Yesterday I heard Robert Siegel of NPR doing two Christmas stories. One was about NORAD tracking Santa's movements, as it does every year. And in another story he signed off by saying, "Happy Christmas." Siegel is of my generation: a postwar Jew, with New York roots. When I was a young journalist, the idea of throwing any coins in the fountain of American Christmas was repugnant. I bet I would have turned down a Christmas story at the Philadelphia Daily News, when I was a reporter there. (Don't remember.)
Whatever his private feelings on this score, Siegel did Christmas with zest. And without a choice, really. Because he is a powerful, representative journalist. And he represents American culture, which includes Christmas.
If you look across the length and breadth of the Jewish establishment, prominent Jews with wealth and status, from the 13 Jews in the Senate to all the Jews in the Congress, media, thinktanks, and Madoffia, you will find that all these Jews have a responsibility to represent others. You can't really be ethnocentric when you are a national leader. For all his ethnocentrism, Madoff had to seek out non-Jewish money. When Joe Lieberman ran for vice president, he denied to Don Imus (because of a question I had raised) that Jewish law forbad intermarriage. A pure lie, for political purposes. But a lie with consequences. It is impossible to maintain strict ethnocentrism when you are representing the nation.
I'm leaving the Israel lobby out of this. It is ethnocentrism and political corruption. But my point here is about the transformation of the Jewish presence in American life.
What I tried to say last night about the Muslim complaint against the fast food restaurant for giving out a Bible toy is that This sort of ethnic rage characterized my own youth. We felt threatened in America as Jews. We needed to stake out our position. That's all over. We have position. We say "Happy Christmas" with zest on the most influential radio program in the U.S. (Sorry Rush).
Which brings me to my headline. Are Jews a minority? I don't know. WASPs are a minority but would never characterize themselves as such; and Jews have more money than WASPs according to Pew and arguably more power. From a social/employment standpoint, I doubt that there is any real discrimination against Jews. (OK some country clubs; but how important is that bar?) The Chinese are a minority in the world, yet no one goes around calling them that. When I lived in Minnesota, I had Icelandic friends who saw themselves as distinctly a minority within the Scandinavian community. And the Catholics of St. Paul the same, let alone Tom Friedman's Jewish community in the western suburbs. Do American Catholics call themselves a minority? Everyone is a minority really in pluralistic America.
The significance of the word minority is that it describes a lack of cultural/legal/financial power. Webster's: "part of a population differing from others in some characteristics and often subjected to differential treatment." Having come back from a lovely and yes privileged Christmas dinner in which I felt completely comfortable as a Jew– and I reckon this is an experience a great number of intermarried Jews are having these days– I would not characterize myself as belonging to a minority.
