“The Jews didn’t nail Jesus to the cross, but they sold the Romans the wood.”
That’s one of the oldest anti-Semitic jokes I know, one that employs two eternal lies about the Jews: That they killed God, and they will do anything for money.
Do I have to blow them up?
In today’s world, apparently yes, even while disproving them will not stop some people from believing them. Some people love to chew on hate the way a dog loves a soup bone.
The execution of Jesus occurred after Rome defeated and occupied Judea in 67CE.
Even the Catholic church now teaches that Rome is responsible for his death.
As for money, the wealthiest ethnic group in America is Asians, not Jews. Primarily Indians, who also lead in educational achievement.
Jews are above average in income. Like Asians, they also rate higher than average in education. There is linkage between education and wealth. D’uh!
A couple more tropes — Jews run Hollywood and the TV networks.
Jews pretty much invented Hollywood. Most of the early studios were created and owned by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Loew’s and Universal were all products of Jewish capitalists. But that was 100 years ago.
Today’s TV networks are owned by corporations. There may be a disproportionate number of Jews in the networks, but that is also true of medicine, physics, literature, law, chemistry, journalism, comedy, music, etc. When Jews are called people of the book, it’s not just the Jewish Bible. It is learning.
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Despite many achievements — 22% of all Nobel Prize recipients had at least one Jewish parent; 14% of Pulitzer Prize winners were Jewish — until just a few decades ago, Jews, only 2.4% of Americans, 0.2% of world population, were banned from certain occupations (like banking, law, education).
Many Ivy League colleges set quotas for the number of Jewish students they would allow. (The same charge today is levied by Asian students, even while Jewish enrollment is falling, perhaps victims of diversity programs that prize race over achievement.)
With all that said, I am not a kosher Chicken Little squawking about the sky falling every time an anti-Semitic episode is reported in the press, or on social media.
As I have reported in the past, even when anti-Semitism ticks up, it is not cause for alarm. Early last year, responding to reports of a 65% increase in anti-Semitic episodes in Pennsylvania in 2022, compared with the year before, the Inquirer called it an “alarming” rise. The 2022 total was 114. That is 114 incidents in a state with 12.9 million.
You almost have a better chance of getting struck by lightning. It is not necessary for Jews to barricade themselves in their homes.
With all that said, the current Time magazine’s cover story on “the new anti-Semitism” does give me pause.
To condense Noah Feldman’s long essay into a central theme, it is this: What’s “new” about anti-Semitism is the element of “anti-Zionism,” casting Jews as the oppressor.
What is Zionism?
It is nothing more than the belief that the Jewish people deserve their own homeland, just like every other people. Muslims are a majority in 49 nations, 157 countries are Christian majority, Buddhism is the majority religion in 7 countries, Hinduism in 3 countries. Judaism has 1.
Palestinians? They are Arabs and there are 22 Arab countries that share their traditions, religion, language, and history. And Palestinians do run Gaza, and have administrative control over part of the West Bank. Eventually, they will achieve statehood.
“The new narrative,” writes Feldman, a professor at Harvard Law, “of Jews as oppressors is, in the end, far too close to the anti-Semitic tradition of singling out Jews as uniquely deserving of condemnation and punishment.”
When Israel behaves badly, he states several times, it deserves condemnation.
However, as one example, the genocide charge is false, under international law. Israel’s military operations “resemble campaigns fought by the U.S. and its coalition partners in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he writes, “and by the international coalition in the battle against ISIS for control of Mosul.”
There was no talk of genocide then.
It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel for its actions, but it is anti-Semitic when only Israel is being criticized.
“If Israel becomes the very archetype of a genocidal state — then Jews are much less likely to be conceived as a historically oppressed people engaged in self-defense,” Feldman writes.
Knowing that is important, but knowing is not enough. Anti-Semitism is snowballing, built on lies and disinformation.
I have tried to knock down the lies here and here, but one voice is not enough.
Stopping anti-Semism is an obligation Christians and Muslims and atheists should assume, because — remember this pledge? — never again.
Do we mean it?
Hamas invaded Israel and Israel is rightfully defending there people. It is ignorant to defend Hamas which is a terrorist organization.
Israel was attacked by Hamas and has a right to defend itself. If you can’t understand that, you have your head in the sand. Our country is being destroyed by illegal aliens and WOKE socialists who are being brainwashed in our colleges by Anti American college professors. Things need to change before they get completely out of hand.
Dude, there ain’t no socialists here. Or do you now even know what that word means? Just stop.
Wellllll, both Bernie and AOC call themselves “democratic socialists,” so…
Well, Israel was in large part, and arguably for the most part, founded by democratic socialists. The kibbutz’s were basically (commercially viable) communes, without the drugs and hippie attire. Certainly it could not have been founded without them.
Labor Zionism was the dominant political force before Israel’s formation and during its early years. E.g., David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir. (Not that the anti-Zionists care, but there were/are all kinds of “Zionisms”: Labor Zionism, Political Zionism, General Zionism, Religious Zionism, Revisionist Zionism and various mixtures of all the above, not to mention various philosophical differences within these categories. As we say: two Jews, three opinions. And don’t forget there is Christian Zionism to boot!).
The “father” of Labor Zionism, Moses Hess (1812-1875), was literally best friends with Marx and Engels. (In an early version of performative politics, he changed his Germanic given name “Moritz” to “Moses” as a protest against German antisemitism.) He had a theoretical falling out with the two of them, because Hess thought problems of race and nationality to be more acute than class.
This is the same criticism that today’s woke/progressives used to dethrone classic Marxism which held that racism (like religion) was merely another tool of capitalism to divide the working class and blind it to its true interests. But I doubt you will see the wokesters celebrating some Zionist for making this critique 100+ years before they thought of it.
I believe virtually nothing I hear from the media in re Israel’s actions in defending itself after it was attacked. War is ugly; if the Palestinians don’t want ugliness, leave Israel alone. Do NOT bitch and moan when you punch Israel in the nose and they proceed to kick your ass.
Israel must totally defeat Hamas, since the terror group’s very charter desires the complete elimination of Israel. Why should they be pressured into yet another ceasefire when Hamas violated one on October 7?
I am appalled at the total silence of my leftist friends, who have no problem cheering on Zelenskyy and the continuing violence in Ukraine. But when it comes to Israel, they seem to be firmly on the side of Hamas.
I’m struck, reading the comments at how divided our own country has become. Two of the four comments referenced “left” and “woke” in their comments, neither of which has much of anything to do with the current situation. I’m liberal, well moderately so, and I’m “woke” (a term I’ve grown to despise), though again only to a degree. But it’s hard to watch innocent children and women blown to bits and not feel badly. Add to that, Gaza is run by an organization, Hamas, which has sworn to eradicate Israel from the earth. Do they not have a right to defend themselves? Of course they do. And as was correctly pointed out in the post, Israel is conducting operations not at all dissimilar to how the US and its allies approached a like situation in Mosul. But there was, and is, no need for commenters to continue the divisions within our country and get off topics with trite terminology that they consider demeaning. Stick to a topic and talk about it, not your own excess baggage.
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Excellent article, Stu. The only reason Israel is demonized for defending itself is because it a democracy and the Jewish state. The Jew-haters constantly make up lies about its actions against Humas. Thank you for having the courage to point this out.
You’re welcome