race is a social distinction, not genetic. This framework is referred to as “racialization”: humans create in-groups and out-groups, sometimes based on visible characteristics. Ardent racists attempted to use genetics to explain race, but we are all the same species. There are specific genes or traits that may be more common in people from certain regions or cultures, but there is enough variation (and people move around so much now) that this doesn’t mean anything. E.g., a White person with entirely European ancestry might have darker than average skin color, making them darker in comparison to a Black person with lighter than average skin color. The White person might experience anti-Black racism if someone sees them and categorizes them as Black based on skin tone. The racist might recant if told “my parents are Greek and Sicilian”, or they might double down.
Because “race” is a social category, this means different ethnicities have been classified as “White” or “non-White” depending on the social context. In the American context, Sicilian and Irish immigrants were racialized as “non-White”. This has nothing to do with skin tone; Sicilians were otherized by northern italians, and the Irish were otherized by the English. The stereotypes used to put down these ethnic groups were imported to the US, and the Northern Italians and English immigration waves happened before the Sicilian and Irish waves. This set the stage for a social hierarchy whereby Sicilians and Irish folk were bio-essentialized as untermensch–racialized as “non-White”.
“White” or “non-White” as terms should be seen not as categories of skin color, but as a binary method of classifying people as either “in-group” or “out-group”, used to systemically grant or revoke social privileges. If you layer this framework onto, e.g., Ancient Rome or Greece (the centers of these civilizations being firmly and broadly considered “White” today), you would note that the social classes with power would racialize different ethnic groups to justify slavery and tiered levels of citizenship. They had their own bioessentialist mythos, which they used to categorize people as either “equal to me” or “lesser than me”. For examples, look up ancient Greek ideas of autochthony.
To bring this back to Judaism: Jewish people are racialized as “others”, which is why “half-jewish” matters to people who believe in the dichotomy (even tacitly due to cultural momentum). “Half-jewish” implies, depending on the intent of the speaker, “still bad”, “not ALL bad”, or perhaps “part of an oppressed community”. To any racist who categorizes “Jewish” as “lesser”, any amount of Jewish ancestry = “bad” (see also Jean-Paul Sartre’s discussion about racists thinking that a bridge built by a Jewish architect is therefore a Jewish bridge and needs to be destroyed"). On the flip side, acknowledging that Jewish people have been racialized and systematically oppressed might lead one to recognize “half Jewish” as a category to describe someone whose family members faced systemic inequality because of their religion–something that many people see to be an immutable part of themselves, inherited from their parents.
Again, this is not a skin tone or genetic distinction, but a social one. “Half Christian” or “half Buddhist” are not terms that are used in this context, because Christians and Buddhists were not historically racialized. It’s not something that you can necessarily “see” just by looking at a person (that’s also why Nazis made Jewish people identify themselves visually).
A couple of things:
race is a social distinction, not genetic. This framework is referred to as “racialization”: humans create in-groups and out-groups, sometimes based on visible characteristics. Ardent racists attempted to use genetics to explain race, but we are all the same species. There are specific genes or traits that may be more common in people from certain regions or cultures, but there is enough variation (and people move around so much now) that this doesn’t mean anything. E.g., a White person with entirely European ancestry might have darker than average skin color, making them darker in comparison to a Black person with lighter than average skin color. The White person might experience anti-Black racism if someone sees them and categorizes them as Black based on skin tone. The racist might recant if told “my parents are Greek and Sicilian”, or they might double down.
Because “race” is a social category, this means different ethnicities have been classified as “White” or “non-White” depending on the social context. In the American context, Sicilian and Irish immigrants were racialized as “non-White”. This has nothing to do with skin tone; Sicilians were otherized by northern italians, and the Irish were otherized by the English. The stereotypes used to put down these ethnic groups were imported to the US, and the Northern Italians and English immigration waves happened before the Sicilian and Irish waves. This set the stage for a social hierarchy whereby Sicilians and Irish folk were bio-essentialized as untermensch–racialized as “non-White”.
“White” or “non-White” as terms should be seen not as categories of skin color, but as a binary method of classifying people as either “in-group” or “out-group”, used to systemically grant or revoke social privileges. If you layer this framework onto, e.g., Ancient Rome or Greece (the centers of these civilizations being firmly and broadly considered “White” today), you would note that the social classes with power would racialize different ethnic groups to justify slavery and tiered levels of citizenship. They had their own bioessentialist mythos, which they used to categorize people as either “equal to me” or “lesser than me”. For examples, look up ancient Greek ideas of autochthony.
To bring this back to Judaism: Jewish people are racialized as “others”, which is why “half-jewish” matters to people who believe in the dichotomy (even tacitly due to cultural momentum). “Half-jewish” implies, depending on the intent of the speaker, “still bad”, “not ALL bad”, or perhaps “part of an oppressed community”. To any racist who categorizes “Jewish” as “lesser”, any amount of Jewish ancestry = “bad” (see also Jean-Paul Sartre’s discussion about racists thinking that a bridge built by a Jewish architect is therefore a Jewish bridge and needs to be destroyed"). On the flip side, acknowledging that Jewish people have been racialized and systematically oppressed might lead one to recognize “half Jewish” as a category to describe someone whose family members faced systemic inequality because of their religion–something that many people see to be an immutable part of themselves, inherited from their parents.
Again, this is not a skin tone or genetic distinction, but a social one. “Half Christian” or “half Buddhist” are not terms that are used in this context, because Christians and Buddhists were not historically racialized. It’s not something that you can necessarily “see” just by looking at a person (that’s also why Nazis made Jewish people identify themselves visually).