Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are the sole responsibility of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
On February 15, 2026, readers of the New York Post
encountered a story that captured a peculiar moment in contemporary identity
politics: the Coalition of National Racial and Ethnic Psychological
Associations (CONREPA) firmly opposed
the creation of an Association of Jewish Psychologists as an official
Ethnic Psychological Association within the American Psychological Association.
Their reasoning was straightforward and revealing. Jews, they argued, are not
underrepresented in the field—the majority of Jewish Americans identify as
white, and Jewish psychologists of color already have representation in
existing ethnic associations. Conflating religion, race, and ethnicity would blur
the focus on racism and white supremacy as harms directed at people of color.
Just one day later, on February 16, The Algemeiner
published a starkly different account. Beejhy Barhany, the Ethiopian-Israeli
owner of Tsion Cafe in Harlem—a restaurant celebrating Ethiopian Jewish cuisine
that had recently gone fully kosher and vegan—detailed years of escalating
harassment that forced
its closure on February 12. Swastikas scrawled on the building, threatening
phone calls (“We’re going to come and shoot you all”), and intensified attacks
after October 7, 2023, when Barhany embraced her Jewish heritage more openly by
making the restaurant kosher. The focus of the hostility was three-fold: Barhany's Jewish identity, her Israeli
background, and the restaurant’s kosher certification; her Ethiopian heritage
and the color of her skin offered no insulation—meant absolutely nothing to
them. “It became unbearable,” she said, citing safety and mental health
concerns after repeated, unaddressed complaints to authorities.
These two stories, separated by a mere 24 hours, form a
chilling juxtaposition that exposes the fickle, convenience-driven way Jewish
identity is racialized in today's discourse. Call it Schrödinger's Jew—a status
that shifts depending on the observer's agenda. On one day, Jews are deemed
"white" enough to be excluded from minority protections and
coalitions, too privileged and overrepresented to warrant their own space in
professional bodies addressing oppression. On the next, a black Jewish woman
(Ethiopian-born, Israeli-raised) is marked as unmistakably "other"
and Jewish—threatened, vandalized, and driven out of business precisely because
of that Jewishness, her choice to make her restaurant kosher, and her cultural
expression of heritage.
Jewish identity is fluid in the eyes of others:
white and assimilated when it serves to block access or deny solidarity, alien
and threatening when it manifests in visible traditions, pride, or connection
to Israel. Historical echoes abound—Jews were racialized as non-white outsiders
in early
20th-century America (facing discrimination, quotas, and violence like the
lynching of Leo Frank), then granted conditional "whiteness"
post-World War II through socioeconomic assimilation and suburban integration.
That status, however, has always been revocable, especially amid rising
antisemitism. Today, in progressive spaces, the label snaps back to "white"
to justify exclusion from intersectional frameworks, even as real-world threats
ignore skin color or background.
The timing of these articles—published one right after the
other—serves as a mirror to this societal volatility. In academia and
professional guilds, Jews are too white to be minorities. In the streets of
Harlem, or online, or anywhere hatred flares, Jewishness overrides any
perceived racial assimilation, rendering even Jews of color targets. Barhany's
experience highlights the harm embedded in such shifting perceptions.
As indigenous
rights activist Ryan
Bellerose, a Métis from the Paddle Prairie Metis settlement in Alberta,
Canada, and a Zionist, has long argued, Jews should reject this imposed
"whiteness" framework altogether. He frames Jewish peoplehood through
an indigenous lens: rooted in ancient ties to the land of Israel, shared
history, culture, and continuity—not Western racial categories. Regarding the
opposition of CONREPA to the formation of an association for Jewish
psychiatrists, Bellerose put it succinctly: "If we accept that only a
group has the right to decide who is a member of that group, then you gotta ask
yourself if white people ever accepted Jews as white. The answer is clearly
no."
Ryan is right (he usually is). By accepting conditional whiteness, Jews remain
trapped in a binary that others control, always vulnerable to redefinition and
exclusion.
The back-to-back headlines that were striking in their irony and juxtaposition, reveal a pattern where Jewish minority status is granted or revoked based upon convenience—denied when seeking inclusion, weaponized when expressing distinct identity. Until Jews reclaim a narrative beyond these shifting labels—as an indigenous people with a resilient, multifaceted identity—the threats, whether professional gatekeeping or death threats over a plate of injera, are likely to continue unchecked.
The “who is a Jew” question was settled well before those
headlines existed, in biblical times, by God. Our Jewish identity is not
predicated on the color of our skin and never was. And Jewish identity is not subject
to reassignment, either by committee or mob. News cycles change quickly. The
headlines will be forgotten, and the Chosen People will endure—as they always
have.
The haters are jealous of us. Because they weren’t chosen.
But perhaps instead of being green with envy and seething with resentment, they
should try to be more like us and less like themselves.
That would certainly go a long way toward making our world a better place.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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