The Pandemic of Anti-Semitism Jew-hatred is wrong whether it comes from neo-Nazis or left-wing activists. By Donna Brazile
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pandemic-of-anti-semitism-11622131302?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
“I am proud to stand with Jews against anti-Semitism, just as many Jews have stood and continue to stand with black Americans against racism. We haven’t stamped out the virus of hatred yet, but all people of goodwill must continue trying to achieve this vital task.”
As if the coronavirus pandemic isn’t bad enough, another sickness is breaking out across the world—a pandemic of anti-Semitism. Hatred of the Jewish people is only one expression of the virus of prejudice. Even our most brilliant scientists can’t develop a vaccine for this disease. All of us—citizens and government officials—need to do our best to stamp it out.
“The recent attacks on the Jewish community are despicable, and they must stop,” President Biden tweeted Monday. “I condemn this hateful behavior at home and abroad—it’s up to all of us to give hate no safe harbor.” All Republicans and Democrats should applaud Mr. Biden’s firm stance.
Hours later, the president signed the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act into law, in response to racist attacks against Asian-Americans carried out by bigots who blame them for the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest eruption of anti-Semitism has been sparked by fighting between Israel and Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip. But the perpetrators of these vile anti-Semitic attacks, in the U.S. and elsewhere, use the actions of Israel as an excuse to mount assaults against Jews.
There is nothing anti-Semitic about policy disagreements with the government of Israel. Jews themselves, including Israelis, are sharply divided in their opinions of the government, just as Americans are sharply divided in our views of the U.S. government. But attacking people because they’re Jewish isn’t about a policy dispute—it is about simple hatred.
Those on the left who profess to champion Palestinian rights are sorely misguided if they believe praising Adolf Hitler, beating up Jews in New York and elsewhere, and defacing synagogues in the U.S. and Europe with swastikas will aid Palestinians.
Those on the right who embrace Nazi mass murderers—such as participants at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., who marched with tiki torches while chanting “Jews will not replace us!”—are motivated by the same fanatical anti-Semitism that motivated Hitler and his Nazi followers long before the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
Likewise, the gunman who murdered 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 was motivated by a burning anti-Semitism that had nothing to do with Israel. Police said he shouted, “All Jews must die!” as he opened fire and had earlier posted on social media denouncing “filthy EVIL jews” and making many anti-Semitic slurs.
The synagogue shooting came three years after a white racist murdered nine black congregants during a Bible study at the Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston, S.C. Both mass murders were rooted in the same evil.
I am the descendant of enslaved Africans who were bought and sold like farm animals and denied the most basic human rights because white racists considered them subhuman. My grandparents and parents weren’t enslaved, but they were subjected to horrific discrimination in the Jim Crow South, which still refused to recognize them as full-fledged human beings.
As a black woman, I’ve experienced plenty of discrimination, though far less than my ancestors suffered. And in the past year I’ve watched the same videos and read the same accounts that millions of people around the world have seen—images of police killing unarmed black people in American cities. I cried over these horrific killings, as I cried for the victims gunned down at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston.
Anti-Semitism is based on the same belief as racism and other forms of prejudice—“the other” is inferior and not entitled the same human rights as the “superior” class. So while I’m not Jewish, I can empathize with the pain and the injustice anti-Semitism inflicts in the same way Jews have expressed empathy for the racist oppression black Americans have suffered for centuries.
Jews were among the most prominent and important nonblack supporters of the civil-rights movement, helping found and fund the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and numerous black colleges and universities. Jewish Americans remain among the strongest supporters of African-American causes.
A few years ago I attended a Remembrance Day ceremony at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. I was among those asked to read aloud the names of a few of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. I was overcome with emotion, but the Holocaust survivor who stood next to me read names stoically, showing remarkable strength. It is something I will never forget, along with my three visits to Israel and the time I met Holocaust chronicler Elie Wiesel.
I am proud to stand with Jews against anti-Semitism, just as many Jews have stood and continue to stand with black Americans against racism. We haven’t stamped out the virus of hatred yet, but all people of goodwill must continue trying to achieve this vital task.
Ms. Brazile is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
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