Confronting & Countering Anti-Semitism
by Rabbi Dr. Daniel M. Zucker
It’s time
to discuss the rising phenomenon of Jew-hatred, better known as anti-Semitism,
both in the United States and around the world. Three-quarters of a century
after the close of the Shoah—the European Holocaust and destruction of
one third of the Jewish people—hatred and animosity to Jews and Judaism has
found its way back into popularity and acceptance in ever-increasing segments
of the planet’s populace, and within elements of the American population,
despite numerous polls demonstrating the admiration and acceptance of us Jews
within this country. On one hand, Jews indeed are popular and well received within
American society—just look at the high rate—whether or not you approve—of
intermarriage in this country. On the other hand, the ever increasing number of
anti-Semitic attacks on Jews and Jewish property—synagogues, schools, and
private homes, as well as violent personal assaults upon individual Jews—not to
mention the murderous assaults upon the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh,
the Chabad of Poway, California, the Jersey City kosher market, and now the
rabbi’s home in Monsey, NY—indicate, to put it mildly, that not everyone in
this nation loves us Jews.
Anti-Semitism
in this country, and around the globe, essentially can be broken down into the
product of four sources: the extreme right, the extreme left, a small portion
of the black community, and Islamicism—or Islamic radicalism. The reasons for
the animosity that each of these groups has towards Jews and Judaism is
different, but the bottom line is that each of these groups dislikes or hates
Jews and Judaism, and in their most virulent form wish to see us eradicated, by
one means or another—some more violent than others, but with a similar end that
Jews cease to exist as a people.
Before
examining each of these four strains individually, let me emphasize that all four
are virulent, and all four—whether one is a Democrat, a Republican, or an
Independent —all four pose definite threats to Jews and to the integrity and
viability of this country, as well as to the world Jewish community and the
State of Israel.
Let’s begin
with the classical concept of anti-Semitism, that which comes from the far-right
side of the political spectrum. Certainly, throughout the vast majority of the
past century this anti-Semitism was and continues to be associated with Nazism
and old-school far right fundamentalist Christianity—think of Mel Gibson and
such, as well as David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan. The Alt-Right of Richard
Spencer is also part of this group. Peopled by individuals—usually white males
with poor economic prospects who have proven susceptible to conspiracy
theories—this group hates Jews because it fears that whatever honor and
authority that it has possessed as part of the WASP community, will be stolen
away and given to others. Loss of prestige, loss of income, loss of identity,
are major concerns that affect this group. Witness the chant of the alt-Right
crowds in Charlottesville in 2017: “The Jews won’t replace us!” Such words are
the result of fears of displacement on the part of those already occupying the
lower rungs of the ladder of success.
Both the
perpetrators of the Pittsburgh and the Poway shootings were individuals
ostensibly “protecting” their culture from those whom they deemed guilty of
attempts to destroy the society that they were trying to protect. Twisted
concepts of honor and the acceptance of wild conspiracy theories mark the
beliefs of both the shooters and those that think like them.
Fortunately,
the “white supremacy” movement—which we must understand is NOT equal to
nationalism—the belief in the importance of separate sovereign states as
opposed to globalism, which is an imperialist doctrine, as Israeli political
philosopher Yoram Hazony points out in his 2018 book[1] The
Virtue of Nationalism—the “white supremacy” movement actually makes up a
very small part of the anti-Semitic spectrum. It exists but it is far from
mainstream. Indeed, as American-Israeli writer Caroline Glick noted in a
seminal article[2]
published several months ago:
Last month
[August], the “Amcha Initiative”, which documents, investigates and combats
anti-Semitism on college campuses, published its 2018 report on-campus
anti-Semitism. The report revealed that classic anti-Semitic attacks—that is,
right-wing anti-Semitic attacks—decreased by 42%. In contrast, 2018 saw a 70%
increase in leftist anti-Semitic attacks on campuses.
This brings us
now to the second source of anti-Semitism in this country and internationally,
that which comes from the left and/or parts of the “progressive” camp. The
reason for leftist animosity to Jews and Judaism may seem strange to us as many
American Jews consider themselves to be liberals and thus expect to find
acceptance within the progressive camp. However, the reality is quite a bit
more complicated and at times difficult to comprehend. But, in essence, the
left-progressive alliance does not appreciate that Jews and Judaism tend to
swim against the stream. The left’s animosity begins—but does not end—with
anti-Zionism. The left buys into what is now termed “intersectionality”—a term
coined by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a black academic, to describe the alleged
intertwined relationship of race, class and gender in creating discrimination
and/or disadvantage. As a result, Israel is viewed through the filter of
Palestinian propaganda and is termed a colonialist enterprise engaged in
oppressing the Palestinians. No matter that the Palestinians themselves have
two oppressive self-governing bodies in the form of the Fatah-controlled
Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas—the Palestinian branch
of the Moslem Brotherhood in Gaza—and that the vast majority of Israeli Arabs
have no desire to be ruled by either of these Palestinian entities.
Nonetheless, for the left, Israel remains anathema.
Add to the just
mentioned concerns about Israel’s “occupation” of Palestinian lands—a misnomer
since the lands technically are “disputed territories” and therefore not to be
termed “occupied”—is the fact that, as mentioned earlier, Israel and Israelis
are firm believers in nationalism—the right of each nation or ethnic group to a
nation state of its own in which the
particular aspects of its identity are recognized and given prominence, while
respecting the rights of minority groups within the politic. For the left,
which lionizes globalism, and sees it as the solution to the world’s
problems—since it attempts to create one universal system that would
theoretically provide an equal footing for all, Israel’s nationalism—its
insistence on a Jewish identity—proves that Israel, and by extension, all Jews
who wish to remain visibly different from the crowd—are racists worthy of utter
contempt for refusing to meld into the majority. It is this stubborn
“otherness” on our part as Jews, our refusal to disappear and blend completely
into the majority, that irks much of the left.
So too, as both
Hazony and Yael Tamir, in her recently published book Why Nationalism[3],
point out, the western European states of the E.U. hold Israel to a double
standard—expecting Israelis, many of whom came from European nations and thus
absorbed European “values” to share the E.U.’s desire for universal government
and forgo their “nationalist claims”,
conveniently forgetting that the majority of Israel’s Jewish population came
from Middle-Eastern Moslem nations where universal human rights weren’t known,
nor are they known today. Interestingly, the leftist bent for universal
government is not at all popular in eastern European countries like Hungary,
Poland or the Check Republic where memories of the dubious benefits of
“universal government” under the Soviet Union remain quite strong.
Incidentally, it is precisely these nationalistic states that have said no to
the open border policies that have permitted large scale Middle-Eastern Moslem
immigration to radically change the face of much of western Europe.
It is the
left’s desire for a utopian “end of history”, a term coined by American
political theorist Frances Fukayama, which drives much of the animosity towards
Israel, and likewise against Jews in general. Bottom line, they don’t
appreciate that we aren’t prepared to disappear as a separate people—neither as
a nation, nor as a religion.
The third source
of anti-Semitism or Jew-hatred comes from a small but noticeable part of the
black community—especially within urban settings such as New York’s borough of
Brooklyn where the Jewish and black communities live in close proximity or are
intertwined. Normal daily frictions due to different lifestyles are easily
exacerbated and poor communications have led to violent confrontations.
Additionally, youthful aggressiveness has played a disproportionate part in the
violence.[4] And
turf boundary concerns have added to the frictions. Both Jews and blacks are
minorities, but that fact has not always created mutual concerns and
understandings—especially in lower economic situations where resentments can
fester. And a small proportion of black militancy adds fuel to the fire. At
present black animosity seems focused at the ultra-Orthodox communities of
Hassidim, but the overt anti-Semitism of the Black Muslim movement of Louis
Farrakhan includes the entire Jewish world in its hatred.
We now come to
the fourth source of anti-Semitism, that of radical Islam. Let me say from the
outset, that Islam per se is not gravely anti-Semitic—although it has
anti-Semitic passages in the Quran, just as Christianity has
anti-Semitic passages in the New Testament, and to be honest, Judaism
has anti-Christian and anti-Moslem passages within the Talmud and related
midrashic materials. That said, we need to recognize that a fair part of the
Moslem world has bought into the radical anti-Semitism that was espoused by the
founding theorist of the Moslem Brotherhood, the Egyptian Sayed Qutb, some
ninety years ago.
In his study of
Islamist anti-Semitism, entitled Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism,
Nazism and the Roots of 9/11[5],
the German political scientist Dr. Matthias Küntzel
points out that today’s Islamist movement is the direct progeny of the Moslem
Brotherhood which was inspired to return to the violent jihad of the era
of its founder Mohammad by its admiration of, and desire to follow, the tenets
of fascism as manifested in the Nazi movement of the thirties and forties.
Küntzel reminds us that the author of the Iranian Islamic revolution, the late
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, borrowed wholesale the
thinking and the tactics of the Moslem Brotherhood, overturning a 1,200-year
quietist approach in Shiite Islam in order to invent his Velayat-e Faqih and
launch his jihad to conquer the Islamic world.
Modern violent
jihadism begins with Khomeini and the Iranian revolution of 1978-1981, but the
roots are to found within Qutb’s writings for the Moslem Brotherhood. The link
between the Brotherhood and Nazism was furnished by the Mufti of
Jerusalem, the Palestinian national Islamist, Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, who
had spent the entirety of World War II in Berlin, supporting the Nazi war
effort. Al-Qaeda and Daish—that is, the Islamic State—are but the
modern manifestations of jihadi movements that all employ anti-Semitism
as a unifier to rally the faithful to the cause of a purified Islam. Seeing
Israel as a European and American tool to colonize and desecrate Moslem holy
lands, the jihadis, whether Sunni or Shia, regard all Jews as the spawn
of Satan, and lay all the ills of this world at our door. If you want to know
how powerful we are—at least in their twisted way of thinking, just read any of
the propaganda printed by al-Qaeda, ISIS, or the Islamic Republic of
Iran about Jews and Judaism.
If all of this
is getting you a bit queasy and sick to your stomach, get used to it; the
internet is awash with all of this garbage—conspiracy theories and false or
“fake” news are the stock-in-trade of our detractors, right, left, white,
black, and Islamist. If all of this is new to you, you have been living in
blissful ignorance, but I’m afraid that it’s not the figment of this rabbi’s
wild imagination—it’s real.
Now, to tachles—let’s
get down to brass tacks. How do we deal with this increasing epidemic of
anti-Semitism? The problem is real and should not be swept under the rug,
whether Persian or otherwise. But at the same time, Jews need not panic; it’s
not 1939! We don’t all need to book the first available flights to Israel. What
we do need to do is to open our eyes and recognize that it exists, and
thus we need to confront any and all manifestations of it.
However, in
confronting anti-Semitism, we need to remain calm and realize that nether the
president, nor the Democratic Party are anti-Semitic, and any and all such
name-calling is not only infantile, but also self-defeating. Are there a few
anti-Semites in the Democratic Party? Yes, but there are also a few in the
Republican Party as well. Does the president occasionally say things that are
stupid and easily open to misinterpretation? Unfortunately, yes; but that
doesn’t make him anti-Semitic, nor will he be the last politician to say, or do,
something stupid. Trust me, it goes with the territory.
What is
necessary is to remain vigilant and be proud of our Judaism. We don’t need to
be aggressive, but we should be assertive, and politely correct anyone using
anti-Semitic language. Speech, written materials–whether in print or
electronic–should be watched carefully and held accountable. Our public
officials need to hear our concerns as well as our thanks when they speak out
on our behalf and/or support legislation aiding Israel.
Furthermore, our
physical security can only be guaranteed by our own vigilance. The police are
on our side, but they are over-worked and cannot be everywhere 24/7. Thus, we
must accept the responsibility to create watch group and security patrols to
guarantee the safety of our synagogues, schools, institutions and communities.
Learning Krav Maga and proper use of firearms—where permitted by law—is
part of the picture.
Unfortunately,
there will always be anti-Semitism—anyone who says otherwise is a charlatan and
utopian dreamer, and should not be trusted. But we have it within our power to
confront and slowly reduce this scourge—if we but have the courage and
fortitude to do so. We can help
build coalitions with other groups to help support the American concept of a
free, just society.
No one said it
would be easy, but the rewards of peace and prosperity are worth the effort.
President George Washington spoke of this American ideal in his letter[6] to
the Touro Synagogue in 1790; it’s our duty as Americans to keep that flame of
liberty and justice alive for all.
[1] Yoram
Hazony, The Virtue of Nationalism, Basic Books, New York, 2018.
[2]
Caroline Glick, “American Jewry’s days of reckoning”, Jewish News Syndicate,
October 6, 2019, https://www.jns.org/opinion/american-jewrys-days-of-reckoning/
[3] Yael
Tamir, Why Nationalism, Princeton University Press, Princeton and
Oxford, 2019.
[4] Mitchell D. Silber, “How to Protect New York’s Jews”, The New York Times, December 31,
2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/opinion/how-to-protect-new-yorks-jews.html?fbclid=IwAR0qmMt1R2on-bV0uB8sdQvg3qrwSB5EcGUkIXWsdm2vcXzj_nUw3U5Jgx4
[5] Matthias
Küntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and
the Roots of 9/11, Telos Press Publishing, New York, NY, ©
2007.
