Today, Michael McFaul—the former ambassador to Russia who is currently the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies at Stanford University—caused a Twitter kerfuffle when he, on a few news shows, quoted a Russian journalist as saying “You know, there’s one difference between Hitler when he was coming in and Putin. Hitler didn’t kill ethnic Germans. He didn’t kill German-speaking people.” He’s apologized on Twitter for invoking Hitler, writing “I apologize. I will never make comparisons to Hitler again. Without historical analogizing, I will keep my analysis on the present evil—Putin.”
This apology misses the point of the blow-back. The issue isn’t that he invoked Hitler, it’s that he’s wandered into exactly the fraught territory that this project also undertakes; namely, are Jews always only Jews, or are we also part of the ethnic groups that align with where and when we are born, live, and die.
Before I go any further, I think McFaul is a person of good faith who didn’t wander into the quagmire intending any antisemitism. This is not meant to be a critique, and certainly not a call to “cancel,” the man or his obviously good work. Rather, it’s to dig a little deeper into the way Jews are excluded from being considered a part of the people among whom they are born and reside. Let’s look at one of his Tweets, and a reply he made to another:
Let’s take a moment to consider Britannica’s definition of ethnicity:
I’d like to quibble with “religion” in this definition, or at least look at how it is applied unequally across religions when deciding whether or not someone can claim an ethnic identity. To do that, let’s look a Tweet McFaul enthusiastically endorsed:
On its face, this is boldly antisemitic for a couple of reasons:
Germany didn’t have a state religion at the time, and Hitler was vehemently anti-Catholic, though they were only put to death if they spoke out against Nazi Germany, not just for being Catholic. Nobody would suggest that German Catholics don’t have a claim to a German ethnic identity. This is also true of German atheists.
German Lutherans who emigrate to the United States also remained Lutheran, and nobody is suggesting that means they don’t also have claim to a German ethnic identity. This “remained Jews” is a smokescreen and McFaul shouldn’t have fallen for it.
In every other way but religion, German Jews would fit the definition of ethnic German: they spoke German, enjoyed and even composed the music of Germany, shared many of Germany’s (pre-Nazi) values, were both great patrons of German art and also creators of it, were very much a part of the German literary community, and ate/served German food (except those who kept Kosher, but many German Jews, who values assimilation over adherence to Jewish law, were not).
So, why are Jews excluded from claiming a German ethnic identity—and so much so that McFaul feels confident giving this an all caps, exclamation pointed THANK YOU!, when it’s clear a shared religious belief is not a universal in German culture?
This all points to why, if I ask the question of whether or not I am an Appalachian, it is my Jewishness that even makes this a question. There are certainly Appalachian atheists, so a shared faith can’t be a defining element of an Appalachian ethnic identity any more than it can be of a German ethnic identity. And yet, here we have a demonstrably good and learned man who feels entirely comfortable asserting that their Jewishness negates the Germaness of German Jews.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one, because it is so central to the work I’m doing, and so baffling to me.
Hi Sarah -- missed this when you first posted it, but wanted to say I'm astonished that a professor of international studies at an Ivy League school can get away with professing ignorance that Hitler slaughtered "ethnic" Germans. For one, are LGBTQ Germans excluded from his "ethnic" definition? What an asshole.
I admire your good nature and your persistence in following the question of if and how one can become "an Appalachian" or a member of another geographic culture if one is Jewish. IMHO, though, questioning Jewish people's claim of membership in a geographic culture -- as this asshole has done -- is by default antisemitic. I grew up thinking I was half Jewish, in a New England town that had clubs that were "exclusive," meaning NO JEWS, as late as the 1980's. That culture (of Jews not belonging) led to violence and pain for Jewish townspeople. One example of many: I was beaten as a "dirty Jew" by neighborhood kids who'd already learned from their parents that Jews were not part of the town's community.
This is a great question and one with no simple answer. I certainly believe that people belong to the nationality of where they reside or resided (if they so desire), though the issue of duration is important. I lived in Seattle for a summer, but that doesn't make me a Washingtonian, for instance, but if you are talking about families that have lived in a place for a long time, even across generations, then I believe they can claim it as their own.
There may also be some confusion in the German-Jewish terminology because of common kinds of statements like "the Germans slaughtered the Jews in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere." There, it would be, of course, not desirable to include German Jews in the category of "Germans." But perhaps there should also always be a descriptor to go with the word German for those who did participate in the killing. Maybe we always need to say "non-Jewish Germans" or "so-called Aryan Germans."
As something of an Appalachian myself, I know the kinds of stereotypes associated with that term. Interestingly enough, it is often used as a negative descriptor, though there is some regional pride in Appalachian literature and crafts and so forth.
It's fascinating to think about how our identities can cut both ways, and by now we all have layered ones with many different aspects.