Interrogating Ashkenormativity by Sipporah International begins with a direct argument: white Ashkenazi identity has become the default measure of Jewish authenticity inside many institutions, leaving black and brown Jews to prove a belonging others are allowed to assume. The author starts from nearly twenty-five years of experience in the Netherlands, then places those experiences beside scholarship and testimony from wider Jewish communities. The book asks how one European Jewish tradition came to set the standard for conversion, communal legitimacy, and public representation. From there, the author follows that question into Israel, where Mizrahi and Ethiopian Jews have faced policies formed by the same hierarchy. The result is a treatise asking who gets recognized as fully Jewish when the institution judging them has already decided what a Jew should look like.

Sipporah International’s Interrogating Ashkenormativity is exhaustively researched, and what I appreciate most is that the author never leaves the argument at the level of theory. The Ma’abarot material is especially effective because the transit camps show how an idea about Jewish hierarchy can reach housing and family life. Later, testimony from Jews of Color makes the same point and includes the incredibly uncomfortable reality of people being asked how they are Jewish from the onset of any interaction. I also love the Checkbox Moments because they stop at the right places and ask us to account for what has just been presented. The author writes with an unmistakable point of view throughout, and while I went in knowing almost nothing about what it means to be black or brown and also being Jewish, I feel that I have learned enough to discuss it intelligently. Well written and loaded with evidence and sources, readers interested in Jewish history and racial disparity will find this essential reading. Very highly recommended.

Interrogating Ashkenormativity: Systemic Disparities, Repressive Interventions, and Other Detriments Against Black and Brown Jews by Sipporah International is a densely researched academic work that examines what its author calls Ashkenormativity, the structural positioning of white Ashkenazi Jewish identity as the default, normative, and most legitimate form of Jewishness. The book argues that this system, which the author traces back to the migration of Scythian peoples into Europe around the eleventh century who subsequently converted to Judaism, has produced a hierarchical structure in which Sephardic, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, Yemenite, and other non-white Jewish communities are consistently measured against, and found lacking by, an Ashkenazi standard they had no hand in constructing. The work moves through ancient ethnolinguistic history, a detailed examination of Scythian origins and their parallels with Ashkenazi cultural patterns, and a chronological survey of documented systemic disadvantages imposed on non-white Jews from the late 1800s through 2026. It draws on personal experience in the Netherlands alongside an extensive bibliography including Ella Shohat, Sami Shalom Chetrit, and Gayatri Spivak, and closes with specific pathways for institutional reform.

Sipporah International’s writing is dense and scholarly, clearly aimed at an academic audience rather than the general reader, and the referencing throughout is thorough and serious. The pace is methodical, building each argument on a foundation of cited sources before moving forward, which gives the work credibility even when its conclusions are bold. I found the chronological section, tracing specific documented instances of institutional discrimination decade by decade, the most accessible and compelling portion of the book. Each chapter maintains a consistent analytical precision in demonstrating that intra-communal racism operates as an institutionalized system rather than an isolated occurrence. Interrogating Ashkenormativity offers a difficult yet vital contribution to a much-needed dialogue for academics, learners, and community advocates addressing racial equity in Jewish organizations.