Black Jews, White Jews? On Skin Color and Prejudice

What skin colors do Jews have – and which are ascribed to them? How do they position themselves? The exhibition Black Jews, White Jews? at the Jewish Museum Vienna explores these questions and shows historical and contemporary examples of external and self-perception. It examines the topic of Jewish identity in the charged relationship between self-definition, antisemitism, and racism.

For centuries, racist worldviews have judged people primarily by their skin color. “Race theories,” colonialism, antisemitism, and other fantasies of superiority created a hierarchy of people: an order of the world based on the order of skin color. The focus of the exhibition is on the stereotyping and exclusion that Jews of color experience worldwide – particularly in Europe, the USA, and Israel.

Today’s discourses understand skin color as a historical and social construction rather than a biological category. The recent escalation of the Middle East conflict has led to the consolidation of the stereotype of Jews as white colonial rulers who oppress a “non-white,” Indigenous population. This ignores the fact that Jews were and are present on all continents – not least because their history is shaped by migration, expulsion, and especially the Shoah.

But are Jews white, “non-white,” or black? The various answers and their far-reaching consequences reinforce the topicality and urgency of this exhibition.

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