Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

Poor Whoopi Goldberg performed “Foot-in-Mouth” once again. The argument (only maybe three centuries old) is about antisemitism. When is it real? When is it imagined? Now, poor Whoopi added some fuel to the fire. And as such things do, here we are weeks later and people are still all over her and the subject.

She said: “Antisemitism is not about Race, it’s about man’s inhumanity to man.” Okay – so? What is Race? Well, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Race is pretty much a matter of personal choice – BUT divided along Color lines. When it comes to “Race” no one, again based on the Census, speaks of nationality or religion or nation of birth, or whatever.

So Whoopi, (poor Whoopi) got it wrong in a couple of ways. Unfortunately, so far as I know, Whoopi does not subscribe to any of the papers in which this column appears. So, I am throwing this message out to the winds hoping she (and any others clinging to this idea of a “Jewish Race”) will read it and finally, finally realize we - the Jews – are a PEOPLE. We have thousands of years of documentation, stories, history and just plain intelligence to back us up.

America, with its sordid history on Race often finds itself in the middle of this discussion, kinda. As the generations of Jews continue to leave our heritage (and language) in the past, we can get muddled as to just who we are.

So, let’s talk about color: There are Black Jews, Oriental Jews. Brown-skinned Jews (i.e. India) and the mainstream of Jews in America: White Ashkenazi Jews.

Again, lest we forget: When the Catholic kings and queens took over Europe, both North and South, it was quickly followed by the Inquisition, mass-forced conversions and virtual and actual hell for Jews.

It resulted in many Jews fleeing Europe, both North and South. Most of the first wave of Jewish immigrants coming to the U.S. were Sephardic Jews, those whose religion and customs were those of Spain and Portugal.

There are people here in the U.S. worshipping as Catholics whose heritage goes back to Spain as Jews. Many are not aware of that. Occasionally someone will remember a mother or a grandmother going into the basement or in another room, putting on a head scarf and speaking in a strange language that they or for that matter the mother/grandmother did not understand. Tracing their heritage back far enough, they would find Jewish Roots.

We are talking the 1600s and 1700s. Matter of fact, the first recorded Jewish immigrant to settle in New Orleans was in 1724. And he was of Spanish descent.

It was a Jew expelled from New Orleans (I think) who was the first Jew registered as such in Florida in 1769, settling in Pensacola. As many of you know, your family may have been a part of the major Jewish immigration which took place in the second half of the nineteenth century when the Czar clamped down on the Jews of Russia — uprooting them from their Shtetls and sending them to what was known as the “Jewish Pale” — now Ukraine.

*Whoopi (poor Whoopi) has said that she knows nothing of her heritage, just that she is a Goldberg. Maybe she should see if she could get on the PBS show hosted by Skip Gates of Harvard to have her heritage uncovered.

As the years pass, more and more of the immigrant Jewish population (our grandparents, great grandparents and even parents) pass on, more and more of that heritage loses its grasp on the Jews of today. We have documentation based on where we are from, how we got here and where the remnants of our family can be found today. The real sadness? So few of this generation even care. They may be “woke” – but they are unaware of whom they are and from whence they came.

It’s a shame.

Yes, we are a people. A language of our own. A nation of our own. A heritage that can be traced back thousands of years. It is a proud heritage. We outlived the Romans who took us out of our land. Outlived the Greek Empire that tried to conquer us and could not close the deal. Then came the Turks. They no longer have an empire and live in a nation torn with strife.

The Brits? What British Empire? The sun set on that some time ago.

Yet, deep in our Jewish Souls, we knew. We knew that we did indeed have a land, a country of our own. Others tried to “invent” one for us. They didn’t have to bother. It was there all the time. From whence came our people, our language, our heritage.

So Whoopi, don’t feel bad. Yes, you got it wrong. People have gotten it wrong for centuries. We are a People. The Jewish People. We have a language, a land – we are of many different colors and languages in addition to our own.

But at the heart of it we are a People. The Jewish People. And proud of it.

*Editor’s note: Whoopi is the daughter of Robert James Johnson and Emma Johnson, Whoopi Goldberg was born in Manhattan in 1955 as Caryn Elaine Johnson. 

There are two explanations given for her last name (professional name). She adopted Goldberg as her last name because her mother believed a Jewish last name would sound better in Hollywood, and Whoopi because she for a time responded to the nickname ‘whoopy cushion’. She said in an interview in 2011 that “Goldberg is my name—it’s part of my family, part of my heritage, just like being black.” https://www.thelist.com/422334/the-real-reason-whoopi-goldberg-changed-her-name/?utm_campaign=clip