing for me if I can acquire some credible nuance and/or concrete act of resistance regarding certain contentious politics, life threatening and otherwise (but c'mon, when is it not), as I am not omniscient, and my position as a white, non-Jewish person in the US is full of dehumanizing potential when it comes to my interaction with those not part of those two categories of power. Granted, I imagine the list of organizations that this work provided is rather out of date and the conversation has (hopefully) progressed beyond certain conflicts described here and there. However, the US is still set on annihilating the Middle East, Jewish people are still getting harassed with demands that they 'solve' the 'Israel problem' (sound familiar?), and I imagine a good number of white Christians still think Reagan was God's gift to mankind and thus have similar hopes that a Jewish stronghold amidst the Arab world will inevitably lead to them canceling each other out just in time for Judgment Day. Rather sensationalist, that last bit, but I've heard worse implications out of various political leaders. I also appreciated the tackling of radical feminism and its oftentimes right wing ways, as I'm still struggling out of having previously found such texts to be paradigmatically groundbreaking, and I need all the guidance, nuance, and cross reference I can get when it comes to understanding how feminism births bigotry. There's little use of reaching towards the light if some anglerfish has convinced you to step on another's face in order to do so.

  [I]f we are families and a culture that enforced, either overtly or subtly, separation by skin and blood, I believe we need to look seriously at what limitations we have placed in this "new world" on who we feel "close to," who we feel "comfortable with," who we feel "safe" with. We can ask ourselves what we are doing actively to make our lives and work different from that of women who say they joined the Klan because it gives them a family closeness, a "white family," like "sisters," some of them women who support the Equal Rights Amendment, and express sympathy with aspects of the women's movement that have helped them gain confidence to work outside the home, start their own businesses, be more independent.
  
  In political dialogue and private conversation, it is more than possible to attack and criticize racism and racist behavior without falling back on the stereotypes and ideology of another system of oppression...The self-righteousness with which some individuals express homophobia parallels the self-righteousness with which some of these same individuals and others express anti-Semitism. In both instances, such attacks are not perceived as wrong, because of the pervasive, socially sanctioned contempt for the group in question...If we are not interested in being called out of our names, we can assume that other people don't want to be called out of theirs either, even when the larger white society thoroughly condones such behavior.

  This is a text that could have turned out onerous, repetitive, or disappointing, but the variety of perspectives outside of my own truly delivered with regards to valuable information, and while I did have to spend some time parsing political subtleties here and there, it was nearly always worth it in the end. This is certainly not a beginner's text, so I wouldn't suggest this as any sort of introduction. In terms of agreement and disagreement, I will forever be a babe in the woods when it comes to engaging critically with the fight against racism and antisemitism, but I do hesitate about the insistence on always teaching, always communicating: I've seen the results of liberal conversation versus anti-fascist deplatforming, and the second has been better at shoving the Overton window back to the humanizing realms than the former. All in all, if you're looking for a wealth of cross cultural historical reference and political action regarding antisemitism and racism, with some nods to sexism, queerphobia, and other isms, this is a great text, and it is bound to teach most, if not all, something they have never knew that they can immediately apply to their engagement with the world, if not their lives as a whole.

  Our ancestors were held in camps too. Let these people go.
• 
  Hannah

  I've never read anything like this before. In my current era of radical politics or whatever, I basically never hear anything about anti-Semitism, and probably my skills at recognizing it are not as sharp as they are for other kinds of oppression. I haven't ever read a white woman, let alone a dyke, trace out her local lineage with racism the way Minnie Bruce Pratt does here. I also have encountered very little that is this in-depth about the perceived or set-up conflicts between different types of oppression (and would be interested in recommendations if others have them). Finally, I've read very little that is so clear about coalition-building, what it is and is not, and how individuals in different positions have navigated that. I also appreciated having the various threads and histories of "Zionism" and "anti-Zionism" traced by people with whom I know I share other political affiliations; it feels more trustworthy.
  
  This book was published decades ago. Where has this work continued? At the time of writing, Israel's pinkwashing hadn't yet begun. 9/11 hadn't happened yet. I especially want to look for follow-up from Elly Bulkin to see how her Zionism may have changed given the last couple decades. Leads welcome.
• 
  Omni

  elly bulkin sure has a lot to say (roughly half the book), but it was informative. I liked that she included a chapter on anti-semitism and anti-Arab racism.
• 
  l

  Three very different essays - I'd really recommend pratt's as activism 101 - and each of them worth reading.
• 
  Ilene

  A rereading - still marvelous.
• 
  Heather

  The first essay was one of the greatest things I've ever read.