“While modernity promised Jews and other minorities that they could move from the margins to the center, it’s the reverse that may have actually occurred”

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While modernity promised Jews and other minorities that they could move from the margins to the center, it’s the reverse that may have actually occurred. In the era of radical globalization and the internet, it doesn’t matter who you are — even if you’re male, white, straight, middle-class — you’re probably feeling that your group or identity has been, if not existentially threatened, then at the very least marginalized. These days we’re all mobile and unsettled, even if we stay put. We’re all hyper-connected but insecure.
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Who are you really? What is the nature of your identity? Which club do you belong to? In a social media age, everyone must answer these difficult questions — or at least project answers to them, one status update at a time.

Devorah Baum, “We Are All Jew-ish Now”, The New York Times (1 October 2017), SR7.

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