Looking Back: Anti-Semitism In The 50's in Portland, Oregon

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                                   A Reed College Student's car in 1950's 

In 1950s Portland, anti-Semitism was largely defined by social, professional, and institutional exclusion rather than overt violence. While the community was becoming more established, Jewish Portlanders routinely faced discrimination in employment, housing, and social clubs, reflecting a localized version of national prejudices during that era.  However, we had it better than the East Coast, or the Black Community here.  

I graduated Washington High in 1951, a year ahead of my peers.  It was the time I experienced some anti-Semitism. When sitting in the cafeteria with others where there was a seat, I heard them talking and saying how awful Jews were.  Being a kid, I finally said during a lull in their conversation, "I'm Jewish."  I was looking at the expression on their faces, and they were embarrassed, I think.  That stopped that topic!  

In high school, one waited to be asked to join a sorority.  There were the exclusive ones with all the popular girls, and then there were the lowly ones.  We Jewish girls had learned to have our own sorority made up of Jewish girls from all the high schools.  

First I belonged to the Bnai Brith and joined the BB Girls.  Then I joined QED (Queen Ester's Daughters)  The 3rd one was Sub Deb.  That kept me busy attended meetings and events such as fantastic formal dances calling for evening gowns, and dates and corsages.  Somewhere in between I attended classes at school, and dated Darrell Felici, an Italian big guy and went to a few football games. He was on  the school patrol and warned us when our Shack was being invaded .  I walked to school from Ladds Addition and back, so met up with Pat Diel who lived further on;  and then Dick Bogle, high school sports editor who was 4 years older than me and we walked together and talked;  him about his experiences being kept out of events because he was Black,  and  few of mine.  We managed to remain friends till he passed away.

                                        1951  as Queen Esther

My big event was while dating Sammie Arnstein, I became Queen Esther of that year's Purim Ball in Portland.  That honor was exciting for me, but even more meaningful as I got older, and I thank Sammie in my prayers for making it happen somehow;  oh yes, buying tickets.  It told me who I was many  a time and I am who I am because of that one thing, I think.    Life was okay.  Okay because I worked for my father when 16 and could drive the car he provided.

In the 1950s, Reed College acted as an intellectual haven for Jewish students from the East Coast and California. Many were denied admission to Ivy League schools due to strict religious quotas. Drawn to Reed's coeducational, nonsectarian, and barrier-free environment, Jewish students found an egalitarian community focused heavily on rigorous academic inquiry.  I met one studying Pre-Med and we married.  By 1953 I had a son, Steve, and 1954 brought my daughter, Debbie.  I kept attending Lewis & Clark until 10 days before Steve was born.  My Reed College partner was not Jewish, and this turned out to be such a mixing time of people, and for me, didn't work out.  

My Dad was tough, as he had had a rough childhood, by firing me when I was pregnant.  Oy vey!  I thought I'd have to peddle cookies from door to door.   Job Market: Established non-Jewish law firms and major professional corporations frequently refused to hire Jewish applicants. This forced professionals to either open solo practices or join small, primarily Jewish partnerships (for example, future prominent attorney Morrie Galen opened his own solo practice in 1950 because he couldn't get hired by established firms).  

Little did I know what was happening to my father's South Portland beginnings.  The "South Portland" Transition: For the first half of the 20th century, the Jewish community was largely centralized in the tight-knit, working-class immigrant neighborhood of South Portland. In the 1950s, this area radically changed due to urban renewal projects that cleared residences, pushing Jewish families to relocate to more prosperous, established neighborhoods on the city's east side.  We were a family already there by 1936.  

Community Building: To combat exclusion from the broader secular community, Jewish Portlanders leaned heavily on their own civic organizations. The B'nai B'rith, the Jewish Community Center, and several synagogues became the primary social hubs. In 1959, the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland even established the Jewish Review to foster community communication. My neighbor, Ben Padrow, the brother of my playmate, Joan was the editor and also taught at Portland State U.  I had him as an instructor by taking his class.                                         

   The Palais Royale Ballroom: Once located at 2115 West Burnside, the ballroom had many different names before bought in 1944, including DeHoney’s Ballroom, the Uptown Ballroom and finally the Palais later. The ballroom was open six nights each night with a designated dance. Some of the types and styles included Old Timers which meant old structured dances such as Schottische, Varsovienne, Viennese Waltz, Polka, the Quick Step, and the Peabody.These were full houses of accomplished dancers who knew the intricate steps and patterns of these dances. Another designation was “modern,” which meant jitterbug, foxtrot, Balboa, swing, glides and waltzes.  Latin was also popular and included rhumba, Bolero, tango, samba, merengue, salsa, cha cha cha, Paso Doble, Mambo and Bossa Nova.Dancers included older and younger adults, married couples, singles, high school and college students, service men and women. Many couples would arrive separately and meet up to dance – it was usual for men and women to arrive alone.   Dancing in 1950s Portland was defined by swinging jazz clubs along N. Williams Ave, legendary downtown ballrooms, and local teen TV shows. It was a vibrant era where R&B, country, and early rock 'n' roll fueled everything from structured ballroom dancing to unstructured free-form styles.  We danced only one step, a square, as I remember at the Jantzen Beach Ballroom.  

Extremist Fringe Elements: While Oregon had a strong history of far-right and white supremacist movements—such as the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and pro-Nazi groups in the 1930s—the 1950s was a period where extreme, fringe anti-Semitism operated quietly beneath a veneer of polite exclusion. More militant anti-Semitic fringe groups (like the National Party) did not surface visibly in Portland until the mid-1960s.  

Dick was fantastic:  Dick Bogle was a multi-talented Oregonian and humanitarian who dedicated his adult life to service in the Portland area. The great-grandson of Northwest pioneers, Bogle was a modern pacesetter—one of the first Black police officers in Portland, the first Black television newscaster in the Northwest, and the second Black city commissioner of Portland.After college, Bogle worked as an insurance fraud investigator. In 1952, he published a jazz review and an endorsement of Adlai Stevenson for U.S. president in the Portland Challenger newspaper, which was founded by William A. Hilliard and targeted the black community.  His beautiful mother has been  writer on one of our newspapers, and we had an Oregonian and a Journal.  

Meanwhile during this period, Dick Bogle was experiencing more disappointments:  Public Accommodations: While Portland passed a unanimous ordinance in 1950 banning discrimination in public spaces, true social integration remained a battle. Black patrons were regularly barred from white restaurants and businesses, and many venues operated under covert "white trade only" policies. Activism and Advocacy: The Urban League of Portland and local NAACP branches led major pushbacks, eventually securing a statewide public accommodations law in 1953 that outlawed refusal of service based on race. So that's what he had to work against, a background of anti-Blacks.  

Blacks Bewail Gains Made in USA By Trump

 Nadene Goldfoot                                      

After crying to my friend about Trump's "Deal, "  he immediately brought to my attention that Blacks are crying, too, over their dealings with Trump's management.  .   

Trump has faced persistent accusations of utilizing divisive racial rhetoric. Critics often point to his initial rise to public prominence via a 1973 Department of Justice housing discrimination lawsuit as part of a long historical pattern of bias. Activists and civil rights organizations frequently condemn his administration's efforts to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and to restrict curricula focused on systemic racism.

"President Donald J. Trump’s administration has dismantled federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, restricted the enforcement of the "disparate-impact" civil rights standard across housing and employment, and ordered federal cultural institutions to adjust historical exhibits. 

The administration views these actions as necessary moves to restore equal opportunity and meritocracy.  "Where had it gone and by who????"   Conversely, critics argue these policies reverse 60 years of civil rights gains". How can such an event be seen with two completely different views!!!The orders encompass everything from migration to TikTok to climate change and could have major implications for our communities.

DEI has faced major political and legal shifts. At the federal level, executive orders have restricted or phased out many government-affiliated diversity initiatives, leadership programs that factor in race, and agency funding. 

Private sector approaches are also evolving, with many corporations shifting focus from explicit DEI initiatives to broader "talent and opportunity" or merit-based frameworks.

Trump's "Improvement" intends to promote fair treatment, equal opportunity, and representation for historically marginalized groups. These initiatives generally focus on diversifying personnel, ensuring fair policies, and fostering a workplace culture of belonging. 

Core Concepts

• Diversity: Ensures a workforce, student body, or organization represents a wide array of backgrounds, including race, gender, age, physical ability, and socioeconomic status.
• Equity: Focuses on impartiality and fairness by identifying and removing systemic barriers that may disadvantage specific groups.
• Inclusion: Cultivates a welcoming culture where all individuals feel valued, respected, and empowered to contribute.  
• It all sounds good, but it is loose enough to backfire so that many Blacks feel marginized once again. 

• End qualified immunity for police officers and departments that violate Americans’ constitutional rights.

  The House and Senate are debating the Justice In Policing Act 2020. We need an end to qualified immunity.

  The bill also put more money into police departments instead of in Community initiatives. We need to redirect funds and prioritize investment in community health, education, and housing. 

  Background: Why we need to End Qualified Immunity For PolIce Officers

  According to a National Academy of Sciences study black men are two-and-a-half times more likely to be killed by law enforcement over their lifetime than white men. Over the course of their lives, approximately one in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police. 

Resource:

https://capitalbnews.org/trump-executive-orders-black-americans/

https://capitalbnews.org/trump-executive-orders-black-americans/

Who Gentiles Think Jews Are While What Jews Think They Are

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

     Jews being herded down a Lithuanian street at the beginning of WWII in 1941 and will be taken away.  

We already know that Nazis thought that Jews were an inferior race that needed to be removed from society.  Quite a few Christian churches have been involved with this attitude ever since Jews were accused of killing Christ.  I had a personal experience once in a small eastern Oregon town when I visited a church with a "friend," and the Preacher spoke, looking directly at me, of all the reasons Jews were bad, going on and on the whole time until I was able to get out of there, something I haven't ever forgotten.  It was a traumatic experience.  My "friend" saw nothing wrong, smiling through the whole experience, as I remember.

Because of Hitler's frenzy against Jews, I grew up hearing that we were not a race but a religion.  We were the same color as other white people.  Most of us had dark hair while a few others had lighter hair, even blonde on occasion.  Some even stood out with red hair, and a lot had curly hair. 

Since then, DNA has been invented, and I find that we have become an endogamous people, having married into each other's tribes over all these years.  I read where we may be 20th cousins to each other without knowing it.  We originally started with Abraham and Sarah, and this multiplied into Jacob and his 12 sons who were the fathers of 12 tribes, and we Jews are the descendants of the tribe of Judah with a few Benjamin and maybe Simon's tribes included in the mix.  

Our Cohen line has been found to be the man carrying J1 haplogroup.  Are we a race, then?  We're a race made up of several haplogroups, and have found that our females are descendants of 4 Jewish women. After all, Moses freed ALL THE SLAVES OF EGYPT, the 12 tribes and others who wanted to join them.  Who didn't want to be a freed slave?  They must have all left at the call. We're a race who believes in ONE G-d and laws governing our behavior toward our fellow man.What are our rules?  The Golden Rule; not to do things to people we wouldn't want done to us.    That's our religion.  We take responsibility for our actions and in a group plea to God, ask for forgiveness once a year on Yom Kippur.    

 "Masha Gessen, Russian-American journalist, born in the Soviet Union,  has claimed that American Jews are the only people in the world who believe that Jews are not a race.  She has stated, "It's lovely to think that being Jewish is a religious tradition, but you sort of have to have the luxury of the United States of America to be able to do that.  Elsewhere, it is actually whom you're born to.  

The Soviet Union's politics demanded that the people give up their religion so have done everything to wipe out any religion.  It's a country of atheists.  In the 1970s Jews were put in prison for learning Hebrew.  My Hebrew teacher, Sarah in Haifa, Israel,  told us about communicating with a man who would later  make aliyah to Israel, and  that she was teaching Hebrew to in her personal letters, hoping he wouldn't be caught. 

Gessen was listed as Jewish on her birth certificate, because she was born in the Soviet Union to parents who themselves were listed as Jewish on their birth certificates.  They felt they weren't religiously observant.  It was looked upon as a race. They were already becoming assimilated Jews as it was. 

That's what has happened to American Jews.  It's natural that Jews have wanted to be wanted, like, by their neighbors and peers.  Alan M. Dershowitz wrote his book, THE VANISHING AMERICAN JEW-in search of Jewish identity for the next century  in 1997.  

"During Einstein's era of 1879 to 1955, anti-Semitism was common in the USA and had its own cohesive force among Jews.  Jews were excluded from universities, clubs, gyms, and professions." Though we are now 2% of the population, far more were meeting the criteria of attending medical school but couldn't get in because of the quota system.                                 

Israel's Ethiopian Jewish population, descendants of the Queen of Sheba and her handmaidens when they visited Solomon.  I was in Safed when they arrived, living right across the street. They have suffered for their religion from the Christian Ethiopians, always being attacked.  

       A lawyer of Kenya, Africa, my friend who traveled from Africa to Israel every year to serve his Milueem month of army service after his 3 years and has finally moved his family to Israel and lives there full time.   Testing showed that he and others had the J1 cohen gene showing they were definitely Jewish which was his religious practice before the testing.   

The difference between Jews and Blacks was great but they were both treated  just as badly in the USA.  Jews came from an ancient Middle East where writing and reading were invented along with trading, and most Blacks came from undeveloped Africa who remained connected to their different religion, some of which had been converted to Islam.   Here we thought there were 3 lines of Jews, the Ashkenazi who after 70 CE's burning of Jerusalem wound up in Germany speaking Yiddish; the Sephardi of Spain who spoke Ladino and the Mizrachi of the Middle East.  Now we have found the 4th group of African Jews as well, both North Africa and Central Africa.                                   

Europe's Migrant Crisis  took many years for the League of Nations-era world to find places for the refugees of the 1930s and ’40s

Sometimes this anti-Semitism was the official policy of the US government, as typified by the refusal to accept larger numbers of European Jewish immigrants at the Evian conference on Jewish immigration from Nazi-occupied countries in 1938.  The first concerted effort to find homes for those displaced by Nazi aggression came in July of 1938, when 32 nations sent representatives to Evian, France, on the urging of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Germany had just recently annexed Austria, and it was obvious to all involved that many thousands of people—primarily Jews—would soon need new homes, if they did not already have one. As TIME noted that month, the conference got off to a bad start: though the opening speeches were lofty, it took a full two days to elect a president of the conference, as each attendee feared that his name would be thus linked with what would likely be failed attempt to solve the problem.

 Or anti-Semitism showed up  by the refusal to bomb the rail lines to Auschwitz in 1945 to prevent Jews from being transported to the death camp. Sometimes this anti-Semitism was part of everyday social contact, such as that described in the popular novel and subsequent move, GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT.  

Here, Gentile Philip and his son took on the role of Jews and suffered from anti-Semitic remarks with the little boy being called a "dirty Jew" by his schoolmates. They were of the same race as their peers, but seen as a religion, to them an unacceptable religion, not only different from theirs but had harmed their Son of a G-d himself.  This is how anti-Islamists see the difference between Jews and Muslims and how churches support Muslims but are against Jews. 

Just as the Greek Jews started assimilating in biblical days, so have American and other Jews of the world.  I'm so pleased to find pockets of orthodox Jews  keeping our religion.  Israel is doing just that, knowing who they are.  Religion is taught in their public schools.  They are living in the very places that are described and talked about in the "Old Testament", our Tanakh. This is why they must keep their 80% Jewish population to 20% others. 

                                    

 For a long time, Jews were told they were a religion, for it is a religion in contrast with Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. We were told emphatically by our parents that we were not a race, like Hitler was saying.  Now I'm finding everyone accepting that we are indeed a race.  I'll accept that we  are a people with the unique religion of Judaism and who is related to each other more often than not to some degree. Our religion also has standards of who we are.  We are Jewish if our mothers were Jewish.  If our mothers weren't born Jewish, they would have been converted to Judaism.  I certainly have an abundance of 4th and 5th cousins.     

Resource:

Book: Legacy-A Genetic History of the Jewish People by Harry Ostrer

https://time.com/4030159/evian-conference/

 

  

What is a Race's Importance When We Now Have DNA Haplogroups?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

Races started with those that survived the 40 days on the Ark with Noah during the Flood.

Considering that Moses wrote about races almost 4,000 years ago as told about in the Tanakh (Old Testament), of the Five Books of Moses, the section of Genesis,   is amazing.  It may be explained to us in  a vague and imprecise fashion, but the story of Noah and the Ark is indeed beautiful that even satisfies children's curiosity as to how mankind was divided into different races.  As the rabbis explain in the story of the Creation and of the common origin of all men, there is the essential unity of all races in this explanation.  

A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. ... Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. 

                           Taking slaves from Africa

When we talk about the concept of race in the 21st century, we are discussing a socially constructed idea. For the most part, we are talking about skin color when we use the term today. But, at the dawn of the 17th century, race typically identified a group of people with a common ancestor. That group, just as we see in families today, could be quite diverse. It wasn’t until the latter half of the 17th century that we see the development of the concept of race as it is currently viewed.

We Jews have lived all over the earth, in Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and back in Israel are but a few of the places.  

The conception of race began to take on a new aspect in the 19th century.  The realization of the existence of the Aryan and Semitic families of languages led to the theory of the existence of Aryan and Semitic races.   Later, this led to the classification of the subsections, the Teutons,  exemplifying the  Aryan race  and the Jews the Semitic race.  When you read of anti-Semites, it refers to Jews only, as no one has held hatred against anyone like they do the Jews, who wouldn't accept other's religion.  The Greeks tried and failed, and the the Romans tried and failed.                     

           Here are people from many lands of origin.  

The Aryan and Semitic language theory was based on the belief, since then rejected by science, that (a) Jews were physically homogeneous.  Actually, we are an endogamous people, something proved by DNA.  Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. Endogamy is common in many cultures and ethnic groups. From the beginning Abraham's descendants practiced this, though men did marry out of the group. There were times they were forced to do this as when they were in forced ghettos as they were in Italy. Social circumstances dictated when this was practiced the most. (b) They believed that there was a correlation between physical type and mental cultural characteristics.  In Germany, Jews were regarded as being racially "inferior," by their political views. The fact that Jews, who are only 0.02% of the world's population, have won many of the Nobel prizes, tells us that Jews are not racially "inferior." They are known to have, for a people, a high I.Q, usually 10 points higher than the general population.                                 

Who is a Jew in the USA ? USA's Jewish population is 2%.  Here are Jews showing many Ashkenazi Orthodox. Judaism (35% Reform, 18% Conservative, 10% Orthodox, 6% others, 30% Non-denomination), Irreligious/Atheists, etc. Even though we are endogamous and were a tribe, 12 tribes, a clan, an empire, we are made up of several haplogroups, not just one.  J, E, G, I, R, Q, T,and that's just the men.  

Evidently whoever these theorists were never read the bible where it explains about how races came to be;   that Jews started with the story of Abraham (Father of the Jews)  and Sarah who came from the city of Ur of the Chaldees which was situated on the Tigris River, the Tigris and Euphrates that are so well known in today's Iraq.  Their son was Isaac whose son was Jacob who had 12 sons, the beginning of the 12 tribes of Jacob who were ruled eventually by King Saul, followed by Kings David and then his son, Solomon, etc. They were known as Israelites, but acquired the name of Jews from the remaining tribal land of Judah, thus the name Jews.  Abraham had had a son, Ishmael, by Sarah's Egyptian handmaid, Hagar as well, who was to become the Father of the Arabs. This led up to the fact that Ishmael and Isaac were half-brothers, and their descendants were destined to become distant cousins.                                        

For the past few years, we have been using DNA to discover the the branches of the tree of life that we have all come from which is so exciting.  Men find that they come from certain branches of the tree, and can be told just what the scientists call each branch.  The line that Moses and his brother, Aaron came from are called J1 by scientists and this part of DNA is called the Y haplogroup--the line that men come from.  This is much better than thinking in terms of race

   If you read Bryan Sykes's book, THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE, you will find a beautiful story of where women came from, starting with an Eve. Personally, my father's Jewish line that goes from father to son, etc.  comes from the Q line, deeply tested to receive the title of QBZ67, and my mother's line which is also mine and my daughter, is of the H for Helena branch.                                                                          

Haplogroups are like tags on new clothing in the store that we all are born with that tell scientists what branch we are. The tag is handed down from father to son;  and from mother to daughter, etc.  There are slight mutations, showing distance from each other, like time traveling.  It's so remarkable, with such planning to it, that it actually blows my mind.  It erases a lot of problems in genealogy.  It's used in court cases of whether a man is the father of a child or not.  It's how we found out that Thomas Jefferson or his brother/brothers fathered children of their black slaves or not.                                       

At the end of the 19th century, the Aryan-Semite Races became a basic conception of the revived anti-Jewish movement in Germany which, in the new era of tolerance, could no longer base itself exclusively on religion and, moreover was confronted with large numbers of Jews in whose lives Judaism placed no part. In other words, they were becoming integrated into their society and looked and dressed like the general population and not like the orthodox Jews.  Thus, what had before been an innocuous, if unsound theory, became in the hands of E. DUHRING, WILHELM MARR, H.LS. CHAMBERLAIN, A. ROSENBERG, etc, a deadly  weapon. Theadore Herzl acknowledged this over and over in his diaries and correspondence: "I will fight anti-Semitism in the place it originated—in Germany and in Austria," he said in one letter. He identified the genealogy of modern, racist antisemitism in the writings of the German social scientist Dr. Eugen Duehring in the 1890s.                   

A fundamental principle of the Nazi movement from the outset as told about in readings about National Socialism, was officially and precisely formulated by the NUREMBERG LAWS in 1935, intermarriage between Jews and "Aryans" being sternly forbidden and the new Jewish disabilities being extended to all persons with 2 or more Jewish grandparents.

This concept was applied somewhat less rigorously in Fascist Italy in 1938, and in various Nazi-occupied countries of Europe from 1939 to 1945, the length of WWII.  On it was based the extermination policy carried out by the Germans in this period, extending therefore in many instances to persons with only the vaguest Jewish associations and even to Christian clergymen and priests.  

The alleged "scientific" evidences of racialism, based on craniometry, etc, are wholly untenable. 

Since 1790, the USA has taken a federal census every 10 years on its population which is where we geneticists get so much of our information.  Knowing if the person was White or Black was marked on the census. Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, Black, Mulatto, Negro, African, White, Free White,  Slaves, Free Colored, Some Other Race, were all words listed to describe a person's race and position.   

Are Jews a race?  It just happens that there are Black Jews, White Jews, Oriental Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, etc.  We come in many colors from many parts of the world. For several years, Jews have been returning to Israel to live.  This was expected and welcomed to happen.  It was foretold in the Bible.  There are, however, a few basic haplogroups that are predominantly Jewish, except for people who converted or married into and converted to Judaism.   

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-haplogroup-we-be.html

https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/race/MREAD_1790_2010.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews#:~:text=Judaism%20(35%25%20Reform%2C%2018,%2C%20Irreligious%2FAtheists%2C%20etc.&text=Who%20is%20a%20Jew%3F

  

Whoopie Goldberg and the Jewish Question Made Clear

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

Whoopie Goldberg's real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson (born November 13, 1955).  She's a year younger than my daughter; 1955 when Blacks were demonstrating and realizing they've been under duress for too long.  She's been acting since 1983 when she was 28 and became very famous, having won an Emmy, Grammy and Academy awards. She's been on THE VIEW  leading the ladies in discussions about pertinent issues.  In one about Jews, she said Jews were not a race, but the Germans had made it very clear that we were-and an inferior one at that-one that needed to be exterminated from the world.  Up to then, we Jews were saying that we weren't a race; that we were a religion.  We are a mixed bag of colors; some with luscious tans and others pretty exasperatingly white, especially when we disrobe at the beach.

                                                 

GMB viewers praise David Baddiel for ‘eloquent’ explanation of Whoopi Goldberg’s ‘dangerous’ Holocaust remarks ;  Jewish Comedian and writer Baddiel appeared on the ITV series on Wednesday (2 February) to talk about the controversy surrounding the Sister Act star, who has been suspended from The View for saying the Holocaust “isn’t racial but religious. Race; Racial is not just about color of skin. it's both; race and religion  

  

There are questions raised by Whoopie herself as to whether or not she is Jewish.  She has claimed that she is.  

                                                   

So she took a DNA test.  That was the smartest thing she could do.  She was the daughter of Emma Harris and Robert James Johnson.  They were not Jewish but were Black.  Emma's mother was Rachel Freedman, and that is a Jewish surname.  Malachi Harris was Emma's father; Whoopie's maternal grandparents.  

I had found 14 Freedman males that matched me and 9 females on the 1st page with a Freedman surname. I never realized until now how many Freedmans must be on my tree.  This is the spelling;  heavens knows how many Friedmans I might be matching.  Well, we do have 6 million Jews living in the USA, 6 million in Israel and about 2 million scattered in other countries.  We happen to be 0.02% of the world's population, not many----and we all love DNA testing because for one reason, our lives were disrupted by the Holocaust, causing all our records to be lost.                               

                     

I believe that all along, Whoopie wanted her Jewish peers to know that she had a Jewish ancestor because she told them this many times.  She hadn't felt that a Freedman grandmother was enough so took on the stage name of Goldberg, to make sure of her Jewish claim.

Why did she want to be part of the Jewish crowd?  Many of her peers were Jewish, that's why.  She was funny, and Jewish comedy was an important part of the culture.  Whoopie was born and raised in New York where lots of Jewish people lived.  She was a 'wanna-be Jew who was not raised in a Jewish home but was raised in a Black culturated home. 

                                                 

 Freedman is so Jewish that I was able to find more than 7 matches to me, and on Family Tree DNA was allowed to test 7 at a time to my DNA.  Most were 4th cousins, but I did find one man that was a 3rd to 5th cousin, a little closer with 17cMs total in a segment of 17cMs.  On the X chromosome, the sex chromosome saying we shared a common female, 3 of the Freedmans and I had a triangulation, showing we shared this common ancestor.  Another Freedman also shared with me another segment on the X chromosome.  The Freedman matches were from my maiden name, Goldfoot, and my ancestors came from Lithuania and were Ashkenazis if Whoopie is interested.  I might even match Whoopie if she tested at FTDNA.                       

Results of a DNA test, revealed in the 2006 PBS documentary African American Lives, traced part of her ancestry to the Papel and Bayote people of modern-day Guinea-Bissau. Her admixture test indicates that she is of 92 percent sub-Saharan African origin and of 8 percent European origin.  I don't know where she took the test, most likely from ancestry.com.    Her 8% European origin would be where her claim to Jewish genes comes from.  One parent would give one 50% if the company realizes your Jewishness.  A child of one Jewish parent would have 25%.  The grandchild of a person with one Jewish parent would have 12.5%, and the ggrandchild could have 8%.  Whoopie's ggrandparent could have been Jewish.  Was there a Goldberg great grandparent?  Looks like it was her maternal grandmother who passed the genes to Whoopie through Whooie's mother, and she wasn't a 100% Jewish  herself, as many of us aren't.  

Being outspoken and self-assured, she has put her foot in it more than once.  This last time caused her suspension from THE VIEW for 2 weeks.  She's simply reacting like Jews around her have done and said.  Yes, I've heard the same thing from some of our honest to goodness Jews, some bearing more Jewish genes than I.  We're a very mixed group of people today, having been exposed to all sorts of religious ideas from the lands we've lived in.  The only thing holding us together today is that fact that we do not take Jesus as someone to pray to, and that he's not any more the son of G-d than we are; so that we all are the son of G-d in that respect.  Some of us take things pretty literally and are the Orthodox Jews;  some do not and are the Reformed Jews, some in the middle are Conservative Jews.  Christian Protestants have the same span of differences in their religion.  Some of us wear big gaudy stars of David and others wear small ones,, and some none.  Most of us try to be aware of our Jewish Holidays and some, unfortunately, could care less.  We're not in a ghetto anymore and not experiencing the very same environment.  Of course, Whoopie has copied the attitudes of those less Jewish in mind and thought;  that's been her environment and she is a partial reflection of it.

                                                                

As she has said already, she's really not into any of her inherited family religions, yet she has tried to do so with our Jewish holidays, so...I take it she celebrates them all yet believes in none.  This is a typical American today.  Whoopie has a Jewish grandmother and she's proud of it as I would hope she would be.  She never really has stepped into our shoes to know how we see the world, and needs to listen and read more to understand, especially since she herself is a celebrity, voicing her opinions.  However, now we also realize what others think of us and will hopefully use education to clear the air. 

2/19/22 Update: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Baddiel  David was from England, born in the USA but raised early on in England; had English ideas about Jews being a race.   

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopi_Goldberg#:~:text=Results%20of%20a%20DNA%20test,of%208%20percent%20European%20origin.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/whoopi-goldberg-david-baddiel-gmb-b2006573.html

FTDNA

https://www.famechain.com/family-tree/21200/whoopi-goldberg