https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/01/media/whoopi-goldberg-the-view-suspended/index.html
I lost multiple relatives in the Holocaust. Thus, I'm far from taking it lightly. Nonetheless, I think Whoopi Goldberg's statement here was ignorant, rather than malicious or bigoted. She wasn't defending the Holocaust or even minimizing its significance. She just made a badly flawed statement about its causes, claiming it had nothing to do with race. Still, the issue is worth unpacking, because it displays a kind of historical ignorance common in various quarters, especially on the left:
It is a mistake to assume that the only form of racial bigotry or discrimination is that which focuses on black-white differences or even on skin color more generally. The Nazis clearly thought of Jews as a separate "race" (as distinct from the "Aryan race"), and targeted them as such. This way of thinking was not unique to the Nazis, but was and is common among anti-Semitic nationalists all over Europe, from the 19th century onward. Soviet anti-Semitism also treated the Jews as a distinct ethnoracial category, rather than a religious or cultural group. Thus, people like my own family had "Jew" stamped in their internal passports, even if they did not believe in the Jewish religion or follow any specifically Jewish customs.
You can argue, as Goldberg tried to do, that the difference between Jews and non-Jews isn't a "real" racial distinction, while that between blacks and whites is. But the truth is that no racial distinctions are based on any kind of objective "science" (despite the contrary claims of Nazi "race science"). All are ultimately arbitrary, and matter only in so far as people attach social significance to them. Objectively, differences in skin color are no more scientifically valid indicators of "race" than differences in eye color or hair color, or differences in height and weight. There is a famous Star Trek episode that drives home this point by portraying a society where differences in eye color are the key markers of racial distinction (Brandon Sanderson has an excellent fantasy series with a similar premise, in which people with light-colored eyes rule over people with dark ones).
Another distinction some make is that, because of the supposed lack of visible physical differences between Jews and non-Jews, the former can blend in more easily than blacks, and thereby avoid discrimination. This is true in some cases, but it's more a difference of degree than kind. There are, in fact, stereotypically Jewish physical traits (e.g. - dark curly hair, big noses, etc.). That's why it's possible to say that a person "looks Jewish." In my experience, as an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Russians (both Jews and gentiles) are, on average, more attuned to these differences than most westerners. That's not because Russians are generally more observant. It's because widespread anti-Semitism in Russia makes the Jewish-gentile distinction much more socially significant than it is in the US. The same is true of sensitivity to which names are likely to be Jewish (also more common in Russia than here). Of course some Jews can "pass" even in Russia (e.g. - if they don't look Jewish and don't have Jewish names). But some blacks in the US are light-skinned enough to pass as white. I myself didn't realize that Derek Jeter is black, until a friend told me! If Jeter were not a famous athlete, he could probably "pass" if he wanted to.
Racial and ethnic bigotry in Asia is another case in point. Despite spending a lot of time in China, Japan, and Korea, I find it almost impossible to tell the difference between Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans by looking at them. But many actual Asians can! And there is in fact a history of racial discrimination among these groups (e.g. - discrimination against Koreans in Japan). To Westerners, these people may all look like an undifferentiated mass of "Asians" who all belong to the same "race." But that's not how many Asians themselves see it.
The bottom line is that which "racial" distinctions matter is likely to vary greatly based on the culture and history of a given society. Even within the same society, it can change over time (e.g. - the distinction between Jews and non-Jews in the US matters far less than it did 50 or 100 years ago). Thus, it's a mistake to unthinkingly apply conventional US "racial" categories to situations in other countries. These categories are often misleading even in the US context. But that's a subject for another time.