For a decade, I lived just one long block away from the housing projects where Whoopi grew up in New York City. For that entire decade I was all but legally married to a Jewish man. We want to a Reform synagogue together. We danced at bar mitzvahs together. One of the cantors was a lesbian. I have never felt so warmly welcome anywhere in my life.

But that’s just an introduction. My husband and I socialized extensively, and mostly with Jewish people. If I had a dollar for every time a bunch of us sat around until 3:00 in the morning drinking wine and solving all the problems of the universe ... well I’d have a lot of dollars, and the universe would probably be as messed up as ever.

But anyway, something I took away from all those late-night bull sessions is that Jewish people do not form a race. I was corrected, often, when I suggested otherwise. I was told, firmly, that Jewish people are members of an ethno-religious heritage, that that’s different from race, and that the difference matters.

I didn’t argue, obviously, not as a member of an extended Irish-Catholic clan. Not my prerogative.

I could easily see myself, therefore, making the same sort of mistake Whoopi made on The View. And by mistake, I mean not being clear enough about what I meant. I would have been making a good faith argument, and I think Whoopi was too.

I don’t believe for a moment she being anti-Semitic, any more than I would have been if I had made the same mistake she made – for the same reason.