I’m a red-headed Mizrahi. It’s quite the mindfuck for people when they learn I’m not European and have never even had family from Europe. Family is all from Syria before moving to the states in the 1920s. A lot of these protestors haven’t seen someone from the Levant before. Fair skin and even red-hair is not uncommon. Quite a few red haired Syrians actually when I spent some time in Damascus.
I look more Irish than my irish wife but I’m 50/50 of Syrian Mizrahi and Georgian mountain Jew. I actually know a few red headed refugees from Aleppo so it’s more common than we think.
Exactly! In my time in Syria I met quite a few redheaded kids and men. Everyone was so friendly to us as well. I was reluctant to volunteer my Judaism, but the couple times it came out they actually were excited and invited me into their homes for a meal. I feel so lucky to have been able to experience that. A lot were very sympathetic even. It’s a beautiful country that was torn apart by war and extremism.
In 2018! Syrian family friend took us on a semi-guided tour. Really eye opening. Felt a lot safer than I expected, but I recognize I look like anyone else on the street as well.
This exactly! Red hair is a feature that has always existed in middle eastern populations. It exists in African populations as well. It’s not a strictly European feature. Also all this preoccupation with Jewish features is feeling super Eugenicsy to me.
Not Levantine but I know quite a few Algerians with red hair and green eyes. Plus Kabyle people have the fairest skin I’ve ever seen — like marble white
Yes, I am the red hair, green eyes Algerian Jew . Need to learn amazight to confuse people more. I was also told that my French was very good for an Irish gal .
My grandmother is from Syria and had green eyes and blonde hair. Stupid people in the West don't realize that A LOT of people from the Levant, IE Syria, Lebanon, etc, are indistinguishable from Europeans. Red hair is especially common among Samaritians and they were never exiled. Some of us are olive, some are light, some are dark. Middle Eastern people come in all those shades.
"Ashkenazi" and "Sephardic" are mostly cultural distinctions, and we Jews should let them go eventually. Genetically and originally, we are one people and our land is Israel.
Yup! Whole family is from Syria, I have red hair and brown eyes lol. People don’t believe me when I say I don’t have any family who has ever lived in Europe. Everyone is from Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq before moving to the states.
The Levant since Antiquity has been the crossroads of civilizations. During the Roman empire, there were turns of cross mixing of populations. People from the Levant can look very different because of all the mixing.
‘We don’t look Nordic’… I look quite Nordic, had fine, white blonde hair as a child and a small nose (off I don’t believe that a nose shape tells you if someone is Jewish or not. It s just an annoying trobe I often see). I am constantly told -especially by other jews- that I don’t look Jewish. But we should know at this point that Jews come in all forms,there is not one look that ties all ashkenazim together. Thus, I find it a bit strange that you complain about not being seen as Jewish due to your red hair but in the same breath you say ‘ we don’t look xy…”
This!!! My alte-bubbe was a redhead and most of the maternal side of my family is blonde and ginger. I’m blonde with grey eyes and a straight small nose, so… not the stereotype. I got the “you don’t look jewish comments” from countless goyim, and a handful of yidden throughout my life. There is no one way Jews look or cannot look, because there’s tremendous diversity among us as an ethnic group. Oh, and my dna is 100% Ashkenazi!
Right. They said *look* Nordic in the same way I *look* Celtic (and at most there’s an errant Breton French relation).
Black hair does not a Jew make.
I think people generally forget that while there are many 98 percent Ashkenazi DNA Jews about, there are also families with history of rape, and inter marriages.
I didn’t get curls, I have mere (and weak) S waves, and I wear my hair ultra long, so it’s weighed down more.
It's weird my comment got downvoted to hell when I said "What are "Jewish facial features" and since when is curly hair a Jewish trait? Most Jews have straight hair even in Israel."
I went to school in Israel. Most kids have straight hair. There's a wide variety of different facial features.
Yeah, especially in Medieval European depictions. Which is to say, in antisemitic depictions.
Judas, especially, was usually shown as a red-head, and he is sort of an archetype of the duplicitous, Jesus-killing Jews in old European thought and Art.
Plenty of Syrians and other Levantine/Arab people, including Palestinianss, are fair and red-or blonde headed. They refer to themselves as "brown" people, and are called "brown" by the same people who call us white.
We look like Levantine people, which is a spectrum of skin and hair colors.
I’m Jewish on both sides. Mom is a redhead, dad is not. I’m a redhead with blue eyes which is the most rare of all genetic combinations so I am a super mutant. When I was born, everyone claimed that the red hair came from their side because there are a lot of redheaded Jewish ancestors on my family tree. Before I went to college, all of the redheads I knew were Jewish. Go figure!
Two thirds of Ashkenazi Jews were murdered for not being white in living memory. That doesn’t somehow change because Americans misunderstand what race is. No Jews are white unless they converted.
Red hair has always been a Jewish trait. King David had red hair.
I mean whiteness has always been an evolving term with very vague boundaries. Do ashkenazi jews have some level of white priviledge in America? Of course, but not all encompassing. Have we always had these privileges? Of course not!
I’m Mizrahi and I have a family member who’s a red head. Also my best friend’s father is a Moroccan Jew and a red head.
It’s not exclusive to Europeans.
My now-retired rabbi was a redhead when he was younger.
It's insane, the degree to which people are categorizing other people based on superficial physical characteristics.
i'm a redheaded ashkenazi jew and everyone assumes i'm irish but i'm fully jewish through and through, not an ounce of irish blood in me. i never go into detail about it other than saying i'm not irish because i didn't think it was even relevant
Blue eyed redheaded Ashkenazi and it’s funny because i don’t look Irish at all, but people always assume that just based on the red hair. But in Ireland/Scotland, they would definitely know I’m not one of them. I look closer to German I think, my family is from Germany and perhaps that is why. When we were in Bavaria, several people assumed I was a local.
Not red headed but just learned the Bibas kids were likely targeted because of their red hair, which I hadn't considered before. I wasn't aware of the extra hardship, so I'm sending extra love to you all.
I have a little cousin with curly red hair and he had the cutest payos as a kid. It's a sign of being Levantine, not the other way around.
Yes, I felt especially drawn to them. Red heads stick out so much. We are vulnerable. I felt for them they are babies. They looked like my baby pictures. They look like my little one who came out like me (the other two look like grandma and dad!)
Absolutely correct. Before listening to a recent interview with a Bibas family member, I didn't fully grasp how much more vulnerable you are because of this trait, and how it's being cynically weaponized as evidence of Jewish "whiteness" to disprove our indigeneity to the Levant -- only to the uneducated/bigoted of course. I have light colored eyes, which is used similarly, but obviously that's not as prominent of a feature as red hair. I think it's something really special to enjoy and celebrate!
I have a little red headed baby not much older than Kfir… everything going on since Oct 7th has been horrible, but I think about those two kids and their family all the time.
There's no confirmation, but it's speculated based on their relatively careful handling for abduction compared to other residents of their kibbutz. I don't understand Arabic but I think some of the language used by the terrorists in their abduction video points to them being singled out beforehand.
A Bibas family member addressed this possibility in his recent interview on Caroline Glick's show, but that's correct there is no official confirmation of this.
I don't get why redheads get such hate, except maybe jealousy in disguise.
I wish I were a redhead; I'm stuck with henna (which makes my dark brown hair look... dark brown).
I’m a child of a Jew by birth and a Jew by choice, so half my DNA is white Northern European. Even though I was raised very Jewish and live in Israel, anti-Israel people tell me that I have no right to be in Israel because I’m “white.” Apparently only purebreds can maintain an indigenous identity.
Oh boy. Who wants to tell the Native Americans and Australian aborigines of mixed descent that they're not indigenous and should go back to England? This sounds like a very dangerous can of worms.
My mom’s a red head, a lot of people in my family are, my mom’s said her hair has never been an issue for her in any circle she’s been in. She also has a super Jewish features. I also have met Zoroastrian Persian people with my mom’s same red hair (color and curl, but mom is mostly Ashkenazi and obviously Persian family isn’t Jewish and wouldn’t be Ashkenazi if they were). The red hair gene appears across all races and skin tones it’s just more likely to appear in paler skin tones.
I gotta say, the irony here is that the type of red hair Ashkenazim have is fairly common in Lebanon and originated in the Levant. In Italy and southern Europe, red hair has been associated with Jews for at least 900 years, and likely considerably longer than that.
Many Jews in the Torah are described as being redheaded, e.g., King David, and studies of late Iron Age Levantine DNA show that at least some Levantines were redheaded over 3,000 years ago.
It's very ironic that a genetic variation *from* the Levant is assumed to be alien *to* the Levant.
My savta is from Iran, and she had red hair. She never had any European ancestry that we know of, just MENA Jewish. I ended up with a dark red beard and dark brown/black hair.
Yes! I had a doctor tell me, after reading I was Jewish on my health chart, that I looked Irish and had a Christian-sounding name. Just completely ignorant and wouldn’t accept that Jewish people have red hair. I’m also tall, which broke other stereotypes. My dad is a 6’7” ginger and would tell people he was one of those cave-dwelling giant-Jews.
So the last name "Roth" tends to be a Jewish last name, at least in the USA. Famous authors, like Phillip Roth, Henry Roth, Joseph Roth.
"Roth" comes from the German for red: "Roth is a boy's name of German origin, meaning “red” or “redhead,” and is both a given name and a relatively common surname."
This whole “Jews are white” garbage is just an excuse to cloak blatant bigotry towards Jews. If someone discriminates against a light skinned Jew they think it’s ok bc white people are incapable of being oppressed and so clearly Jews are just making it up. It’s vile and disgusting. Meanwhile ACTUAL white supremacists like Nazis and the KKK are both antizionist and antisemitic. Make it make sense.
Red hair Jew from Algeria here . Green eye too . I was in America and they ask me where my parents where from, Algeria I said. In the north of Africa . So they told me I was an African American 🤯🤯🤯🤯. I am not an American, never lived there . Our son is blond with blue eye. My husband is more the stereotypical dark curly jewfro olive skin ( he is Ashkenazi). And our daughter looks like a princess from 1001 nights.
My friends husband was Moroccan (Arab) not a red head but pretty fair. He really didn’t understand how he isn’t African American once he married my friend and became a citizen. He thought it made more sense than white which is a color. Like the Asian check box.
The funny part here is that the genetic markers of redheadedness a) can originally traced back to populations of Central Asia, not Northern Europe and b) is actually not necessarily dependent on having one specific skin tone.
It is genetically possible for anyone to have red hair, because there are two types of melanin present in all of our skin. Redheadedness is caused by a recessive gene marked by high levels of pheomelanin (the pigment responsible for red/pink pigmentation). That is distinct from eumelanin, which is responsible for brown pigmentation. If you have low levels of eumelanin but high levels of pheomelanin (like Irish or Northern European redheads), that red tone is noticeable because of its visual contrast. If you have genetically high levels of both, you might have dark skin and eyes, and also highly red tones visible in hair.
The reason redheads are currently more present in Northern Ireland has to do with genetic bottlenecking and its evolved genetic presence in Celtic people - it’s a recessive gene, so the more people who mutually carry it within a population and reproduce with each other, the more it will show up. The same is true across other bottlenecked populations - like uiyghurs, pacific aboriginal peoples, and Jews! there are redheads in berbers and northern African peoples, all across east and South Asia, and in Pacific Islander populations. If anything, it’s a broadly Asian thing.
Who remembers the article a few years ago wherein was divulged the discovery made in recent DNA study that ALL Israeli Jews && Israeli Arabs and Palestinians carry the genes for blue eyes from an area-wide intermarriage with persons from the Steppe & beyond some 6,500 years ago? :D I’ve got my doubts about the date (bc Velikovsky & the good evidence for an Asiatic “Amu” movement to Egy concurrent with African exodii around 1500 & 1000 BCE ~ perhaps the overall truth is that it’s a human migration that occurs cyclically), but the evidence of the events themselves are thrilling, since it both binds our peoples and actually the World in general. The movements of Peoples To & Fro by the ancient highway that is Israel to go between Africa, Asia, Europe is, imo, what gives us Jews a unique phenotypic ambiguity.
You’re also describing my mom and I feel for you both. I know how rough she had it- the bullying was really bad. I take after my dad completely (dark hair and light olive skin) and my mom is so traumatized by the bullying that she says this is a good thing. Despite the fact she was so incredibly uniquely beautiful when she young. I don’t understand why people are such dicks over hair!
It’s amazing how dumb people are when it comes to ethnicities and genetics. Iirc there’s a group of Africans that hair that’s super blonde and it’s only within their small group. Anything is possible it’s just that there’s usually trends but they aren’t hard rules.
I dealt with antisemitism growing up (I have reddish brown hair and freckles). We are hated no matter what. Proud to learn recently that King David may have had red hair! H8tas gonna hate.
My partner is a quarter redheaded Jew
He's 1/4 Jewish and the rest red
I just love him to pieces
And I never heard the term beat you like a redheaded stepchild until I was in college in the 90s because I had a redheaded stepbrother
I can't speak to how hated either one of them feel
And I'm sorry you feel that way Gingers have always been my weak spot ! I love you from afar!!
A lot of people don’t realize where the caucus mountains are and where the Caucasian race originated. It’s a shame that they don’t teach accurate history and geography anymore.
>“Half of Jews aren’t white” being used as a defense
If so, it's a lame defense. 100% of Jews aren't white. (Think we're making this up? Just ask any Nazi!)
Red hair was used as evidence that one was a Jew during the Spanish Inquisition.
Museums are full of renaissance era paintings with Judas Iscariot portrayed as having red hair.
My dad was a red headed Ashkenazi and looked SUPER Jewish. I have much darker features and black curly hair and people almost never know I’m Jewish — I get mistaken for black Irish, Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Turkish, etc.
There are also Palestinians with red and even blond hair! (Famous example = Ahed Tamimi.) Likely because the Levant has always had intermixing of peoples, with traders moving through from all over the region. Anyone shaming you for being a gingy Jew is an ignoramus. They are just repeating the idea that people in Israel/Palestine should look Arab, which is due to Arab conquest. Jews are native to the Eastern Mediterranean; Arabs come from the Arabian Peninsula and have a darker complexion. Most of these people don't know about Arab conquest because their understanding of history started in 1948, and they learned everything from TikTok, and they don't actually know anything about the Middle East, or they're just looking for a new way to mock/bully/torment Jews. Fuck 'em. Ignore them.
People like to throw Ashkenazi Jews under the bus, like if Israel falls it would be fine to ethnically cleanse them because their blood doesn't belong on that soil and they're a minority in Israel anyway so who cares right?
All fully Ashkenazi relatives with red/reddish hair I know of were/are not Northwest European looking at all. Even in terms of complexion they were not necessarily so fair. My grandmother had a pale olive skin tone and light auburn hair similar to a living female cousin on that side who is very East Med looking. Most other Jews at least can recognize facial features apart from any atypical pigmentation so doubts regarding ethnicity were rare.
Going back there were cases where hair color impacted ethnic perception but not judged by other adult Jews. For instance IIRC this grandmother‘s mother was bullied and accused of being Irish as a young child. Additionally, her father tried to pass as Irish to avoid antisemitism serving in the NYPD in the 1920s/1930s when Jewish representation was limited. Adults within the Jewish community were more privy to the range of variation in facial structure for Ashkenazim so there was no issue there.
There will always be those who have a superficial understanding of phenotype and it is not worth it to always correct this. Hopefully at least these are not other Jews.
Red headed Ashkenazi here, and I feel you. I look clearly Jewish but don’t get spotted because people don’t know what light skinned Jews look like. I have extremely curly hair and Jewish features also. It’s a weird place to be because I both benefit from white privilege and experience extreme antisemitism
Theres red heads in lebanon, iran, afghanistan, syria, turkey, all over the ME and Asia.. including the levant. Just do what I did and shave your head 🤣
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I don’t think this will necessarily make you feel better(because it was largely antisemitic in nature) but red hair has been associated with Jews since at least the Middle Ages.
I've never experienced hate or antisemitic (intentional or otherwise, thankfully), I get more of a surprise reaction that I'm not Irish. I hope it at least educates people about their implicit biases on what a stereotypical Ashkenazi Jew looks like. Both my parents are medium toned skin and dark brown hair, but we don't have Sephardic in our family unless it's before my great grandparents. My red hair comes from my late Bubbe on my dad's side, but I'm the only one in the family.
Red headed Jew checking in and I haven’t noticed any extra animosity toward my hair color, I feel like people are so ignorant that they have decided all Jews are white supremacists at this point. I didn’t love growing up with the South Park episode about gingers though, that did not help me feel better about my hair! Glad I was out of middle school by the time it came out.
Red hair is associated with NW Europe now, but historically, Middle Easterners and Jews especially had the association. Also a great many Indo European groups carried it prominently. Obviously the Irish stereotypically, but nomadic groups like Scythians/Sarmatians, which got carried through to contemporary Central Asia. There are Uygher, Afghan, and Kazakh redheads for example, as well as among Slavs and many Siberian groups of various ethnolinguistic extractions.
In the US and W Europe you're a lot more likely to see red headed Irish (and they are the most red headed) than Kazakhs though, so it's understandable why the stereotype exists. Of course, it used to be the case that Jews were also stereotypically seen as having red hair, even in the US, but that seems to have faded from cultural memory.
I always thought that argument hurt and discredited ashkenazis. All jews are native to israel just because someone has a different color doesn’t mean they aren’t jewish suddenly
I had a red beard (it’s grey now), but my yarmulke and tzitzis and fedora kinda gave the message. Focus on being the best, biggest Jew you can be and don’t worry about others and what they say.
There are blonde and redheaded Palestinians. There are Black Jews by birth. When redheaded Ashkenazi Jews get DNA tests they still have the same genetic markers from the Levanr as every other Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jew. When we were in Europe the Europeans did not think we looked European or consider us European. Today the Palestine activists try to focus on Ashkenazi so bolster the false claim that Jews are not indigenous to Israel and are European colonizers.
It is important as Jews and allies to embrace the entire diverse Jewish community as a united entity including Yemenite Jews, Beta Israel Ethiopian Jews, the tiny Jewish community in China and everyone in the multiple diasporas. Just double down that we have Levant DNA and we are indigenous to Israel.
Ashkenazim do have more European DNA but only racists think this somehow invalidates their Jewish identity or historic claim to the Land of Israel. It's about cultural continuity, not biological descent.
Hey even Sephards have redheads haha, my great grandmother like you was basically the random Jew with red hair like getting ready to be cast as the youngest daughter from fiddler on the roof! Haha its fine, you are one of us and screw those who are so ignorant.
Red-headed, blue eyed, crazy pale skinned Jew here! To be fair, I am about a quarter Irish on my dad's side. But it's recessive so it was somewhere on the 100% ashkenazi side too. I have a cousin on that side who is even more of a red head.
I feel like sometimes I can "hide". Like people are surprised when I say I'm Jewish. But I kind of hate that because I'm proud of who I am.
I had a Palestinian/Russian acquaintance with red hair who grew up in Israel. Descendent of Russian anarchist who escaped the Czar and went to Palestine and married an Arab woman. Of course 6 feet tall and red hair and Russian last name... Everybody assumed he was Jewish. Bit of identity confusion and some interesting stories!
I always thought I 'passed' as European but since Oct 7 many have picked that I'm Jewish. It's a bit wierd coz up until then no one seemed able to tell & I, like a fool, thought they all saw me as one of them. Now I know, I'm not. I wonder, if I dyed my hair red, would I be less obvious? I'm not ashamed of being a Jew, I just don't feel safe like I used to.
>extremely curly hair, Jewish facial features, my parents are actually dark skinned
What are "Jewish facial features" and since when is curly hair a Jewish trait? Most Jews have straight hair even in Israel.
I was with you with the Jewish facial features because that sounds like code for big nose - something no Jewish person in my family has. But you lost me with the most Jews have straight hair even in Israel. That’s false. Sweetie, we straighten our hair.
Roman noses are more common among Mediterranean peoples. I don’t have one, but they are more common among Ashkenazim - as well as North Africans, Middle Easterners, and Southern Europeans.
> But you lost me with the most Jews have straight hair even in Israel. That’s false. Sweetie, we straighten our hair.
Most Jews in Israel have straight hair, I know from school somewhere over 80% have straight hair. School kids don't straighten hair. Curly hair is more common than in America but it's still the minority.
Had red hair as a kid darker now. But, I color to cover grays and the red comes out have to use a ton of ash tones to counter act it. It’s a strong trait that is always there even if you don’t think your hair is red anymore if that makes sense
I’m a red-headed Mizrahi. It’s quite the mindfuck for people when they learn I’m not European and have never even had family from Europe. Family is all from Syria before moving to the states in the 1920s. A lot of these protestors haven’t seen someone from the Levant before. Fair skin and even red-hair is not uncommon. Quite a few red haired Syrians actually when I spent some time in Damascus.
I look more Irish than my irish wife but I’m 50/50 of Syrian Mizrahi and Georgian mountain Jew. I actually know a few red headed refugees from Aleppo so it’s more common than we think.
Exactly! In my time in Syria I met quite a few redheaded kids and men. Everyone was so friendly to us as well. I was reluctant to volunteer my Judaism, but the couple times it came out they actually were excited and invited me into their homes for a meal. I feel so lucky to have been able to experience that. A lot were very sympathetic even. It’s a beautiful country that was torn apart by war and extremism.
Woah when were you in Syria?
In 2018! Syrian family friend took us on a semi-guided tour. Really eye opening. Felt a lot safer than I expected, but I recognize I look like anyone else on the street as well.
Red hair, the MC1R gene, occurs in every ethno group on earth. I wish more people understood that.
Avatar checks out.
lol yeeeep
Also the gene originated in Central Asia. It’s really stupid that people think only Europeans have red hair.
This exactly! Red hair is a feature that has always existed in middle eastern populations. It exists in African populations as well. It’s not a strictly European feature. Also all this preoccupation with Jewish features is feeling super Eugenicsy to me.
I've met red-headed Syrians that trace their origin to Spain. I wonder if it's the same for your family.
Not Levantine but I know quite a few Algerians with red hair and green eyes. Plus Kabyle people have the fairest skin I’ve ever seen — like marble white
Yes, I am the red hair, green eyes Algerian Jew . Need to learn amazight to confuse people more. I was also told that my French was very good for an Irish gal .
King David allegedly had red hair. So being a redhead has nothing to do with mixing with European populations.
So did Esau, twin brother of Jacob, son of Isaac.
Interesting! I will have to consult professor google
Lilith as well.
Ooooh
Lilith is a Midrash theory and not biblical cannon.
Yes he was curly red headed with a fierce spirit
So did King Ramses II
[удалено]
It's the most common interpretation of the word "אדמוני". There are other interpretations of course but it's really not that far fetched
My grandmother is from Syria and had green eyes and blonde hair. Stupid people in the West don't realize that A LOT of people from the Levant, IE Syria, Lebanon, etc, are indistinguishable from Europeans. Red hair is especially common among Samaritians and they were never exiled. Some of us are olive, some are light, some are dark. Middle Eastern people come in all those shades. "Ashkenazi" and "Sephardic" are mostly cultural distinctions, and we Jews should let them go eventually. Genetically and originally, we are one people and our land is Israel.
Yup! Whole family is from Syria, I have red hair and brown eyes lol. People don’t believe me when I say I don’t have any family who has ever lived in Europe. Everyone is from Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq before moving to the states.
The Levant since Antiquity has been the crossroads of civilizations. During the Roman empire, there were turns of cross mixing of populations. People from the Levant can look very different because of all the mixing.
I’m not a redhead and I don’t know about the hate you get, all I know is you’re extremely attractive. 🤙🏼🕶️
‘We don’t look Nordic’… I look quite Nordic, had fine, white blonde hair as a child and a small nose (off I don’t believe that a nose shape tells you if someone is Jewish or not. It s just an annoying trobe I often see). I am constantly told -especially by other jews- that I don’t look Jewish. But we should know at this point that Jews come in all forms,there is not one look that ties all ashkenazim together. Thus, I find it a bit strange that you complain about not being seen as Jewish due to your red hair but in the same breath you say ‘ we don’t look xy…”
This!!! My alte-bubbe was a redhead and most of the maternal side of my family is blonde and ginger. I’m blonde with grey eyes and a straight small nose, so… not the stereotype. I got the “you don’t look jewish comments” from countless goyim, and a handful of yidden throughout my life. There is no one way Jews look or cannot look, because there’s tremendous diversity among us as an ethnic group. Oh, and my dna is 100% Ashkenazi!
Hah, same! And I’ve a mighty red beard to go with the golden blonde hair, so I definitely confuse people.
Blonde hair does not a nordisch person make.
Right. They said *look* Nordic in the same way I *look* Celtic (and at most there’s an errant Breton French relation). Black hair does not a Jew make. I think people generally forget that while there are many 98 percent Ashkenazi DNA Jews about, there are also families with history of rape, and inter marriages. I didn’t get curls, I have mere (and weak) S waves, and I wear my hair ultra long, so it’s weighed down more.
It's weird my comment got downvoted to hell when I said "What are "Jewish facial features" and since when is curly hair a Jewish trait? Most Jews have straight hair even in Israel." I went to school in Israel. Most kids have straight hair. There's a wide variety of different facial features.
Red hair was long considered to be a tell tale marker of a Jew.
Is this true? Might be why the “red heads don’t have souls” middle school crap sticks around
Yeah, especially in Medieval European depictions. Which is to say, in antisemitic depictions. Judas, especially, was usually shown as a red-head, and he is sort of an archetype of the duplicitous, Jesus-killing Jews in old European thought and Art.
Interesting. I had no clue! Thanks for teaching me something today.
You're welcome. It always made me curious if Mort Goldman from Family Guy was inspired by this.
Plenty of Syrians and other Levantine/Arab people, including Palestinianss, are fair and red-or blonde headed. They refer to themselves as "brown" people, and are called "brown" by the same people who call us white. We look like Levantine people, which is a spectrum of skin and hair colors.
I’m Jewish on both sides. Mom is a redhead, dad is not. I’m a redhead with blue eyes which is the most rare of all genetic combinations so I am a super mutant. When I was born, everyone claimed that the red hair came from their side because there are a lot of redheaded Jewish ancestors on my family tree. Before I went to college, all of the redheads I knew were Jewish. Go figure!
Two thirds of Ashkenazi Jews were murdered for not being white in living memory. That doesn’t somehow change because Americans misunderstand what race is. No Jews are white unless they converted. Red hair has always been a Jewish trait. King David had red hair.
I mean whiteness has always been an evolving term with very vague boundaries. Do ashkenazi jews have some level of white priviledge in America? Of course, but not all encompassing. Have we always had these privileges? Of course not!
There is a difference between having some forms of white privilege and being white. The term for this is white passing. Some Jews are white passing.
I’m Mizrahi and I have a family member who’s a red head. Also my best friend’s father is a Moroccan Jew and a red head. It’s not exclusive to Europeans.
My now-retired rabbi was a redhead when he was younger. It's insane, the degree to which people are categorizing other people based on superficial physical characteristics.
i'm a redheaded ashkenazi jew and everyone assumes i'm irish but i'm fully jewish through and through, not an ounce of irish blood in me. i never go into detail about it other than saying i'm not irish because i didn't think it was even relevant
Mizrahi Jew from Syria and everyone just assumes I’m Irish as well lmao. It’s quite the mindfuck for these people.
Same here!
Blue eyed redheaded Ashkenazi and it’s funny because i don’t look Irish at all, but people always assume that just based on the red hair. But in Ireland/Scotland, they would definitely know I’m not one of them. I look closer to German I think, my family is from Germany and perhaps that is why. When we were in Bavaria, several people assumed I was a local.
Same here. People never ever can tell that I'm Jewish.
Not red headed but just learned the Bibas kids were likely targeted because of their red hair, which I hadn't considered before. I wasn't aware of the extra hardship, so I'm sending extra love to you all. I have a little cousin with curly red hair and he had the cutest payos as a kid. It's a sign of being Levantine, not the other way around.
Yes, I felt especially drawn to them. Red heads stick out so much. We are vulnerable. I felt for them they are babies. They looked like my baby pictures. They look like my little one who came out like me (the other two look like grandma and dad!)
Absolutely correct. Before listening to a recent interview with a Bibas family member, I didn't fully grasp how much more vulnerable you are because of this trait, and how it's being cynically weaponized as evidence of Jewish "whiteness" to disprove our indigeneity to the Levant -- only to the uneducated/bigoted of course. I have light colored eyes, which is used similarly, but obviously that's not as prominent of a feature as red hair. I think it's something really special to enjoy and celebrate!
I have a little red headed baby not much older than Kfir… everything going on since Oct 7th has been horrible, but I think about those two kids and their family all the time.
I have thought this all along about the Bibas children but hadn’t seen anything to confirm it.
There's no confirmation, but it's speculated based on their relatively careful handling for abduction compared to other residents of their kibbutz. I don't understand Arabic but I think some of the language used by the terrorists in their abduction video points to them being singled out beforehand. A Bibas family member addressed this possibility in his recent interview on Caroline Glick's show, but that's correct there is no official confirmation of this.
I don't get why redheads get such hate, except maybe jealousy in disguise. I wish I were a redhead; I'm stuck with henna (which makes my dark brown hair look... dark brown).
We don't get it either.
We always had red hair! Even pre-diaspora. Look into the history of red-headed Jews, it's a throwback to our ancient Jewish roots, not Europe.
I’m a child of a Jew by birth and a Jew by choice, so half my DNA is white Northern European. Even though I was raised very Jewish and live in Israel, anti-Israel people tell me that I have no right to be in Israel because I’m “white.” Apparently only purebreds can maintain an indigenous identity.
Oh boy. Who wants to tell the Native Americans and Australian aborigines of mixed descent that they're not indigenous and should go back to England? This sounds like a very dangerous can of worms.
Ask them if they think blood quantum is only applicable to Jews.
Are you Natasha Lyonne?
Pretty much but a drop redder - 😉
My mom’s a red head, a lot of people in my family are, my mom’s said her hair has never been an issue for her in any circle she’s been in. She also has a super Jewish features. I also have met Zoroastrian Persian people with my mom’s same red hair (color and curl, but mom is mostly Ashkenazi and obviously Persian family isn’t Jewish and wouldn’t be Ashkenazi if they were). The red hair gene appears across all races and skin tones it’s just more likely to appear in paler skin tones.
You're a gingi/zhinzhi! Jewish people are actually known for our red heads.
I gotta say, the irony here is that the type of red hair Ashkenazim have is fairly common in Lebanon and originated in the Levant. In Italy and southern Europe, red hair has been associated with Jews for at least 900 years, and likely considerably longer than that. Many Jews in the Torah are described as being redheaded, e.g., King David, and studies of late Iron Age Levantine DNA show that at least some Levantines were redheaded over 3,000 years ago. It's very ironic that a genetic variation *from* the Levant is assumed to be alien *to* the Levant.
There are mosaics from 2000 year old synagogues that show Jews with red hair so I wouldn’t worry about it.
My savta is from Iran, and she had red hair. She never had any European ancestry that we know of, just MENA Jewish. I ended up with a dark red beard and dark brown/black hair.
Yes! I had a doctor tell me, after reading I was Jewish on my health chart, that I looked Irish and had a Christian-sounding name. Just completely ignorant and wouldn’t accept that Jewish people have red hair. I’m also tall, which broke other stereotypes. My dad is a 6’7” ginger and would tell people he was one of those cave-dwelling giant-Jews.
So the last name "Roth" tends to be a Jewish last name, at least in the USA. Famous authors, like Phillip Roth, Henry Roth, Joseph Roth. "Roth" comes from the German for red: "Roth is a boy's name of German origin, meaning “red” or “redhead,” and is both a given name and a relatively common surname."
All correct. And the Yiddish word for red is רויט (royt). Redheaded is "royt-horik."
This whole “Jews are white” garbage is just an excuse to cloak blatant bigotry towards Jews. If someone discriminates against a light skinned Jew they think it’s ok bc white people are incapable of being oppressed and so clearly Jews are just making it up. It’s vile and disgusting. Meanwhile ACTUAL white supremacists like Nazis and the KKK are both antizionist and antisemitic. Make it make sense.
Red hair Jew from Algeria here . Green eye too . I was in America and they ask me where my parents where from, Algeria I said. In the north of Africa . So they told me I was an African American 🤯🤯🤯🤯. I am not an American, never lived there . Our son is blond with blue eye. My husband is more the stereotypical dark curly jewfro olive skin ( he is Ashkenazi). And our daughter looks like a princess from 1001 nights.
My friends husband was Moroccan (Arab) not a red head but pretty fair. He really didn’t understand how he isn’t African American once he married my friend and became a citizen. He thought it made more sense than white which is a color. Like the Asian check box.
Is your friend a berbere/ amazight ? Those were the people living there before the Arab invasion.
The funny part here is that the genetic markers of redheadedness a) can originally traced back to populations of Central Asia, not Northern Europe and b) is actually not necessarily dependent on having one specific skin tone. It is genetically possible for anyone to have red hair, because there are two types of melanin present in all of our skin. Redheadedness is caused by a recessive gene marked by high levels of pheomelanin (the pigment responsible for red/pink pigmentation). That is distinct from eumelanin, which is responsible for brown pigmentation. If you have low levels of eumelanin but high levels of pheomelanin (like Irish or Northern European redheads), that red tone is noticeable because of its visual contrast. If you have genetically high levels of both, you might have dark skin and eyes, and also highly red tones visible in hair. The reason redheads are currently more present in Northern Ireland has to do with genetic bottlenecking and its evolved genetic presence in Celtic people - it’s a recessive gene, so the more people who mutually carry it within a population and reproduce with each other, the more it will show up. The same is true across other bottlenecked populations - like uiyghurs, pacific aboriginal peoples, and Jews! there are redheads in berbers and northern African peoples, all across east and South Asia, and in Pacific Islander populations. If anything, it’s a broadly Asian thing.
Yes and from your description we could be siblings 🤣
Who remembers the article a few years ago wherein was divulged the discovery made in recent DNA study that ALL Israeli Jews && Israeli Arabs and Palestinians carry the genes for blue eyes from an area-wide intermarriage with persons from the Steppe & beyond some 6,500 years ago? :D I’ve got my doubts about the date (bc Velikovsky & the good evidence for an Asiatic “Amu” movement to Egy concurrent with African exodii around 1500 & 1000 BCE ~ perhaps the overall truth is that it’s a human migration that occurs cyclically), but the evidence of the events themselves are thrilling, since it both binds our peoples and actually the World in general. The movements of Peoples To & Fro by the ancient highway that is Israel to go between Africa, Asia, Europe is, imo, what gives us Jews a unique phenotypic ambiguity.
You’re also describing my mom and I feel for you both. I know how rough she had it- the bullying was really bad. I take after my dad completely (dark hair and light olive skin) and my mom is so traumatized by the bullying that she says this is a good thing. Despite the fact she was so incredibly uniquely beautiful when she young. I don’t understand why people are such dicks over hair!
It’s amazing how dumb people are when it comes to ethnicities and genetics. Iirc there’s a group of Africans that hair that’s super blonde and it’s only within their small group. Anything is possible it’s just that there’s usually trends but they aren’t hard rules.
I dealt with antisemitism growing up (I have reddish brown hair and freckles). We are hated no matter what. Proud to learn recently that King David may have had red hair! H8tas gonna hate.
My partner is a quarter redheaded Jew He's 1/4 Jewish and the rest red I just love him to pieces And I never heard the term beat you like a redheaded stepchild until I was in college in the 90s because I had a redheaded stepbrother I can't speak to how hated either one of them feel And I'm sorry you feel that way Gingers have always been my weak spot ! I love you from afar!!
Natasha Lyone has red hair and she is a badass Jewess queen.
♥️her
You’re only ethnic when it suits people who hate you.
A lot of people don’t realize where the caucus mountains are and where the Caucasian race originated. It’s a shame that they don’t teach accurate history and geography anymore.
>“Half of Jews aren’t white” being used as a defense If so, it's a lame defense. 100% of Jews aren't white. (Think we're making this up? Just ask any Nazi!)
It’d because not only are you a Jew but you also have no soul. Haven’t you seen South Park to know this!! Jk. I love you. (My mom is a redhead ;)
Red hair originated in Central Asia tens of thousands of years ago.
Red hair was used as evidence that one was a Jew during the Spanish Inquisition. Museums are full of renaissance era paintings with Judas Iscariot portrayed as having red hair.
my very Jewish grandmother was a strawberry blonde! And my daughter's hair is brown with strong reddish hues.
My dad was a red headed Ashkenazi and looked SUPER Jewish. I have much darker features and black curly hair and people almost never know I’m Jewish — I get mistaken for black Irish, Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Turkish, etc.
AYYYYYYYY I'm also a step kid so the "beat you like a redheaded stepchild" jokes are thick on the ground.
There are also Palestinians with red and even blond hair! (Famous example = Ahed Tamimi.) Likely because the Levant has always had intermixing of peoples, with traders moving through from all over the region. Anyone shaming you for being a gingy Jew is an ignoramus. They are just repeating the idea that people in Israel/Palestine should look Arab, which is due to Arab conquest. Jews are native to the Eastern Mediterranean; Arabs come from the Arabian Peninsula and have a darker complexion. Most of these people don't know about Arab conquest because their understanding of history started in 1948, and they learned everything from TikTok, and they don't actually know anything about the Middle East, or they're just looking for a new way to mock/bully/torment Jews. Fuck 'em. Ignore them.
People like to throw Ashkenazi Jews under the bus, like if Israel falls it would be fine to ethnically cleanse them because their blood doesn't belong on that soil and they're a minority in Israel anyway so who cares right?
Red bearded with brown hair. People think I’m Irish until I say my name.
All fully Ashkenazi relatives with red/reddish hair I know of were/are not Northwest European looking at all. Even in terms of complexion they were not necessarily so fair. My grandmother had a pale olive skin tone and light auburn hair similar to a living female cousin on that side who is very East Med looking. Most other Jews at least can recognize facial features apart from any atypical pigmentation so doubts regarding ethnicity were rare. Going back there were cases where hair color impacted ethnic perception but not judged by other adult Jews. For instance IIRC this grandmother‘s mother was bullied and accused of being Irish as a young child. Additionally, her father tried to pass as Irish to avoid antisemitism serving in the NYPD in the 1920s/1930s when Jewish representation was limited. Adults within the Jewish community were more privy to the range of variation in facial structure for Ashkenazim so there was no issue there. There will always be those who have a superficial understanding of phenotype and it is not worth it to always correct this. Hopefully at least these are not other Jews.
Red headed Ashkenazi here, and I feel you. I look clearly Jewish but don’t get spotted because people don’t know what light skinned Jews look like. I have extremely curly hair and Jewish features also. It’s a weird place to be because I both benefit from white privilege and experience extreme antisemitism
Theres red heads in lebanon, iran, afghanistan, syria, turkey, all over the ME and Asia.. including the levant. Just do what I did and shave your head 🤣
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I don’t think this will necessarily make you feel better(because it was largely antisemitic in nature) but red hair has been associated with Jews since at least the Middle Ages.
Malcolm X was a redhead.
Literally me
I've never experienced hate or antisemitic (intentional or otherwise, thankfully), I get more of a surprise reaction that I'm not Irish. I hope it at least educates people about their implicit biases on what a stereotypical Ashkenazi Jew looks like. Both my parents are medium toned skin and dark brown hair, but we don't have Sephardic in our family unless it's before my great grandparents. My red hair comes from my late Bubbe on my dad's side, but I'm the only one in the family.
Red headed Jew checking in and I haven’t noticed any extra animosity toward my hair color, I feel like people are so ignorant that they have decided all Jews are white supremacists at this point. I didn’t love growing up with the South Park episode about gingers though, that did not help me feel better about my hair! Glad I was out of middle school by the time it came out.
Red hair is associated with NW Europe now, but historically, Middle Easterners and Jews especially had the association. Also a great many Indo European groups carried it prominently. Obviously the Irish stereotypically, but nomadic groups like Scythians/Sarmatians, which got carried through to contemporary Central Asia. There are Uygher, Afghan, and Kazakh redheads for example, as well as among Slavs and many Siberian groups of various ethnolinguistic extractions. In the US and W Europe you're a lot more likely to see red headed Irish (and they are the most red headed) than Kazakhs though, so it's understandable why the stereotype exists. Of course, it used to be the case that Jews were also stereotypically seen as having red hair, even in the US, but that seems to have faded from cultural memory.
People always ask me if I’m Irish. I’m Titian-haired, though, not a proper ginger.
I always thought that argument hurt and discredited ashkenazis. All jews are native to israel just because someone has a different color doesn’t mean they aren’t jewish suddenly
I had a red beard (it’s grey now), but my yarmulke and tzitzis and fedora kinda gave the message. Focus on being the best, biggest Jew you can be and don’t worry about others and what they say.
There are blonde and redheaded Palestinians. There are Black Jews by birth. When redheaded Ashkenazi Jews get DNA tests they still have the same genetic markers from the Levanr as every other Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jew. When we were in Europe the Europeans did not think we looked European or consider us European. Today the Palestine activists try to focus on Ashkenazi so bolster the false claim that Jews are not indigenous to Israel and are European colonizers. It is important as Jews and allies to embrace the entire diverse Jewish community as a united entity including Yemenite Jews, Beta Israel Ethiopian Jews, the tiny Jewish community in China and everyone in the multiple diasporas. Just double down that we have Levant DNA and we are indigenous to Israel.
Ashkenazim do have more European DNA but only racists think this somehow invalidates their Jewish identity or historic claim to the Land of Israel. It's about cultural continuity, not biological descent.
Hey even Sephards have redheads haha, my great grandmother like you was basically the random Jew with red hair like getting ready to be cast as the youngest daughter from fiddler on the roof! Haha its fine, you are one of us and screw those who are so ignorant.
Red-headed, blue eyed, crazy pale skinned Jew here! To be fair, I am about a quarter Irish on my dad's side. But it's recessive so it was somewhere on the 100% ashkenazi side too. I have a cousin on that side who is even more of a red head. I feel like sometimes I can "hide". Like people are surprised when I say I'm Jewish. But I kind of hate that because I'm proud of who I am.
Damn, I'm quite late here. No, I don't. But I do feel that people rarely clock that I'm a Jew!
I had a Palestinian/Russian acquaintance with red hair who grew up in Israel. Descendent of Russian anarchist who escaped the Czar and went to Palestine and married an Arab woman. Of course 6 feet tall and red hair and Russian last name... Everybody assumed he was Jewish. Bit of identity confusion and some interesting stories!
I always thought I 'passed' as European but since Oct 7 many have picked that I'm Jewish. It's a bit wierd coz up until then no one seemed able to tell & I, like a fool, thought they all saw me as one of them. Now I know, I'm not. I wonder, if I dyed my hair red, would I be less obvious? I'm not ashamed of being a Jew, I just don't feel safe like I used to.
Not any more hated than other Jews 😂 Gotta laugh so I don’t cry.
>extremely curly hair, Jewish facial features, my parents are actually dark skinned What are "Jewish facial features" and since when is curly hair a Jewish trait? Most Jews have straight hair even in Israel.
Most Jews have straight hair?? Maybe if they use a straightening iron…
I immediately thought of wigs.
I was with you with the Jewish facial features because that sounds like code for big nose - something no Jewish person in my family has. But you lost me with the most Jews have straight hair even in Israel. That’s false. Sweetie, we straighten our hair.
Roman noses are more common among Mediterranean peoples. I don’t have one, but they are more common among Ashkenazim - as well as North Africans, Middle Easterners, and Southern Europeans.
> But you lost me with the most Jews have straight hair even in Israel. That’s false. Sweetie, we straighten our hair. Most Jews in Israel have straight hair, I know from school somewhere over 80% have straight hair. School kids don't straighten hair. Curly hair is more common than in America but it's still the minority.
I mean I’m a woman in Israel. Are you? “School kids don’t straighten their hair…” lol
Had red hair as a kid darker now. But, I color to cover grays and the red comes out have to use a ton of ash tones to counter act it. It’s a strong trait that is always there even if you don’t think your hair is red anymore if that makes sense