The Next Time Someone Tells You Jews Are White, Show Them This

US Government Agrees to Confer ‘Minority’ Status on Jewish-Owned Businesses | Mike Wagenheim, Jewish Press

Jews make up about 2.4% of the American population, per some estimates. A new memorandum of understanding ensures that the U.S. Commerce Department will consider entities owned by Jews to be “minority business enterprises.”

“We’re going to be able to benefit from billions of dollars of these programs, contracts, some loans, grants, the hundreds of different programs that every single Jewish business is going to benefit from,” Duvi Honig, founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, told JNS.

“This is something that impacts everyone—every single business in the Jewish world, in all 50 states,” Honig said. “We are officially a partner with the United States Department of Commerce and the government.”

The Orthodox chamber and the Minority Business Development Agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, signed the agreement on Monday in Washington during a ceremony attended by Don Graves, the outgoing deputy commerce secretary, and by Jewish business owners and leaders and politicians.

Graves said that the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce’s work is “so important,” because “if you have a hope, if you have a dream, if you have an idea and you’re willing to work hard, we should give you the opportunity to turn that into something special.”

Robert Singer, a New Jersey state senator and the body’s deputy Republican leader who represents the heavily-Jewish city of Lakewood, told JNS that of the roughly 10,000 yeshivah students in Lakewood’s Beth Medrash Govoha, just 5% or so become teachers or rabbis. (BMG is the largest U.S. yeshivah.)

“The other 95% go into business entrepreneurship. They become CPAs. They become doctors and lawyers and such,” Singer told JNS. “This will encourage them to stay in New Jersey, develop businesses and qualify for dollars and cents, which is so important.”

Singer, who is part of New Jersey’s science and technology commission, said that minority businesses have an automatic leg-up when they bid for state contracts.

“This will also tie into federal dollars and therefore small business, Jewish-based business, will be able to tie into both federal and state dollars to help them grow, to help them bring more people on and be part of that entrepreneurship you wish to have, being an American,” Singer said.

As part of the agreement, the federal government is creating a new application to become certified as a minority business enterprise. The details are being finalized, but the application will no longer ask applicants to list their specific minority background. Instead, verification will be done during the certification process.

It is unclear at this time how the government will verify if an applicant is Jewish.