American Jews strategically shifted their claims to Whiteness before and after World War I

Evidence

The Anti-Defamation League, established in 1913 after the lynching of Leo Frank, opposed racialized images of Jews in the media and the theater. Before World War I, Jews claimed Whiteness based on assertions that Semites are members of the Aryan race. After World War I, Jews focused on religious commonalities between Jews and Christians in furtherance of a Judeo-Christian national identity. American Jews also defended Al Smith, a Catholic, as a means of combating Protestant hegemony in American political life and because Smith had cultivated Jewish support when he was governor of New York. Over 72 percent of Jewish voters cast their ballots for Smith in 1928. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 427

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on the historical construction of Whiteness (Jacobson’s ‘Whiteness of a Different Color’) and to prior chapters’ theme of how marginalized groups navigate proximate-Whiteness strategies.