'Ashkenormative'
The term isn’t cute. It’s offensive and dangerous
by Jesse Bernstein
EXCERPT //
My first instinct, when I heard the word, was to roll my eyes.
I was on a Zoom call of progressive Jews. We were discussing issues of social justice and antiracism and someone had just dropped the word, new to many of us, though it was a word I would soon find was becoming ubiquitous in Jewish circles.
When the word was said, some people laughed. “That’s so great!” one person commented. “I love that!” another said. Someone even said it was “cute.”
But no sooner had my eyes gotten halfway through their roll than I paused. My exasperation gave way to something else. My fight or flight response kicked in.
And I realized Jews had entered into the modern culture wars in a whole new way.
This coming July, I will be stepping into the role of artistic director of a Jewish theatre company. Our mission is to tell stories about the Jewish experience. Which sounds simple enough.
Increasingly, however, Jewish organizations are acknowledging how the Jewish American experience is kaleidoscoping into something incredibly complicated.
No. Let me rephrase that.
Increasingly, however, Jewish organizations are acknowledging how much we have been failing the incredibly complex kaleidoscope that is the Jewish American experience.
The word that had been uttered in the Zoom room was “Ashkenormative.”
Where once cute portmanteaus were the domain of tabloids (Bennifer, Brangelina), they have increasingly become buzzwords for all sides of the political and cultural conflicts. In their current ideological iteration, they are used as a convenient shorthand or are occasionally intended as “clever” digs at the “other side.”
At heart, they are words designed to, as quickly as possible, convey a specific political or ideological meaning while disallowing—through their specific simplicity—any kind of counter argument or thought. //
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