Alef: The NEXT Conversation
NEXT PREV
Black Jew Syndrome
By Ariel Joseph, Esq.
Being an American of mixed-heritage, I have always found dating Jewish women to be a somewhat…complicated endeavor. Sure, my mother was of Jewish heritage, as was her mother, but neither of them married Jewish men. Consequently, in addition to being Jewish, I am Irish, Czech, German, African, Indian, and Carib. Although most people can tell that I’m multi-racial, I am most often categorized as “Black,” at least until people learn that I am part Jewish, at which point I become a “Black Jew.”
I have learned that I am a culturally confusing package for most women, but for Jewish women in particular I seem to create a disruption in their schemas that make our relationships short lived. After much personal analysis and discussion with friends, family, and mentors, including Jewish community leaders, I have come to the conclusion that this is due to a cultural condition that I call “Black Jew Syndrome” (or BJS).
BJS can be broken down into three distinct stages: (1) The Infatuation, (2) the Internal Conflict, and (3) the Reconciliation. Before I investigate BJS in more detail, it is worth noting that I have always been attracted to members of the tribe; indeed, one out of every three women I have dated has been Jewish, so I have significant experience with this issue.
Stage One: Infatuation:
The Infatuation stage is marked by a strong interest/attraction, not unlike that shared by most new couples. What makes it distinct from other new relationships is the fetishization of the Black Jew for his “otherness.” Whereas in “regular” intra-racial relationships both partners engage in physical intimacy for the purposes of attraction, fun, and potential procreation, if an interracial element is added, sex changes.
I have dated women from many races and cultures, and the majority of time I would categorize sex with them as being “normal.” With Jewish women, however, the tone I hear in the bedroom changes. The fact that I’m Black seems to overwhelm other aspects of who I am and I have often times felt objectified. This isn’t always a bad thing, yet the Infatuation stage, unfortunately, almost always leads to stage two.
Stage Two: Internal Conflict:
After the initial obsession begins to wear off, the reality that she’s dating a “Black guy” begins to affect the average Jewish woman’s perception of the relationship. While she will usually continue to date her darker skinned companion at this stage in the relationship, dates in public begin to dwindle in number and any talk of meeting the family is usually put off.
I have witnessed this occur multiple times in my life. In fact, I once confronted a girlfriend with my concerns about the Internal Conflict when she began showing symptoms of it, and was surprised by the earnestness of her response.
“I can date you,” she said. “I just don’t think I can be in a serious relationship with you.”
“Why not?” I asked. “I mean, don’t you like me? Aren’t you happy being with me?”
“Of course I’m happy with you,” she replied. “I’m thinking about marriage, though, and I know my family wouldn’t be happy if I married a Black guy”.
“But my mom’s Jewish…” I told her. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Maybe with my parents, but my grandmother would keel over if she knew we were together. She wants 100% pure-blood Jewish great-grandchildren, and I’m sure my parents want 100% Jewish grandchildren themselves”.
The fact that I was both Jewish and Black created a genuine conflict in her. She enjoyed dating, sex, our conversations, and was happy with me as a person. Yet BJS took over and began causing her inner turmoil. She liked me, yet my race made it difficult for her to truly see me as a long-term prospect. I was fun to be with, but she had problems seeing me as boyfriend material.
Stage Three: Reconciliation:
The final stage of BJS manifests itself through an acknowledgement on the Jewish woman’s part that she needs to move on and find a guy that she can feel comfortable taking home to her parents and grandparents. If you are a Jewish woman or have dated Jewish women, you know exactly how intrusive Jewish parents and grandparents can be about who their descendants are involved with. Admittedly, Jewish people have a (somewhat) legitimate desire to see their offspring continue the Jewish bloodline. However, in my experience, it is their desire for Jewish offspring that is the primary cause of BJS. Jewish women I’ve dated usually arrive at an understanding, or Reconciliation, regarding their feelings toward me as a Black Jew based, in large part, upon what their parents or grandparents desire. Unfortunately, due to fear of disappointing their parents, this Reconciliation almost always ends with our relationship ending.
The Reconciliation stage does not seem to be an easy place to be for the Jewish women I’ve dated, and I don’t hold a grudge against them for choosing their families over a guy they’ve known for two or three months. That said, it is frustrating and demoralizing to be devalued due to the color of your skin. Perhaps when the “Greatest Generation” is gone and the “Boomers” become the oldest people in America, we will begin to see more tolerance from more Jewish matriarchs and patriarchs. For now, I just hope to find a woman who doesn’t give a fuck about the melanin in my skin, even if her family does.
Photo by Charles Williams, licensed under Creative Commons.
Read more posts from issue #16: Diverse Jews
Tags: Black, dating, jewish, tolerance
7 Responses to “Black Jew Syndrome”
Leave a Reply
Follow Us
2009. Alef: The NEXT Conversation All rights reserved.
Home |
About |
Contact Us
This article was definitely hard to read, but I completely understand your sentiments. I’m a Jew by choice and have always been thankful that I could pass as “looking Jewish.”. Thank you for voicing something I have always felt. I assure you that you are not alone in feeling this way!
Thanks for sharing your experience. It made me wiser. I’m raising two Jewish kids (one Hispanic and one African) and I am very aware that they will run into some severe difficulties reconciling these two parts of their identities – religion and race.
I am a Jew-by-Choice of mixed heritage (African-American & European). Prior to choosing Judaism, I dated a few Jewish women and each time had the exact same experience as described here. One woman, whom I loved very much and dated for 4 years, broke things off and within a year married the son of a “friend of the family” – then 6 months later attempted to have an affair with me. No dice.
Later, I married an African-American woman and, looking for a faith/way of living that matched our beliefs and needs, we found Judaism. We have a beautiful African-American child who has only known the Jewish life we brought her into.
Until reading this article I hadn’t recalled my experiences as they occured almost two decades ago and, as I brought my beshert into the tent with me, there wasn’t an issue. Now, I wonder what my little Batia will think of our faith if she runs up against “strict endogamy” when she becomes of marriageable age. Suddenly I recall the words of my college roommate David’s grandpa “shikseh’s are for shtoomping, Jewish girls are for marriage.”
That is so unfortunate. I’m very sorry you had to deal with those issues. My intern actually told me that she had a situation quite similar. She went out with a man who was a dark latino and her parents had a big problem with it. Her boyfriend ended up breaking up with her because he thought that he would lose her in the end.
It’s true that she experienced feelings of infatuation and the internal conflict, but ultimately she just wanted him. He was afraid of getting hurt because that situation had happened to him so many times before.
My advice to you is, don’t give up. Interracial Dating can be fun and anyone can do it.
I recently launched a blog, Racy JC, that approaches interracial dating in a new, honest, real, and non-PC way. Please check it out!
http://jcdaviesauthor.com/
social media: jcdaviesauthor
Oh, this pains me! So well-written, yet so frustrating. Who are these jappy women & why are they so intolerant?! I suppose I’m blessed to have come from a family – mostly Jewish, all white – that doesn’t give a damn about skin color. In fact, growing up in a city where nearly everyone was white & no one but me was Jewish, my first boyfriend was the city’s only black guy. Maybe we felt like we needed to stick together?
My mom has long said that she doesn’t care who I date. I can bring home a black man, a Catholic man, a woman – as long as I never, ever bring home a Republican.
That seems like a much more acceptable prejudice to me…
This is even worse for a Black jewish woman because women are constantly on the lookout for men who will date them sleep with them, sometimes for years all the while never intending for a minute to marry the woman. The objectification you speak of at stage 1 would already be a dealbreaker, especially as a Black (Jewish) woman dating a white (Jewish) man.
It is becoming an increasingly rational solution to this dilemma to date and marry a non-Jew, especially as one starts to approach 40 and is single and childless with no prospects on the horizon. I REALLY, don’t want to do this, however, as I honestly like Jewish men and don’t want to date the kind of guy who hates Judaism, hates Jewish women and wants nothing more than to run away from all things Jewish by “intermarrying” (these are the types it seems are most willing to seriously date a Black woman). It would be better to find a non-Jew who at least respects Judaism.
Thank you all for your comments and support.
Being discriminated against in relationships due to minority (i.e., having a phenotypic distinction) status is a difficult thing to deal with. It’s also, sadly, something that American culture, American-Jewish culture included, has been slow to combat.
While the majority of discussions about racism and prejudice in America center around the public sphere, it is my belief that it is only in the private sphere that true acceptance of others can occur. Minorities are routinely discriminated against by other races, and sometimes by their own races, in romantic and sexual contexts. It is a sad fact that not enough people have acknowledged or addressed. In fact, OKTrends.com has conducted a study that illustrates just how prejudiced people are when searching for partners online. The results weren’t pretty.
White people, which I’m assuming, for the purposes of their study, includes most Ashkenazi Jews, are terribly racist when deciding who they will date. Indeed, 45% of white people – 54% of white women – stated that they have a strong preference for dating people of their own race. To put this in perspective, the numbers for other races generally hovered around 15-25%.
The full article can be found here: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/2009/10/05/your-race-affects-whether-people-write-you-back/
So – what can we do about it? For me, I intend to continue communicating my experiences, understandings, and beliefs to others in the hope that they will break the cycle of discrimination in the private sphere. It’s really all I can do…
I look forward to the day when any person, regardless of race, can allow him/herself to be attracted to, date, and marry the person of his/her choice without hesitation or trepidation…
Best,
- Ariel