First, I want to openly acknowledge that while I know the basics, I am woefully ignorant about the finer points of antisemitism. In fact, I had never even heard the epithet “s/he Jewed me” until I was in my twenties.
(Fun fact: this is also when I learned that playing clueless about a racist stereotype is one of the most effective ways of stopping people from saying stupid shit. I wasn’t playing at that moment, I was generally stumped. “Oh, this guy haggled with you over the price of a used car and that makes him….Jewish? I don’t get it.” But I’ve since used this tactic in other conversations when racist tropes are used. “I don’t get it, please explain it to me….” usually makes the other person realize they can’t without, you know, sounding racist.)
Anyway, I asked this question elsewhere but have not received a response and it’s something I’m genuinely curious about.
The question is this: Jewish people are Jewish whether they’re religious or not, so it seems uncomfortable for me to refer to that as someone’s religion. Meaning, there’s a difference between being ethnically Jewish and religiously Jewish, correct? For example, Sarah Silverman is proudly Jewish but also proudly atheist, so being Jewish isn’t her religion.
I know I’m probably not articulating this well, and antisemitism definitely doesn’t discriminate between ethnicity and religion. But I feel like it’s not accurate to say “Sarah Silverman gets death threats because of her religion,” because she doesn’t have a religion. “Sarah Silverman gets death threats because she’s Jewish” seems accurate.
I am sure I am coming across as clueless because I AM.
I want to make clear that I am not saying that any antisemitism is ok if it’s based on religion rather than ethnicity or vice versa. I don’t accept antisemitism in any way and this isn’t a question to argue degrees of antisemitism. All of it is wrong. I’m just uncomfortable with calling it someone’s religion when it clearly isn’t. Is that wrong?