RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://whiterosemagazine.com/how-did-we-get-here/

Lots of Jews seem to be paying attention to Jewish life in America in a new way now. Rashida Tlaib, “Apartheid Week” on college campuses, social media influencers, Colleyville, and much more have come together in critical mass and shoved these “twice-a-year Jews” into the figurative Jewish communal room, many for the first time. They are stumbling around, wondering how we got here and what to do next. “I can’t believe this is happening here, in the United States,” they say in disbelief. 

But, actually, it isn’t at all hard to believe. After all, “this” has been happening here for a while. “This” has also happened in almost every Diaspora Jewish community throughout history. If by “this” they mean the scapegoating of Jews during turbulent times, and the subsequent increase in anti-Semitic activity, then “this” is neither new nor surprising. In fact, it is perfectly predictable.  

What most American Jews are really shocked by, but couldn’t see until it became inescapably obvious, is the fast-growing, unabashed anti-Semitism of the American political left, where they themselves reside. BDS, the Squad, attacks on Hassidic Jews in the streets, BLM’s charter, Pinkwashing, Deadly Exchange, leadership at the Women’s March, biased mainstream media coverage of Israel, anti-Semitic professors at elite private high schools, Islamist apologists: it has all felt like a sudden landslide. But, in fact, it has been more like a slow, creeping mudslide that they seem to have entirely missed, until it appeared as a daily feature on their social media feeds. Why do American Jews seem so caught off guard?

What most American Jews are really shocked by, but couldn’t see until it became inescapably obvious, is the fast-growing, unabashed anti-Semitism of the American political left, where they themselves reside.

One explanation is historical ignorance. It’s usually a bad blind spot. If you didn’t study Soviet Jewry, perhaps it is difficult to understand that political collectivism is bad for the Jews. If you didn’t learn about the implications of group “identity politics” in 19th and 20th century Europe, you might not appreciate that the contemporary American manifestation of it is a threat to the Jewish community and Israel. If you don’t know that the image of the money-hungry, usurious Jew is an anti-Semitic slur hundreds of years old, then when Ilhan Omar says, “it’s all about the Benjamins” you might think the comment was an offensive, one-off remark you can overlook. These trends have been building for some time, but if you didn’t have historical sensitivity to them, you wouldn’t guess that the politics you support are also hurting Jews. Then, when your favorite ice cream brand suddenly decides to boycott Israel, it comes as a shock.

https://whiterosemagazine.com/the-jewish-community-cannot-survive-perfidy-by-its-leadership/

This is not the country we grew up in. The Jewish community is under siege. According to the FBI, Jews are the primary targets of hate crimes in America. An analysis of their reports reveals that a Jew is twice as likely to be a victim of a hate crime as a black person or a Muslim, ten times more likely than an Asian or a Latino, and twenty times more likely than a non-Hispanic white.

Jews are being beaten in the streets of New York City, murdered in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Jersey City, stabbed in Boston, taken hostage in Texas, and harassed and bullied on college campuses across the country. In more than a few places, Jews live with rising anxiety. Most Jewish community buildings require security. Israel, the Jewish state, is defamed and demonized by the mainstream media, and maligned in both the U.S. Congress and the United Nations, as anti-Zionism becomes the new anti-Semitism. 

Hostility toward American Jews continues to grow. In February 2022, police in New York reported that anti-Semitic hate crimes in the city were up 409 percent. A recent American Jewish Committee (AJC) poll found that four in ten Jews avoid making themselves identifiable as Jews, avoid going to Jewish events, or refrain from posting Jewish-related content online. Ninety percent of Jews think anti-Semitism is a problem in America.  

In what seems like a perfect storm, Jews face assaults simultaneously from four major ideological camps. Lethal white nationalists attack them in the name of white supremacy, blaming them for supporting multiculturalism and rising Third World immigration. Radical black nationalists—including Farrakhan-following celebrities, academics, and politicians—attack Jews in the name of black liberation and “equity.” Radical progressives and segments of the Democratic Party promote the genocidal BDS movement and anti-Jewish critical race theory, inciting an ideological assault on Israel and Jews in the name of “social justice” and Palestinian nationalism. This new assault is a kind of “virtuous Jew-hatred,” socially acceptable and even fashionable, not easily countered by facts, logic, or reason.

In what seems like a perfect storm, Jews face assaults simultaneously from four major ideological camps.