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thanks for the report. something to keep in mind when looking at historic periods is not just how they wound up responding to their context, but why. whether it's marx or yiddish anarchists or whoever. not to fetishize their responses to their contemporary situation, but to trace out the steps of their thought and organizing that made those responses potent.

old time LES Jews did not have to 'refuse' whiteness because it was not even offered to them (until decades later, to their descendants). ashkenazi immigrants of the late 19th/early 20th c. were stereotyped and profiled as disease-carrying, crime-prone bearers of religious and political extremism...in other words, precisely every stereotype that continues to be hurled at migrants of all sorts today. the construction of whiteness had not reached its current level of national homogeneity; white is something one is coded as, passively (due to one's skin tone and general presentation - altho its important to note that many light-skinned Jews *do not have the option to pass as white* due to religious garb or even due to classic hair and facial features etc) as well as the cross-class political pact of white supremacy one engages in actively. of course anti-semitism is rampant in the left and even to an extent in anarchist scenes that simply don't know what to make of jewishness. the reason is frankly that antisemitism plays a deep structural role in western civilization which has long treated us as its favorite minority on hand to scapegoat and to use for all sorts of things.

hope that helps.... although i can't say i really know where you're coming from as you suggest people in police states ought to insist to the authorities that they're anarchists..? why?! have you ever been tortured by cops? really hope i totally misread you there...