Eric Orowell—the founder of a whites-only, European-descent, neo-rural community in Arkansas—told a Jewish TMZ interviewer that Jews are not white Europeans and would not be welcome in his “return to the land” settlement.
The town, part of a disturbing first of self-proclaimed ethno-nationalist enclaves cropping up across the United States, explicitly markets itself as a community for “white European descendants.” When asked whether Jewish people would be included in this definition, Orowell responded: “Jews are not white Europeans. They originate from the Levant.
Ironically, while white supremacists like Orowell reject Jews because of their Middle Eastern origins, a vocal segment of anti-Israel activists, particularly on the far left, accuse Jews of haveing “white privilege” and of being “white colonizers” in the Middle East. These activists often weaponize American racial discourse to deny Jewish indigeneity in Israel, tell Jews to “go back to Poland” or “go back to Europe”, falsely claiming modern Jews have no connection to the Levant.
But Orowell’s comments underscore a historical and anthropological truth: Jews are a Middle Eastern people. With roots in the Levant dating back over 3,000 years, Jewish identity is ethnoreligious—not simply religious—and their forced migrations over the centuries have not erased their indigenous origins.
To white supremacists, Jews are “too foreign” to be white. To anti-Zionists, Jews are “too white” to be native.
