Gatekeeping group identity is as old as time: defining who is part of the family, tribe, friend circle, political party, religion, nation, civilization – and who is outside of it. But the latest efforts to ‘revoke’ the Jewishness of U.K. Foreign Minister Ed Miliband, and the Israeliness of filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, have turned gatekeeping into a particularly dark, ignorant and authoritarian form of thought policing with wider repercussions for Jewish life, the Middle East and political debate in the West.
