White Passing Jew on exhibition at American Jewish University in Los Angeles

Artist Statement:
I've always been aware that my red hair and blue eyes made me different. In elementary school I didn't like the attention and wished I had brown or black hair. Then when I started learning about Anti-Semetism and generational Jewish persecution in Hebrew School I felt a strange sense of safety. I didn't look Jewish like many of my family members and friends did. In Adolf Hitler's Germany I could have passed as aryan. Would I have tried to blend in if I was there? Would I have denied my Jewish identity?

In the 90s I was drawn to a vast array of cultural identities that strayed dramatically from my family roots. As an adolescent teen in New England I discovered prep school culture as the ultimate fashion, complete with popped collars, boat shoes and Lacoste lizards. I quickly began collecting polos and other preppy swag.

The oldest country club in America was founded in my home town and I had the chance to visit once, with my friend who's family were members (the club has a history of not accepting Jews as members). It felt strange being served fruit by a Black classmate (Black members have only been admitted in the last few decades) as we lay in the sun next to the pool. During the summer I went to camp. It was on a lake in New Hampshire and my favorite activities were water sports. While water skiing was always at the top of the list, I found sailing to be pretty cool too. There were plenty of Jews at camp but little to no Black kids that I recall.

As I look back on my childhood in New England and investigate the roots of exclusive clubs tied to exclusive and often expensive sports like sailing, I grapple with my place in it all. This grappling continues as I reflect on my attendance at the University of Pennsylvania, a bastion of modern prepsterdom and immense white wealth dating back to our nation's founding.

The concept of being a 'White Passing Jew' is relatively new to me. I don't fully identify with what it means. I am a white person, fully assimilated into American culture and all the privileges of whiteness, yet I realize my parents and grandparents may not have the same perception and many of my contemporary Jewish peers still face antisemitism in their daily lives.

This project is an attempt to unearth the hidden themes of American 'White Passing Judaism' and what it means to me. I use the theme of sails and nautical forms to represent an American culture that Jews were not fully welcomed into and plant these themes firmly in the earth (or in this case symbolic dry logs) to reflect on our current state of uncertainty and disorientation, our sails are literally flapping in the wind and the ship has sunk. This 'sail in the earth' metaphor applies on social, religious, environmental and political levels and is meant to raise questions about where we're going and who is invited to participate in the collective vision ahead.

I invite viewers to inquire about their relationship to whiteness and Judaism and how these symbols resonate with the current moment. My ultimate vision is to install full sized dinghy and yacht sails in the earth to represent this tension and raise these important conversations about identity, culture, community and the environment.

- Ethan Lipsitz 2020