Of Jews, Jewish candidates and the question of minority status
Jews in the United States represent just 1.4% of the population, an extreme minority by any definition of the word. So what is it about Jews and their failure to be recognized and afforded the protection given to other minority groups? This is a deep and difficult question and one that is very hard to fully unentangle. It invariably leads to discussions of "what is race?", "What is Judaism (race or religion) and always brings in Israel and Zionism invariably at some point -as if to excuse anti-Semitism.
Here is a really excellent article that I read on the subject, and one that I encourage others to read. When and if you do read it, please reflect on the fact that Bernie Sanders is the first Jewish candidate to run for President that has won in any US Primaries and that he is facing hundreds of years of deeply ingrained prejudice whether.
Let me also head off any comments such as "But he doesn't practice his religion!" --that is literally pure ignorance --being a Jew does not require that one either believe in god or practice one's faith. If you don't believe me, ask yourself how many of the 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust were "practicing their faith".
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The Holocaust, the Left, and the Return of Hate
http://www.thetower.org/article/the-holocaust-the-left-and-the-return-of-hate/
The European Left is struggling to combat anti-Semitism in its midst. If history is any guide, it may be a long time before their solidarity extends to Jews and Israelis.
A lot has been written in recent months about the unwelcome resurgence of political correctness and identity politics and the exasperating doctrines of the social justice Left. I will simply make the curt observation that the progressive stack—an organizing principle designed to foreground the voices of those deemed to be “marginalized”—has not been kind to Jews.
This is partly because those in charge of arranging ethnicities into a hierarchy of oppression are still trying to decide whether or not Jews should to be considered “white” and therefore “privileged,” and, as such, undeserving of the social protections from racism afforded to other minority groups (as though it were within their rights to define the Jews in the first place). This problem is, of course, exacerbated by the Livingstone Formulation.
But there is a further problem with the way racism is conceived and understood as a structural problem by social justice activists. According to the precepts of critical race theory, racism only results from a combination of prejudice and power. Since anti-Semitism is a conspiracy theory about the malign influence of a powerful and mendacious world Jewry, it essentially holds that the Jews are experiencing hatred on account of the power they hold. Anti-Semitism, therefore, is not racism at all, but something more akin to resistance.
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It is as it has always been.
Thankfully, we have those non-Jewish folks who come along and remind us what is and isn't anti-Semitic by redefining it (it's really discrimination against "Semites" which only includes a "few" Jews, if any at all; it is really about "antipathy" or "feelings", so there is no real, solid definition, but they know it when they see it and everyone else is "playing a card"; and, unlike every other form of bigotry, Jews, some how, as if by magic, can't be anti-Semitic themselves). They also help us poor misguided souls by telling us who is and isn't really a Jew, as well as what makes a Jew. Also, if it weren't for their generosity, we'd never know that the Holocaust is something we need to "get over" and stop "playing that card" because it didn't even happen to Americans and most Jews, only the European ones, therefore, the ramifications, don't really affect us as a people. Finally, the fact that Sanders, a Jew, if he really is one (according to some), isn't really a "big deal" since we aren't really a minority and anti-Semitism is rare and something for the history books, after all, look at the powerful Jews in the media, banking, and the government.
But then again, I am not sure, given I am a Jew.
(Bonobo, I know you know, but others may not realize the hard, strong, and biting 
of my remarks.)
So in some ways i was more the odd man out from being a product of a mixed family that wasnt religious at all, than anything else. I caught shit as a kid from the Christian AND Jewish kids, for not really fitting on either team, and being an outspoken atheist smartass to boot (The more things change)
But it wasnt until i moved away, really, that I encountered open anti-semitism. The first time I heard someone say something like that - i dont know, something about "ahhhh, that bank is a bunch of jews" or some shit (they didnt look at me and think 'jewish') my jaw hit the floor.
Anyone who had said something like that where I grew up... 
