The Victimhood of the Powerful: White Jews, Zionism and the Racism of Hegemonic Holocaust Education

• Main Author: Peto, Jennifer
• Other Authors: Nestel, Sheryl
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Israel; Palestine; Holocaust; Apartheid; Whiteness; Jewish Identity; anti-racism; Zionism; 0631; 0751; 0340
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/24619

This paper focuses on issues of Jewish identity, whiteness and victimhood within hegemonic Holocaust education. I argue that today, Jewish people of European descent enjoy white privilege and are among the most socio-economically advantaged groups in the West. Despite this privilege, the organized Jewish community makes claims about Jewish victimhood that are widely accepted within that community and within popular discourse in the West. I propose that these claims to victimhood are no longer based in a reality of oppression, but continue to be propagated because a victimized Jewish identity can produce certain effects that are beneficial to the organized Jewish community and the Israeli nation-state. I focus on two related Holocaust education projects – the March of the Living and the March of Remembrance and Hope – to show how Jewish victimhood is instrumentalized in ways that obscure Jewish privilege, deny Jewish racism and promote the interests of the Israeli nation-state.