California is poised to be the first state in the nation to allow people to identify their Jewish heritage on state forms, sparking debate within the community about identity and the merits of being singled out. <\/p>\n
Some Jews believe the move would help people understand the community better, particularly on issues such as health and hate crimes. But some are wary about providing too much information given the history of government-sanctioned persecutions against Jewish people. <\/p>\n
The state recognizes nearly 50 racial and ethnic identities for data collection, but it considers Jewish identity only as a religion, not an ethnicity. <\/p>\n
Senate Bill 1387,<\/a> which lawmakers passed Aug. 31, seeks to require state agencies to include a box for Jewish ethnicity on all demographic data forms, ranging from public assistance programs to college applications. <\/p>\n The goal is to improve the accuracy of state data to better understand the needs of Jewish communities, according to the bill\u2019s author, state Sen. Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles). The bill, which received broad support in the Assembly and Senate, will head to Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s desk in the coming weeks for a signature or veto. <\/p>\n The proposed law has gone beyond data collection within the Jewish community, prompting discussions and disagreements over whether being Jewish is religious, cultural or a blend of many things. For some, it\u2019s evoked anxiety about the historical dangers of tracking Jews. <\/p>\n Stern doesn\u2019t mind the debate. In fact, he says, it speaks to a core part of Jewish identity. <\/p>\n \u201cI love that the Jewish tradition is us arguing with each other,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is such a beautiful part of our heritage to debate these kinds of things and what it means to be Jewish, and I love making space for that.\u201d <\/p>\n California has broadened the list of racial and ethnic categories people can select in recent years. Newsom last year signed a similar bill that created a category for Middle East and North African individuals separate from the \u201cwhite\u201d designation that had previously encompassed those ethnicities.<\/p>\n California is home to an estimated 1.2 million Jewish people, representing the second-largest Jewish population in the United States after New York. And for most American Jews, Jewish identity is not one size fits all. <\/p>\n \u201cThe difficulty here, I think, is that Jewishness doesn\u2019t fit neatly into the categories Americans normally use,\u201d said Jeffrey Kopstein, the chancellor\u2019s professor of political science at UC Irvine. \u201cSo, of course, to non-Jews, Jews are often thought of as a religion, but Jewish identity also has historically involved ancestry, culture and peoplehood.<\/p>\n \u201cMany people who are entirely secular nevertheless understand themselves and are understood by others as Jews,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n