I saw a fascinating poll the other day that suggested that Black Americans, on the whole, would rather be called Black than African-American, and that the more educated a White American was, the more likely that he/she would use the term African-American, rather than Black. You know….. a book could be written riffing off of that basic observation.

Decades ago, the American Jewish Committee in DC sponsored what they called (I think) a Black-Jewish dialogue, where once a month or so, a group of Blacks and Jews would get together for an informal lunch time conversation about whatever was on their minds. Someone who participated asked me to join the group, which I did for a short while. I didn’t find it particularly interesting or helpful.

But, I remember the day a long time Jewish member asked his “friend”, a long time Black member “What would you rather I call you, Black or African American?”. His friend looked at him, without missing a beat, and said: “To be honest, whichever you call me, I wish you called me the other.”

This is an essential truth, and it may explain the results of the recent poll. The problem is: what to do about it. If anything.

Group identification can be the slipperiest of slippery slopes. How do Americans define Blacks? It appears that anyone is Black who has a Black ancestor – it doesn’t matter how far back you have to go to find that Black ancestor. You have a Black great, great, great, great grandmother? You are Black. It was that way during the time of slavery, and it is that way now (although the consequences have changed).

In apartheid South Africa, this was not really the case. People of mixed races (even when one of those races was Black) were classified as Coloured, and subject to different rules than Blacks. And in French America, centered around New Orleans, there were different distinctions – quadroons, and octoroons, for example, again with different caste distinctions.

But not in this country.

Now, let’s turn to Hitler and the Nazis. Jews were defined by them as individuals with at least one Jewish grandparent. So, if you had only one Jewish great-grandparent, you were not Jewish and could live your life. When Israel was established in 1948, and when it sought to be a refuge for Jews persecuted by the Nazis, it actually adopted the Nazi definition as the definition of a Jew permitted to immigrate into Israel. If you had a Jewish grandparent and wanted to come to Israel you could (and still can) come, even if in your mind you weren’t Jewish at all.

Now this might change, as the ever more powerful Israeli religious right wants to change the definition of Jewish for the law of return to those who are Jewish according to Jewish religious law. Under this definition, one who has a Jewish mother is Jewish. Period. If your father was Jewish, and your mother was not, too bad. If your mother converted to Judaism, but not by an approved authority, also potentially too bad. Whether you self-identify as Jewish makes no difference.

Of course, there is more to this world than Blacks and Jews. What is the definition of an Uyghur, for example, or a Rohingya.

It’s a complicated world to be sure. But I think we know that already. We will see what 2023 brings.

Oh! Why did I title this “It’s Raining, It’s Raining”. Because, on this last day of the year 2022, it is raining.