The Democratic Party has tried to become a “big tent” that welcomes all types of views into its ranks. As it has done so, it has given extremists positions of power and influence.
In February, New York State completed its redistricting. As part of the hustle-shuffle, the Democratic Party moved the pro-Israel community of Riverdale out of Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s district and into the progressive pro-Israel district of Rep. Ritchie Torres. In doing so, it helped boost support of Torres and keep Bowman from possibly losing his seat.
It also enabled Bowman to lean into the anti-Israel bile of his comrades in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Immediately after the Democrats expunged the vocal pro-Israel constituency from his district, Bowman withdrew his support of the Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic and trade relations between Israel and the countries of Sudan, Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. One can expect Bowman to shortly echo his fellow anarchists with calls to defund the police and pushing schools to advocate Critical Race Theory.
Another member of the DSA extremist group who is elevated by the Democratic Party is Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). The notorious anti-Semite will be given the microphone to deliver a speech after President Biden – a fellow Democrat – delivers his state of the union address. The only other time that a member of a party gave a reply to the SOTU by a fellow party member was last year when Bowman did it.
Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) incites anti-Semitism in the same manner as Nazis, and is given committee assignments by the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party has similarly shielded Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), despite her repeatedly using anti-Semitic tropes. Rather than rebuke her, they condemned those who pointed out the obvious as ‘Islamophobes,’ and continued to let her sit on important committees.
The Democrats can continue to shout about former President Trump all day, but they should get crushed in the next elections if they continue to give platforms to radical politicians who proudly shout anti-Semitic venom and extremist policies.
“The Great Replacement” theory posits that White people are being replaced by non-White people in western countries including in Europe and the United States. The Anti-Defamation League asserts that its roots come from Europe roughly 100 years ago, and returned in 2011 in an article by French writer Renaud Camus. With the influx of Arabs from Africa and the Middle East into Europe and the United States in 2014 and 2015 due to the “Arab Spring,” various civil wars and rise of ISIS, the proposition gathered a considerable number of followers.
Among the far-right, Jews are considered far left progressives who are helping to bring in these foreigners. In the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, marchers chanted “Jews will not replace us,” not as a chant that the insignificant number of Jews could possibly outnumber White Christians, but as historian Deborah Lipstadt says, advanced the premise of the notorious forgery “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” that Jews are behind a global conspiracy for world domination and use various puppets to achieve their aims.
Among the far-left, Jews are portrayed as far too represented in positions of power. They point to the number of Jews in Congress, on the Supreme Court, as CEOs and owners of companies and sports teams. The alt-left progressives assert that Jews are White and are among the “ownership class” (Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers) who operate “behind the curtain… [to] make money off of racism.” (Rep. Rashida Tlaib).
In this vortex of anti-Semitism, the far right and left are actively replacing Jews.
Consider the Supreme Court.
The liberal media is very excited that President Biden nominated a liberal Black woman to the court and informed its readership that White males make up one-third of the country but accounted for 94% of Supreme Court judges. This is a diversionary tactic of going back 200-plus years in time to make a point. A more relevant statistic would have been comparing the racial composition of judges since 1965, which is certainly much lower than 94% White males. Even more, it will likely show that the number of Jews far exceeds the their current size of 2% of the U.S. population. A disproportionate number of Jews are in law school so it is not surprising that a disproportionate percentage become judges and senators (most are former lawyers).
But current actions of both Republicans and Democrats are scrubbing Jews from the top bench.
Stephen Breyer (Jewish) is being replaced in 2022 by a Black woman, possibly Ketanji Brown Jackson, because Biden said “for too long, our government and our courts haven’t looked like America.“
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Jewish) was replaced in 2020 by Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic.
Merrick Garland (Jewish) was blocked from being considered for the court in 2016 as Republicans delayed the confirmation process until after the election to secure a conservative seat which went to Neil Gorsuch, a Protestant.
Elana Kagan is now the only Jew on the current Supreme Court, appointed in 2010.
While the Supreme Court could have had four Jews sitting at one time in 2016 with Breyer, Ginsburg, Garland and Kagan, there will now be only a single Jew on the highest court.
The Supreme Court in 2016 with three Jewish justices was ready to have a fourth (Merrick Garland). Due to Republican and Democratic actions, in 2022, there will only be a single Jew (Elana Kagan).
This dynamic is playing out in elected offices as well.
In 2022, there are ten Jewish senators, or ten percent of the senate, seemingly a large percentage. But the numbers are shrinking and likely going to continue to shrink.
Carl Levin (D-MI) died last year and replaced by a non-Jew, Gary Peters
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) seat is now held by Alex Padilla
Arlen Spector (R-PA) died in 2011 and his seat is held by Pat Toomey
Joe Lieberman (I-CT) left office in 2013 and was replaced by Chris Murphy
Al Franken (D-MN) left office in 2017 and was replaced by Tina Smith
Since 2011, there have been four Jews elected to the Senate: Richard Blumenthal (D-CT); Brian Schatz (D-HI); Jacky Rosen (D-NV); and Jon Ossoff (D-GA). Meanwhile, seven Jews have left: Spector; Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ); Herb Kohl (D-WI); Lieberman; Boxer; Russ Feingold (D-WI); and Franken. That’s a net loss of 23 percent.
The same has happened in Congress. Once reliable “Jewish seats” have gone to Black progressives. Eliot Engel (D-NY) was replaced by Jamaal Bowman (D). Nita Lowey (D-NY) was replaced with Mondaire Jones (D).
The Jews that remain are often mum on Jewish issues in the hopes of keeping their jobs.
Other Jewish politicians live in fear of their lives. Craig Greenberg, a Jewish Democratic candidate for mayor of Louisville, KY was shot at by a Black Lives Matter radical in February 2022. The would-be assassin was released less than 48 hours later after the radical group posted bail for the shooter.
Elected officials are pushing this diversity into the business world as well, often to the detriment of Jews.
In September 2020, California governor Gavin Newsom passed a law that requires publicly held companies headquartered in the state to include board members from underrepresented communities. That law defines “underrepresented” as “an individual who self‑identifies as Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native American, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native, or who self‑identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.” Jews, the most persecuted minority in the world, did not qualify, as liberals consider Jews as over-represented.
Jews are in the cross-hairs of the extreme right and left, with both groups pushing to eliminate Jews from positions of influence.
The left-wing is promoting its notion of the “myth of meritocracy.” Black people are particularly offended at Jewish advances in various fields despite systemic anti-Semitism, as it dilutes their argument. They are left with the incorrect conclusion – like Whoopi Goldberg – that Jews are inherently White and don’t suffer from real hatred the way that Blacks suffer.
Right wing extremists believe that Jews are all far left-wing nuts undermining family values and trying to import people of color to replace a White and Christian America.
The extreme right and left are coalescing into a modern Henry Ford kind of anti-Semite, where political party bends but populist anti-Semitism thrives. Both groups are targeting Jews directly and indirectly, to remove them from public fora.
The war against the Jewish State began militarily at Israel’s inception, as the armies of five Arab nations invaded Israel in 1948 in a war to annihilate it. In June 1967, the Arab world attempted the same but failed spectacularly.
Since that time, the armed conflict by Muslim countries has continued with more modest ambitions, as the goal of destroying Israel is considered too remote a possibility, unless and until Iran obtains nuclear weapons. The violent attacks against Israel have mostly been about pestering and killing Jews to obtain concessions. The 1973 Yom Kippur war ushered in a willingness for Israel to hand the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, and Palestinian Arabs believe that the Second Intifada War made Israel abandon the Gaza Strip. The various Hamas wars from Gaza since 2008 and the political-terrorist group’s kidnapping of Israelis, secured the release of thousands of fellow terrorists and other modest gains.
The failure to destroy Israel did not make the Muslim countries accept its existence. In fact, it has done its utmost to deny its existence.
Immediately after the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab League passed the Khartoum Resolution declaring a policy of ‘Three No’s’: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.” For the Arabs, the Jewish State had a name but was to be ignored until the Arabs could prevail at destroying the foreign presence.
In the 1970’s, the Arab League enlisted allies to their cause. Leveraging their control of the oil markets, and with a former Nazi sitting as head of the United Nations, the Muslim and Arab countries got the world to pass UNGA Resolution 3379 in November 1975 that declared that “Zionism is a form of racism.” This was an attempt to deny Israel’s legitimacy broadly.
Meanwhile, faced with the impossibility of destroying Israel, the Arabs and Muslims went after Jewish “soft targets,” like plane and boat hijackings (Dawson’s Field in 1970, Rome and Vienna airport shootings in 1985, and Achille Lauro in 1985), as well as blowing up Jewish community centers (Argentina 1994) and synagogues (Turkey 1986). If people inside Israel were too difficult to kill, the Muslim world came for the Jews around the world.
While the ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution was ultimately thrown out in 1991 due to the efforts of the United States, it simmered as the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 anticipated a peace deal in September 2000. Instead of finally accepting peace, the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada War which only subsided with the erection of Israel’s security barrier in 2004-5. That led to two new movements which are unfortunately thriving today: the demonization of the Jewish State and the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divest and Sanction), both economic wars.
Demonization of Jews and Zionists
The 2001 Durban Conference against racism served as the global launch party to amplify and expand upon the prior “Zionism is racism” propaganda.
As the world no longer relied on oil as it had in the 1970’s, the Muslim Arab world hoped to convince the western world to join their war against the Jewish State based on democratic values, a sly and peculiar approach for autocratic regimes. The global conference advanced a new lexicon to vilify Israel with terms like “apartheid,” “settler-colonialism,” “ethnic cleansing,” “genocide,” and “crimes against humanity” to name a few. It similarly painted Palestinians as noble victims, misusing words like “desperate,” “resistance,” and “dignity.”
This approach is more insidious than used during the 1970’s and 1980’s which relied on far-flung violence. The violent attacks against Jews around the world by Arab Muslims made it difficult to portray the Palestinian Arabs as “desperate.” Instead, since 2001, the demonization tactic has penetrated the west through the education systems, the media and the democratic system itself.
The Arab world funneled billions of dollars and tens of thousands of students to universities including New York University, MIT, Columbia and Tufts. The donations funded Middle East Studies departments and Divinity schools with anti-Israel narratives. Due to this activity, college campuses have become hotbeds of anti-Semitism, often denying Jews the right to participate in public spaces as perceived Zionists and racists.
These young voices have been indoctrinated with a new anti-Zionist vocabulary and worldview over the past twenty years. They are now running the western liberal media, working at “human rights” organizations and voting for far-left anti-Zionist politicians endorsed by the Democrat Socialists of America.
The 2001 Durban campaign, now 20-plus years running, has been very successful in not only demonizing Israel, but demonizing Zionists. Under this current version of “Zionism is racism,” Jews in Israel and around the world are no longer only being attacked by Arab Muslims but by their fellow citizens. While the legitimacy of Israel is still being denied, the focus has expanded to Israel’s supporters.
The movement seeks to boycott not only Israeli products but those companies that do business in Israel. It wants universities to bar Israeli professors and athletes to refuse to compete with Israelis.
It has even gone after its own, turning on Arab Muslim states which normalized ties to Israel such as the United Arab Emirates.
After failing to destroy the Jewish State militarily, the Arab Muslim world has gone through three stages to destroy it economically, with the current effort enlisting global support against all Zionists
The current Muslim and Arab war against the Jewish State is being fought everywhere, as Zionists of any religion or ethnicity are falsely branded “racists” who should be canceled. The intent is to pressure people and governments everywhere to sever ties with the Jewish State, making it vulnerable and weak by every measure.
The war against Israel has mutated since the country was founded but the goal remains the same: the end of the Jewish State. What has alarmingly changed now is that YOU are being asked to participate in that anti-Semitic endeavor by your neighbors, schools, media and elected officials.
People have been celebrating important milestones in their lives like birthdays and anniversaries for centuries. Over the past decades, western society has taken to marking a day to celebrate people who have been important in our lives from mothers and fathers to secretaries and administrative professionals.
It is time to add another: Non-Bashert Day for past relationships.
While Valentine’s Day is to celebrate current relationships, Non-Bashert Day is to recognize prior relationships that helped crystalize the priorities for the current (or future) coupling.
The perfect “soul mate” in Judaism is referred to as a “bashert.” It is based on the idea that a “bashert” person was preordained by the heavens to be the ideal match. However, most people do not start with their “bashert,” and need to go through many dates and relationships to help develop the model for a perfect spouse. Dating is not weeding out the “non-basherts” until the soul mate is found, but critical to develop a framework of how to think about love, relationships and themselves.
Whether past relationships were good or bad, short-term or long-term, dating informs each person about what is needed to build a meaningful life with someone. Those people should be acknowledged.
Wishing a past boyfriend of girlfriend a happy Non-Bashert Day is not a sign that someone wants to reenter an old relationship, but an acknowledgement of the significant part in one’s life that the past friendship imbued.
Enjoy Valentine’s Day with your special someone, and consider sending a short pleasant note the next day on Non-Bashert Day to the other people who, while not appropriate for you, were nevertheless important in the direction of your life.
The sole Jewish State is unique in many ways. One situation that causes constant strain is that it is surrounded by armed terrorist groups.
To the north is Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to recent reports, the Iranian-backed terrorist group “currently possesses between 120,000-140,000 short-range rockets (range of 25-28 miles), which cover Israel’s north, including Haifa Bay and Tiberias; several thousand medium-range rockets (range of 56 miles), which can reach the Sharon coastal plain and northern suburbs of Gush Dan; and several hundred long-range rockets and missiles (range of hundreds of miles), including Scud missiles from Syrian military warehouses, capable of hitting targets anywhere in Israel.“
To the west is the terrorist enclave of Gaza. The terrorist group Hamas has launched several wars against Israel since taking over the region.
In the east, Israel has to face Hamas as well, which has significant support in Areas A and B of the West Bank. Palestinians maintain that the best way of dealing with Israel is through armed conflict, and support a number of Palestinian terrorist groups which operate both west and east of Israel including: Palestine Liberation Front (PLF); Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ); Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP); PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC); Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB); and Army of Islam (AOI).
To the south, there is another terrorist group that operates out of the Sinai Peninsula called Wilayat Sinai, or ISIS in the Sinai. They have been fighting both Egypt and Israel.
Israel is surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism
Wilayat Sinai
Wilayat Sinai began in 2011 around the time of the “Arab Spring” under the name Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, before pledging its allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014 as that group was gaining prominence and then change its name. Like many of the terrorist groups in the region, it’s banner is jihad and the imposition of Islamic Sharia law throughout the region.
Wilayat’s main target is the Egyptian government which is viewed as too secular. Not only did Egypt make peace with Israel, but it actively opposes the Muslim Brotherhood.
The group stepped up its attacks against Egypt in 2014 when Abdul Fattah al-Sisi ascended to power after forcing out Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. With the support of Israel, al-Sisi began to clamp down on the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza which were instrumental in the Hamas war against Israel in that year. Israel would go on to allow Egypt to expand its military presence in the Sinai, above the limits set in place by the 1979 Peace Agreement. By 2018, 42,000 Egyptian soldiers were in the Sinai.
In February of that year, al-Sisi launched an aggressive “Operation Sinai 2018” campaign against Wilayat Sinai with Israeli support. The actions severely curtailed the groups ability to operate.
The attacks have not been limited to Egypt. In 2015, the group downed a Russian civilian airplane killing 224 because of Russian attacks against ISIS in Syria.
In 2011, attackers from Sinai – including some terrorists from Gaza – shot and killed Israelis near the resort city of Eilat. In 2012, rockets were fired into Eilat and later that year armed men from Hamas and Wilayat Sinai killed Egyptian soldiers and attacked Israeli Defense Forces at the Kerem Shalom Crossing near Gaza. The group would fire more rockets into Israel in 2017.
While Hamas gets most of the attention because of its vile anti-Semitic foundational charter and persistent attacks against Israel, the Jewish State is completely surrounded by terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism. While each has a different take on the goals of imposing Sharia law and establishing a caliphate, they all seek a purely Islamic region and an end to the Jewish State.
The Whoopi Goldberg incident regarding her comments about Jews in the Holocaust took another turn as she was suspended from her show ,”The View,” for two weeks. Instead of being a teaching moment for everyone, it turned into another incident of ‘cancel culture.’
Whoopi is not a boldfaced anti-Semite who wants to see Jews harmed; she is ignorant about the Holocaust – and anti-Semitism – as are many uneducated, liberal, Black women.
The Pew Research Center conducted a poll of Americans in January 2020, about their knowledge of the Holocaust. The results were pretty stark.
Black Americans know much less about the Holocaust than other groups.
Four questions were posed to people – when did the Holocaust happen; how were ghettos used for Jews; that 6 million Jews were killed; and that Hitler was democratically elected in Germany. On average, Blacks got 1.2 questions right out of 4, compared to 2.5 for Whites and 1.7 for Hispanics.
Women are also less informed about the Holocaust, especially, adult women who knew much less than adult men.
The general level of education also correlates to an understanding of the Holocaust. While 84 percent of college graduates knew that the Holocaust happened between 1930 and 1950, only 55 percent of those without any college knew such fact. Only 29 percent of those without any college knew that Hitler was democratically elected.
Lastly, liberals are marginally more ignorant than conservatives regarding the Holocaust, according to the Pew study.
So consider Whoopi Goldberg, a liberal Black adult female who dropped out of high school. She falls into the intersectionality of ignorance as it relates to the Holocaust. In all probability, she knows remarkably little about the genocide of European Jewry, and her “views” on the subject are probably similar to other Black women without any college education.
Society should focus on the glaring failure of our schools and which people are given coveted platforms. Today, the ignoramuses we churn out are given soap boxes on mass media, and can do severe damage in spreading disinformation with “views” which are seemingly blessed and fact-checked by the major networks.
An anti-Zionist teacher was fired from the Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, NewYork, and is now suing the institution. Religious organizations should support the Reform Temple in this lawsuit.
Jessie Sander wrote an article in May 2021 in which she “call[ed] for American Jewish institutions to revisit their educational philosophy and curriculum about Palestine and its history,” and that American Jews must stop their “racist practices and beliefs” and support of Israel (which she spelled each time with a lower case “i”) in its “settler-colonial violence” and “genocide in Palestine.” She added that “israel actively trains the actors of our military state to enact violence against our Black and Brown siblings,” portraying Israel as committing racist violence both in Israel and the United States.
A few weeks later she was hired as a Hebrew teacher at the Westchester Reform Temple before the school was aware of her writings. Once the administration found out about it, she was questioned and then dismissed. She is now suing the school for reinstatement plus compensatory damages.
February 6, 2022 New York Times article on a Jewish school firing an anti-Israel teacher
The New York Times covered the story in its typical anti-Israel jaundiced fashion. It noted that Sander is like many younger American Jews, who are not emotionally attached to Israel, as it cited a poll which found that 25 percent of Jews believed Israel to be an “apartheid state” and 22 percent said it was “committing genocide against the Palestinians.”
Those aren’t “beliefs” any more than Holocaust denial is a belief. They are simply wrong. When 25 percent of a class gets a question wrong on an exam, we don’t reorient the narrative to accommodate the incorrect.
Schools must be able to evaluate the teachers they hire and whether they pose a threat to the students and mission of the institution. This teacher was not simply stating that she was concerned about Palestinian self-determination but sought to change the “educational philosophy and curriculum” with her false impressions about the state of Palestinian “genocide.” Together with her deliberate refusal to capitalize the state of Israel, the institution was rightly concerned about what she was going to teach in her classes.
While liberal anti-Zionists like Peter Beinart may run to defend this teacher, it is important for other religious denominations – especially the Orthodox – to rally to the side of the Reform Temple.
Jewish institutions have long hired a variety of people from different backgrounds. Yeshiva University, the flagship Jewish university in the United States, hires many non-Jewish faculty. Jewish Day Schools hire people with a range of political views from conservative to progressive.
But they do not hire someone who seeks to instill a false narrative into the cirriculum.
Yeshiva University, the Orthodox Union, the Rabbinical Council of America and other Orthodox organizations do not always have an opportunity to bond with the Reform movement. These mission-driven groups – as well as non-Jewish ones – should rally to support the Westchester Reform Temple in the suit by an anti-Israel extremist, in an important defense of their religious rights.
Holocaust denial is so commonplace, that we don’t contemplate its uniqueness. There is no other broad-based denial of a particular event in history other than the genocide of European Jewry, even while Survivors are still alive.
Why is that?
Certainly there is bigotry and racism. But many people harbor biases against a group and still do not deny their history.
A person may dislike Black people but won’t deny that there was Black slavery. A person might be a misogynist, but will readily admit that women once did not have the right to vote.
Yet the deliberate effort to deny Jewish history happens so frequently, that even the United Nations General Assembly – no friend to the Jewish people – passed a resolution to combat this evil.
Why do people deny and falsify Jewish history?
A Religious Perspective: Change in Gospel and Fake History
Christianity views itself as an extension of Judaism. The Christian Messiah was a himself a Jew in Jerusalem, who took the religion in a new direction. The Christian bible is called the ‘New Testament,’ built upon the ‘Old Testament’ of the Jews.
For centuries, Christianity viewed Jews as those who rejected their Messiah. Until the Second Vatican Council in 1965, Catholic doctrine felt that Jews should be punished for killing Jesus and continuing to reject him.
Muslims’ approach to Judaism is quite different. Islamic tradition views the Hebrew Bible as a complete fabrication. They believe that Abraham’s covenant ran through his son Ishmael, the patriarch of the Arabs, not Isaac.
It is therefore not surprising that Muslims are twice as likely to harbor anti-Semitic attitudes as Christians according to an ADL poll. That the Islamic Republic of Iran mocks the Holocaust as a fabrication can perhaps be seen through the lens that it views itself as the vanguard of Islam, which rejects the entire story of the Jewish people from its foundation.
Christians falls into two camps: those who accept the Second Vatican Council and are not likely to deny the Holocaust, and the “ultra-traditionalists” – like some of the people from the Society of St. Pius X – who actively deny the Holocaust. This second group are angered that the Church altered its own foundational texts and the history of Jews and Jesus, so they actively deny the genocide of the Jews.
For Muslims and ultra-traditionalist Christians, Jewish history is either built on a fiction, or has become fictionalized, so think nothing of denying Jews of their history.
A Secular Perspective: Schemers and Scapegoats
The falsification of Jewish history occurs outside of religious denominations as well.
“The Protocols of The Elders of Zion,” was a notorious anti-Semitic forgery written in the Russian Empire in 1903. It attempted to portray Jews as schemers who were plotting to create havoc to control the world through the banks, media and provoking wars. It spread throughout the world by radical anti-Semites including Henry Ford and the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas.
While some people might hate Hindus, no one took time to create a false document about Hindu community leaders to make them look evil.
So why the Jews?
Jews were often viewed with suspicion because of their position.
The Jewish diaspora spread a small people to the corners of the earth. While some assimilated and converted (forcibly and otherwise), many held on to their traditions. They did so in clustered communities – both voluntary and forced – to facilitate the production of kosher foods and participate in communal prayer.
That insularity bred suspicion. A small group that insisted on holding onto an unpopular belief system either lived on one extreme of abject poverty or became leaders in various professional fields. They were resented for both because they were considered as foreigners.
Anti-Semites were ready to embrace the Protocols forgery. They jumped at the opportunity to believe blood libels that Jews stole babies for baking matzah or were behind the Black Death. Jews were considered aliens in their midst, and easy scapegoats for the root of problems. Falsifying history helped foster that foreigner narrative, and an evil one at that.
The foreigner label attached to Jews everywhere, including in Ethiopia where Black Jews were called “falashas,” which means “foreigners” in Amharic.
In small, cloistered communities stretched around the world, Jews were vulnerable. Their non-Jewish neighbors were able to cast their opinions onto this minority, and craft stories to enlist others to embrace their hatred. Jews were left protesting the absurd charges to an audience that was both instigator, prosecutor and judge at once.
The secular falsification of Jewish history is anchored in xenophobia, and a desire to expel the foreign bodies, whether they be the “unclean,” poor Jew, or the “powerful,” puppet-masters “behind the curtain,” exploiting the noble masses for profit.
1,000 years of Jewish expulsions
The unique nature of denying and falsifying Jewish history is embedded in Muslim and ultra-traditionalist Christian religious bias as well as anti-Semitic xenophobia. Holocaust education will not cure those ills.
Whoopi Goldberg, a liberal Black popular personality on television described the Holocaust of European Jewry as matter of “White people doing it to White People,” and therefore not a matter of racism. From her vantage point, the Jews were not an “other,” a people apart, but merely a group of White people that other White people didn’t care for. For Whoopi – and many Black people and liberals – Jews are White, and possess power and therefore cannot claim racism.
To set the matter straight, the Nazis did view the Jews as an inferior race. Here is just one section of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, in his introduction to the Jew:
“One day when I was walking through the inner city, I suddenly came upon a being clad in a long caftan, with black curls. Is this also a Jew? was my first thought. At Linz they certainly did not look like that. Secretly and cautiously I watched the man, but the longer I stared at this strange face and scrutinized one feature after the other, the more my mind reshaped the first question into another form : Is this also a German?
“As was my custom in such cases, I tried to remove my doubts by reading. For the first time in my life I bought some anti-Semitic pamphlets for a few pennies. They all started with the supposition that the reader already knew the Jewish question in principle or understood it to a certain degree. Finally, the tone was such that I again had doubts because the assertions were supported by such extremely unscientific arguments. I then suffered relapses for weeks, and once even for months. The matter seemed so monstrous, the accusations so unbounded that the fear of committing an injustice tortured me and made me anxious and uncertain again. However, even I could no longer actually doubt that they were not Germans with a special religion, but an entirely different race; since I had begun to think about this question, since my attention was drawn to the Jews, I began to see Vienna in a different light from before. Wherever I went I saw Jews, and the more I saw of them, the sharper I began to distinguish them from other people. The inner city especially and the districts north of the Danube Canal swarmed with a people which through its appearance alone had no resemblance to the German people.“
The entirety of Hitler’s work is a screed against the Jews as an entirely alien being, vile in every form. His propaganda machine borrowed from the prior works of anti-Semites, and expounded upon them, riling up a continent to exterminate these foreign beings from their midst.
The matter of whether Jews are a different race is not the point. To debate that matter is to give air to noxious evil. The Whoopi comments which were broadcast to millions, must be considered for other insights:
Holocaust ignorance and denial on various platforms
Non-Anti-Semitic Black Perception of Jews
Holocaust Ignorance and Denial on Various Platforms
A few days ago was Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution against Holocaust denial. The resolution pointed out “the global and open nature of the Internet and the significant role of social media in spreading information,” but failed to discuss how the distortions about the Holocaust occur regularly in the mainstream media, both in the news and on popular shows like Whoopi Goldberg’s “The View.”
Various forms of anti-Semitism and Holocaust distortions are also becoming mainstreamed in American politics from the likes of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). It is important to call it out everywhere and not pretend it is only promoted on social media.
Non-Anti-Semitic Black Perception of Jews
There are certainly a large number of Black anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, who attracts loyalists like Keith Ellison and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA). Whoopi should not be dumped into this anti-Semitic camp.
Whoopi, as well as many Blacks and liberals, perceive of Jews as White, powerful “one-percenters.” They see American Jews and Israeli Jews as oppressors of Black and Brown people for profit, as stated by Tlaib to her loyalists in the Democratic Socialists of America. Marc Lamont Hill claims that only the powerful can be racists, both making it impossible for Black people to be racists, and that Jews cannot be the victims of racism since they’re White and powerful. This twisted logic has permeated the mindset of those who are not openly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.
The reality is that an average Jew in the United States is over 40 times more likely to be attacked than an average White person. Proportionately, Jews suffer more hate crimes than Blacks as well. These are plain facts.
Jews are marked as “the other” by White Supremacists as well as Blacks. It binds KKK leader David Duke with Ilhan Omar in their open hatred, but also blinds others like Whoopi Goldberg.
Black people insist on holding the mantle of Victims of Preference, and cannot let such security blanket drop for a moment, even when discussing the Holocaust on broadcast television.
Whoopi apologized for her Holocaust remarks that offended people but missed the opportunity to teach people about the common evil of racism and anti-Semitism: don’t turn your neighbors into “others” to demonize and despise. Jews suffer from “othering” around the world, and this Black liberal should educate her listeners to stop doing it to Jews themselves.
FirstOneThrough 