Anti-semitism thread: onwards from 2023

the original one was looonng

It might be good to leave behind the thread title "Is this anti-semitism?" Asking/answering that question only occupies a small sliver of the discussion there. The broader topic deserves a thread that's less ambiguous.

yep. the de facto core thread on the subject having that title isn't great. it's funny with the guardian thread tho

I find the topic of antisemitism difficult to express my full opinions about, because it always feels like they will be used against Jews. I don't want to police the way other people experience things, but there is something very frustrating to watch about people who are relatively safe and privileged in life get overly worked up about what actually may be a large threat in their life. E.g. I think the issues of campus antisemitism and left antisemitism are simultaneously real and exaggerated. The idea that Jews are somehow no longer safe on college campuses is ridiculous, and yet there are also very real aggressions happening against Jews on college campuses of the type that would probably be made an issue of if they happened to any other minority group.

I think discomfort is often confused for lack of safety, but there are also real threats to safety, and I know that these reactions come from generational trauma, and that violence can rear its head any time. There have been real synagogue shootings in recent memory. Someone really did paint a Jewish star on a Jewish bakery in my town a few days ago, and then a Jewish star was painted on a home a couple of days after, along with a pentagram and what looked like "9/11" although I'm not sure. Maybe just a mentally unstable individual. Maybe that person is harmless or maybe they are violent.

I am always hesitant to minimize antisemitism, because it is real, and because it has been taken to worse heights in living memory, and because it can become exacerbated. And at the same time I don't feel comfortable with devoting too much attention to antisemitism that doesn't disrupt most of our lives while people are being killed in airstrikes.

The discourse around Palestine is also very challenging to navigate. The place where it bleeds into antisemitism is slippery, hard to pinpoint, just like with use of the "Z-word." "Free" is hard to argue with, "From the River to the Sea" is open to different interpretations, and I think different people mean different things by it, but it has definitely historically been used at times to mean "expel the Jews from all of Palestine," and I'm sure some people at rallies mean that today. Maybe some would argue that even this meaning isn't "antisemitic" because the Jews in Israel/Palestine are all just "colonizers." I feel like antisemitism in the Muslim world is a third rail that is difficult to talk about, but it is a significant phenomenon (and I will fully admit that racism in Israel and islamophobia in Israel are serious problems). It wasn't that long ago that Protocols of the Elders of Zion was made into a tv miniseries in Egypt. The book used to be a bestseller in many Muslim countries. I don't know if that's still the case. I don't really know what to do with this information exactly - it's not as though I assume most Muslims are antisemitic or anything like that, I just think the dynamic of prejudices is a bit more complex and multilayered than it is made out to be. Certain European antisemities also seem to be almost glad to have Israel as a vessel for their antisemitism.

At the same time, I can even kind of understand why Palestinians in the territories might hate Jews, if the primary face of Jews for them is settlers and the IDF.

Jews are a very small minority in the world. We are a minority that have kind of "punched above our weight" in success and privilege, and some of us get to be white in America, and we are also a minority with a long history of persecution and relatively short modern history of persecution being at much lower levels, but still have collective memory of that long history of persecution. I don't think that contemporary discourse on race and class has really figured out how Jews fit in to the whole thing.

*overly worked up about what may not actually be a large threat in their life.

great post man alive.

I think this has been discussed already on the threads at some point but one of the things that is most challenging for me is that the conflating of Israel and Jews happens across the political spectrum and with all sorts of valences, not only among those who use it as an antisemitic brush to tar Jews. I know A LOT of Jews who cry antisemitism at any Israel criticism because they really believe it for themselves - support for Israel is foundational to *their* Jewish identities, and they struggle to imagine any sort of meaningful Jewish identity that doesn't share that pillar (or if they can conceive of it, they denigrate it). Just today I got a group text from a friend about how "antisemitic messages" were being chalked around town. He sent a picture of one: it said "Free Palestine." In this climate it is just maddening to establish any solid ground to have these discussions from, about an uptick of actual bigotry against Jews - is there one, how big is it, how concerned should I be about it.

My wife's cousins just visited over the weekend. They're pretty conventionally liberal but take Judaism seriously, or at least one of them does. I brought up the "river to the sea" chant and made the devil's advocate argument that not everyone saying it is anti-Semitic, and they bristled, likening its defense to the bad faith defense of phrases like "all lives matter." It's not inherently offensive, or even literally offensive, but when you see an "all lives matter" sticker or sign you know what it means and generally who embraces it.

Of course, Jews have been primed to detect (and ignore) anti-Semitism to varying degrees for decades, because it's always around, unprompted, sometimes more virulent than other times but never totally absent, and definitely amplified (or minimized) by the context. For example, the Yiddish cultural center in the Bronx that was tagged with "Free Palestine:"

The Sholem-Aleichem Cultural Center in the Bronx was vandalized with "Free Palestine" graffiti. A Yiddish language cultural center, it's not a Zionist-related institution by a longshot. pic.twitter.com/jTI4ZWMD4E

— portnoy (@eddyportnoy) November 2, 2023

"Free Palestine" is not itself offensive, but tagging it on a Yiddish cultural center is an example of how it can be perceived that way. Or how, reportedly, the Philly Palestine Coalition circulated a list of 15,000 restaurants to boycott because they are "owned by Zionists." Which is to say, purportedly owned by or associated with Jews.

The conflation of Judaism with Israel is always a challenge. The relationship demands nuance, and nuance is the antithesis of angry protest. As I probably posted before, ignorance of Judaism is pretty widespread in the best of circumstances, imo, and can easily be exploited or otherwise be taken advantage of in the race to raise voices.

I heard a good interview with two local Reform rabbis yesterday, about how to support a grieving congregation when everyone is hurting but no two people may be hurting the same way, or for the same reason. But both rabbis noted that something in the air feels different this time, a release of generational trauma that's affecting everyone from kids to grandparents. I think a lot of that came from the simultaneous revelation of the specific horrors of Oct. 7 with the ramping up of anti-Israel protest, even before Israel's retaliation. It was like Jews had no time to mourn or process before they were immediately, inevitably put on the defensive again. It's emotionally exhausting, and while that's not the same thing as feeling physically threatened, Jews, like a lot of minorities, understand it doesn't take much to tip things in that direction. 

Similarly:
https://x.com/ElliotKaufman6/status/1721893935247966487?s=20

(across from an Orthodox synagogue)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-VlZ9saAAA0zOe?format=jpg&name=900x900

Are you saying that’s antisemitic? It’s not totally coherent but I’m not sure about antisemitic.

aiui, brooklyn has a very large jewish population and that's been the case for a long time. it also is experiencing gentrification. if anything, the 'settlers' in brooklyn would be hipster goyim. so maybe the point of that slogan was striving to raise issues of intersectionality. hard to say.

re: Brooklyn, they could be talking about Europeans buying the land that would become Brooklyn from the Canarsie Indians, but being that half of NYC's Jewish population lives in Brooklyn, that may be the anti-Semitic angle?

I talked to my brother the other day, he's active at his Brooklyn synagogue, which is apparently very lefty/activist. He's part of an anti-Zionist group there and they had been planning out a big potluck. Unfortunately, the scheduled date was Oct 8 and they stirred up a lot of controversy for going ahead with it right after the Hamas attack. According to him, the synagogue has both pro- and anti-Zionists groups, and even some pro-Hamas people! Sounds like it is a very hectic and stressful time for him and everyone there. I don't have much of a point with this other than the kinds of situations he described are way outside of my own personal experience living in suburban Texas.

xp
I guess this is my "as a Canadian" day on ilx. Settler has a very clear and unmistakable meaning in the context of Canadian leftism (= everyone who isn't Indigenous, while remembering the history of the slave trade) and wouldn't normally be antisemitic. But I agree that as a statement with no author or context it's pretty stupid, and it's unhelpful as a comment on an ongoing genocide. Plus as stated, posting near a synagogue absolutely opens the door to it being perceived as antisemitic.

even some pro-Hamas people

...

I was a bit shocked and incredulous about this, but I guess he meant people who are pro-armed struggle, don't know if that really makes it any better

The sticker is in Philly, not Brooklyn. ILXors understood the reference to large numbers of Jewish immigrants living in Brooklyn.

It's associating this with a "problem."

Real brain-dead, lizard brain stuff.

xp

good post man alive. especially identify with this part

I am always hesitant to minimize antisemitism, because it is real, and because it has been taken to worse heights in living memory, and because it can become exacerbated. And at the same time I don't feel comfortable with devoting too much attention to antisemitism that doesn't disrupt most of our lives while people are being killed in airstrikes.

never want to minimize anti-semitism, but i do want jewish people (at least the privileged people in my community) to get some perspective.

I asked my brother if any of these I/P slogans or demonstrations are happening at my nephew's junior high school. My brother says he is a lot more worried about my nephew growing up African-American with a potential Trump presidency.

I don't think any of these manifestations of Jewish hatred should be accepted. And yet it's also possible to keep them in perspective.

I totally get that. But imagine the response to any other marginalized group's discomfort being "get some perspective."

xp ah sorry I didn’t click through to the tweet. It being in Philly makes it unambiguous

Yesterday my wife and 6 yr old were walking by the catholic school which was letting out on the corner near our house when a bigger kid, but still elementary aged kid, came up to them, held up a cell phone with a picture of Hitler on it and said "what do you think about him?" or something.

My wife just pushed on by but contacted the school and they quickly saw the kid on security cameras and talked to him and his parents. Surprised it got that kind of response.

Can't even imagine what the kid was going on about or thinking. It's easy to just think "dumb, confused, asshole kid, no big deal" but also probably good to stop that kind of thing at the root.

I totally get that. But imagine the response to any other marginalized group's discomfort being "get some perspective."

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 7, 2023 10:56 AM bookmarkflaglink

Oh totally. I should have said that was my brother's perspective. Not that I have any claim to impose any chosen perspective on others.

Xp

A 6 year old? That's grim.

You have to wonder what led a kid to that point.

Kids can be so dumb and not really understand half the things they do or the impact/repercussions of their actions when it comes to stuff like this. In fourth or fifth grade, I gave my yearbook to a boy to sign. He passed it around to the others and they all drew swastikas and stuff implying that my dad was a naxi in it and all ove it because my dad is from Germany. I was upset. I think my mom had a meeting with the teacher. In the end though, I think those kids knew that was something bad but not really how bad. Maybe I'm being naive and they did. Kids can be idiots though and I think it's absolutely good to squash that. Sorry that happened though.

aiui, brooklyn has a very large jewish population and that's been the case for a long time. it also is experiencing gentrification. if anything, the 'settlers' in brooklyn would be hipster goyim. so maybe the point of that slogan was striving to raise issues of intersectionality. hard to say.

I'm imagining a kid who doesn't understand anything. Just knows something's supposed to be shocking or taboo and likes to fuck around. Just a kind of bullying. I don't imagine he's thinking "oh this kid is definitely half jewish" or even thinking much of anything? I don't know. I think my wife just told my daughter it was something he shouldn't be doing and she didn't ask more. I've had a lot of thoughts about how to talk about what's going on or if to talk about what's going on in general and haven't really. My wife told her a little bit, just explained there's some terrible stuff going on and it's making people very upset.

I can't imagine having to have or even think about having those conversations with a child. I am also inclined to think that the kid in question knows the guy is bad and gets a reaction from people so a kind of shock value thing but it's still terrible.

I feel like there was always one kid in school (in the 80's) who was obsessed with Nazis/Hitler/WWII. In high school, one of them was in my german class, and he called me a fag on a daily basis. He was actually Persian and I had to inform him that Hitler would have had him killed. I finally ratted him out to the teacher because his notebook was covered in swastikas.

I started reading the Gary Gulman memoir (he's a really funny comedian). A lot of it is about growing up poor, and Jewish, in Boston. Here's an excerpt of his discovery, in 2nd grade, so around age 6 or 7, of anti-Semitism, by way of his soon to be ex-best friend, Wally Mitler:

“But it was his Holocaust miniseries recap back when I was in Rand’s class that caused me the most pain. It had a permanent effect on our friendship and my self-image.

He had told me about the miniseries the day after it started airing in April 1978. We were playing catch on the side of my house. Wally was not good at baseball, but, like every other boy, he had a glove and played Little League. Playing Little League was basically compulsory in 1970s Massachusetts. He threw wrong and seldom caught the ball. He claimed he needed a new glove. No, he needed new hands.

I had been sent out of the family room and its door was shut when Holocaust premiered on NBC the night before. It was the talk of the town, especially among the town’s Jews. Our "Roots.”

I am not sure if I had even heard the word “Holocaust” before the series began to air, and I definitely knew none of the particulars. I had a fear of Hitler identical to my fear of the devil, but I’m not sure of its origin. If it was discussed around me, it was done quietly; my mother forbade the discussion of anything solemn or emotionally challenging in her presence. Wally, now an expert after having seen the program, filled me in on what happened to Jews during the Holocaust, sharing with me the unspeakable specifics. He said that Jews were burned alive in ovens and starved in camps. My people were also gassed with poison. I was horrified, hoping he would stop talking about it. But much like with his devil voice, I think he enjoyed unnerving me.

When his précis ended, I asked the unanswerable question. Why? Why did they do that to the Jews? What could we have done to deserve this? I was asking out of genuine curiosity, the same way when I was five, I had asked him what G-d looked like. But I also asked him because I knew that whatever he said would let me know what he thought about Jews. I understood, as early as kindergarten, that my people were the object of pervasive hatred.

“Why?” I asked.

Without any hesitation Wally gave me his analysis.

“The Jews were rich snobs … walking around with their noses in the air.”

He said this with certainty, like it was an indisputable fact and, what’s more disturbing, a valid explanation for Hitler’s atrocities.

There is no way Wally generated this explanation on his own. This was an idea an adult in his life must have expressed. Until that moment I’d never thought about how close Mitler is to Hitler. They’re one letter apart.
I’d bet that after watching the show he’d had the same question I just asked him. Instead of giving a historically accurate attempt at an answer, someone in his orbit must have said to him, “Well, kid, these kikes got too big for their britches and Uncle Adie had to put them in their place. Also, the numbers are exaggerated.”

Wally’s next move, and this was particularly sadistic, had been to let his favorite Hēb in on the exigency of the final solution.

No matter the provenance of his despicable “snobs” theory, once again my gut told me how I should respond and hammered me for resisting.

It was my fault. I had appeased Mitler. I should have fought him when he gave my dad the finger that time when we honked at him. And now, he’d gone too far.

I had let my dad down. Phil Gulman would fight you just for saying the word “Jew” in a less than reverent tone; surely, he would have torn the throat out of some Nazi spawn announcing that the Jews were to blame for the Holocaust.

“They were snobs.”

A good reason to dislike someone? Maybe. A defensible reason to torture and murder them? J-sus Chr-st.
I had to keep this to myself. If I shared this with anyone, they’d ask why I didn’t violently attack him. I did have an answer for that: I’m a coward. As evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t even defend the honor of my people. I said nothing and instantly hated myself. And I stayed friends with him. Like a schmuck.”

Ok so maybe some kids know a lot more by way of asshole parents but I still think that doesn't necessarily they grasp the impact of the words/actions.

Schmuck is SUCH a good word.

There are some people for whom no other word will do.

Also, having lived on the edge of Brookline for years, I wonder where in Boston he grew up and will check him out.

It looks like Peabody, I think?

I totally get that. But imagine the response to any other marginalized group's discomfort being "get some perspective."

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 7, 2023 1:56 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

look, i'm a jewish person, and i understand being nervous about the potential increase of anti-semitism in society. but i got a concerned message from my friend about a pro-palestinian march in brooklyn worried about me because he heard that they were "hunting jews." that just plain is not happening.

A relative of mine goes to the private girls’ school in London where some kid painted a swastika and “kill Jews” on the wall recently. On the one hand, you know it’s just some idiot kid, maybe’s not even a serious risk, maybe just a kid confusing righteous rebellion tor something stupider. On the other hand… who knows?

xpost Yeah, I wouldn't lose any sleep over that, either. That's like that day of global jihad, or whatever bullshit was foretold a few weeks ago. Though again, it's a fine line between "hunting Jews" and "targeted for being Jewish." Let's just say I wouldn't show up to that march waving an Israeli flag, or even holding a sign with a star of David on it. Unless it was, you know, depicted being tossed in the trash, that seems to be OK. (joke, sort of)

jewish voice for peace has the star of david in its logo.

i also wouldn't wave an israeli flag at a free palestine rally, idk why that would be so controversial.

Xposts ah ok - think that's north shore maybe near Salem

xpost Yeah, it would be pretty obnoxious. I think my point was that the protest itself should not strike fear into the hearts of Jews, let alone fear of being "hunted." But that it wouldn't take much provocation to invite negative attention.

Hey, good timing, Isaac:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/where-does-antisemitism-come-from

Lemme know if anyone needs it copy and pasted.

You heard about Paul Kessler then? That happened in what is considered a normal suburban enclave in LA.

I don't think anyone should be assaulted for counter protesting.

i also wouldn't wave an israeli flag at a free palestine rally, idk why that would be so controversial.

― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Tuesday, November 7, 2023 11:46 AM (one minute ago)

Just read this story of an 65 year old counter-prostestor waving an Israeli flag at a Free Palestine demonstration in suburban LA who was involved in a physical altercation and has died as result of a fall (witness details are mixed whether he was struck, or tripped and fell to the ground on his own). The other person (a 50 year old man) involved in the altercation is cooperating with authorities but there is a burst of social media claming this incident was anti-semitic/terrorist (source: my pro-Israel friends IG shared stories).

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-06/man-dies-after-fight-at-protest-westlake-village-israel-hamas-war

his discovery, in 2nd grade, so around age 6 or 7, of anti-Semitism, by way of his soon to be ex-best friend, Wally Mitler

Woah, Wally Mitler?

But imagine the response to any other marginalized group's discomfort being "get some perspective."

xp to steve shasta, to be clear, i don't think the guy had it coming, obviously that's a terrible thing to happen. of course it's now going to be used as evidence that none of the hundreds of other worldwide protests were peaceful at all.

gyac, I really appreciate that.

Re: taking pain seriously, I agree that it's rarely as much as is warranted or needed, and regardless, it's not like sympathy can be quantified. But here's another story involving one of my kids that I can offer (I've probably told it before). A few years back some knucklehead scribbled racist and anti-Semitic stuff on a bathroom stall at the high school. There was the expected outrage, protests, eventually an assembly, but none of it ever addressed the specifically anti-Semitic aspect of the incident. My daughter came home that afternoon and basically asked, "what about us?" She's a strong kid, and the school responses have improved some since then, but I know she still carries that hurt with her. It's probably curdled into cynicism, which helps no one.

Re "settlers" -- there were a lot of arguments going around right after October 7 that the people who were killed were not civilians because they were "settlers." (This is not true by any international law standards btw, as they were living within the 1948 borders, not to mention that I would guess few of them were first generation in Israel). In that context, putting up a sign about "settlers" being "the problem" across from a synagogue seems like pretty clear intent to me.

of course it's now going to be used as evidence that none of the hundreds of other worldwide protests were peaceful at all.

― is he disgruntled adrian? (voodoo chili), Tuesday, November 7, 2023 12:05 PM bookmarkflaglink

I think there is a difficulty in engaging with this kind of claim if there appears to be a willful blind spot or what looks like an oblivious/disingenuous denial that some symbols of hatred are mixed with legitimate political protest. Kind of a mixed-motive situation.

Notice I didn't restrict this to pro Israel or pro Palestine.

Has this happened with other peaceful protests?

The BLM protests in 2020 are still constantly talked about this way

That's terrible

For sure cops are often fucking up peaceful protestors.

There's an ongoing perception that the BLM protests were 100% violent and destroyed entire cities

Ok the last question in my post was poorly worded. Were people saying there were hate symbols and messages mixed in to otherwise peaceful protests, what were they, and what should be the response?

maybe I need a gut check on the "settlers" one, maybe it's just my media-addled brain seeing something that isn't there, idk. I'm not exactly sure what it means anyway, Brooklyn itself was a Dutch settlement so it seems odd to say settlers are "the problem" within Brooklyn. Brooklyn is mostly settlers by the broad definition used in theory about "settler colonialism" as I understand it. If it means gentrifiers, I think calling them "settlers" is kind of a poor analogy but w/e.

I think there is a difficulty in engaging with this kind of claim if there appears to be a willful blind spot or what looks like an oblivious/disingenuous denial that some symbols of hatred are mixed with legitimate political protest. Kind of a mixed-motive situation.

Notice I didn't restrict this to pro Israel or pro Palestine.

Has this happened with other peaceful protests?

The question that is elided here is what is "legitimate," who decides what is "hatred" or not? While I think what happened to that person in LA is execrable, I would also argue that waving an Israeli flag in that situation is essentially cheering on ethnic cleansing, and is pretty illegitimate as a result.

Regarding your follow-up, I remember very clearly a moment during the early days of Occupy Oakland when I came upon the camp and a friend of mine was in a small group yelling at a woman and asking for her to be escorted away from the camp. The reason? She was spouting off one of the standards of economic antisemitism regarding Jewish people controlling the gold supply, etc etc. The woman *was* escorted away and I never saw her again. There are absolutely fucked up antisemitic things that go on in leftist protest movements, but many times that I've seen, the people being antisemitic are pretty quickly put in their place and told to fuck off.

Over here we've got the UK Home Secretary explicitly calling the pro-Palestinian protests "hate marches". This despite the fact that there's been barely any arrests made at the dozens of marches that have taken place in towns and cities the length and breadth of the UK.

x-post Again, that's just my experience in protest and social liberation movements, not universal since much of that experience was in the Bay Area or Philly.

From what I've read the marches in London have been overwhelmingly peaceful. It would be infuriating to have the Home Secretary call them hate marches.

There are absolutely fucked up antisemitic things that go on in leftist protest movements, but many times that I've seen, the people being antisemitic are pretty quickly put in their place and told to fuck off.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Tuesday, November 7, 2023 12:45 PM bookmarkflaglink

I am very glad to see this acknowledged and to hear that this is the response. It feels like a topic that is absolutely not tolerated for discussion whatsoever.

Free Palestine is not exclusively a leftist protest movement.

I never said it was, I was answering more generally about my experience in such movements. I haven’t seen anything antisemitic at recent Philly rallies, fwiw

Ok the last question in my post was poorly worded. Were people saying there were hate symbols and messages mixed in to otherwise peaceful protests, what were they, and what should be the response?

― felicity, Tuesday, November 7, 2023 3:38 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago)

the george floyd protests are not really relevant to the discussion of hate speech, hate symbols etc bcuz the police aren't an ethnic class. you're asking about a dynamic that just wasn't present at that conflict. i'm sure there were "counter protestors" in places saying horrible shit about black people but i don't think that's what you're asking

there were speakers at the DC rally leading the crowd in chants of stuff like "israel go to hell" & things of this nature. personally speaking bcuz of my upbringing that phrasing & concept is not something i'm entirely comfortable with, but i also don't think such chants were intended as anti-semitic dogwhistles even if i'm sure there were some people in the crowd who were receptive to hearing them as such. ultimately i saw/heard nothing that day that made me think the rally was about anything other than an end to the bombing of innocent civilians and achieving permanent humane living conditions for the people of palestine, both of which i just see as plainly agreeable causes

man alive, fwiw I think you're right about that sticker. I thought about it more after posting, and while it's basically impossible to parse with confidence, one possible reading of its co-opting of the anti-colonial term "settler" to refer specifically to Brooklyn is that its implying the project of European settler colonialism was a Jewish conspiracy, which is repulsively racist in multiple ways

plausible deniability is a big part of that kind of thing, so that's a reason why they don't always make clear sense

That's what I mean about the subliminal advertising too.

If anyone's curious, the tests at https://www.projectimplicit.net/ about implicit bias are pretty eye opening. And that's on well-educated adults.

Imagine the effect of all these inputs on children.

Interestingly, I tried one of those tests (the Religion test) and when you select "White" as your race, it gives you a bunch of ethnicities/nationalities to choose from. "Jewish" is not one.

Did you do the test? Were you surprised? I did one as a CLE in NY and I definitely was.

tbh, I didn't finish it, I started to feel both uncomfortable and annoyed with the seemingly endless barrage of categorizing things into "Good" and "Bad" and "Islam" and "Judaism" and it weirded me out that it put "Islam" and "Bad" on the same side even though I'm sure there was some subtle effect being tested for.

You can do one that's much less emotionally charged. Mine was about male and female careers I think.

A relative of mine goes to the private girls’ school in London where some kid painted a swastika and “kill Jews” on the wall recently. On the one hand, you know it’s just some idiot kid, maybe’s not even a serious risk, maybe just a kid confusing righteous rebellion tor something stupider. On the other hand… who knows?

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, 7 November 2023 19:41 (two hours ago) link

That is indescribably messed up. Sorry to have skipped over it when you first posted.

There were swastika's in my daughter's public middle school too recently. I'm actually not 100% clear on whether they were pre- or post-Oct 7 though. I saw them scratched into desks in my schools growing up too, nothing new.

doesn’t make it any less fucked up of course

You'd see swastikas everywhere when I was a kid. Not used as specifically targeted hate speech but just the symbol being drawn, mostly on desks or notebooks or bathroom stalls etc. I do think most of it was done by kids who didn't really have the context or if they did, just didn't understand the true depth of abhorrent evil it represented. Lots of kids grew up seeing the symbol in WW2 films or stories with the Nazis as genuine bad guys but one who were as threatening as Cobra in GI Joe. This is what I like to believe anyway, that most of it really was wrongheaded and regretted later. I don't think that excuse still holds water but I don't know what the kids across America are being taught about it and the Nazis at a young age.

Keeping in mind I grew up in the midwest sticks

My sister left high school (in the Philly burbs) early because, among other things, someone scratched a swastika into her locker. Pretty confident the person doing it knew what they were doing, even if they weren't explicitly a Nazi or whatever.

Imagine the effect of all these inputs on children.

There was a really long radio piece (or podcast?) about the woman that discovered implicit bias, at least from an academic vantage. It began with her assisting another researcher in a memory study about finding familiar or famous sounding names in the phone book or something, and iirc she learned that male names were more likely to be remembered or identified as "famous" than female names. Something like that. Anyway, once she pursued her new field of research she made all sorts of surprising discoveries, including the revelation that while she expected children to display implicit bias less than adults (innocent, blank slate, etc.) that was often very much not the case, revealing the impact environment (among other factors) has on even young kids when it comes to bias. Illuminating.

I thought the New Yorker interview (David Feldman, the director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, at Birkbeck College, University of London) I posted was full of interesting observations. Like:

I have written about antisemitism as a reservoir in the culture, something there to be drawn on. And this is a reservoir which has built up over centuries, even over millennia. There are three key elements in this: one is the idea that Judaism has been superseded by Christianity (the notion that Jews have a particularistic and narrow morality is one consequence of that idea); second, the idea that Jews are forever conspiratorial and up to something against the common good; and, third, the connection of Jews with money. These ideas have been repurposed over centuries in multiple political contexts. And we see them repurposed in some of the antisemitic attacks on Israel.

One thing shown by multiple opinion surveys in the United States, Germany, and in the U.K. and elsewhere, is that the percentage of committed ideological antisemites is relatively small, but the diffusion of negative stereotypes and narratives about Jews through the culture is much higher and much wider. At certain moments, people draw on these, especially at political flash points when these ideas appear to be useful, and when they appear to explain something. Yes, there are antisemites, sort of ideologically committed individuals and groups who have an antisemitic world view, but much more commonplace are individuals who draw on the well of antisemitism within the culture. And that’s what we see in antisemitism around Israel.

Tied in with the second is probably linking anyone Jewish to Israel and its policies, and the implicit suggestion that they support those policies. There is a Jewish deli in West Hollywood which was tagged with anti-israel graffiti, pro-palestinian slogans, etc. perhaps not anti-semitic in another context but in that context it feels quite obviously to be the case.

Getting more into the Jews vs "Zionists" thing, one popular strain of thought that comes up a lot in the context of Palestine is that European Jews are not "real Jews" - they are Khazars or some other similar theory. This is again a good example of the messiness of anti-semitism vs anti-zionism. Part of the reason this theory is so popular is that it is seen as undermining the idea that "Zionists" have any actual historical connection to Israel. But it also bleeds into the idea that European Jews are "not real Jews" but rather evil "zionists."

I thought the New Yorker interview (David Feldman, the director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, at Birkbeck College, University of London) I posted was full of interesting observations.

Agreed. Although Feldman didn't answer some of Chotiner's questions in less than 30 seconds or in the form of a haiku, he seems to have kept a sense of humor.

European Jews are not "real Jews" - they are Khazars or some other similar theory

Ah! But what about all those Lost Tribes of Israel? Chances are that the Khazars were just Jews who got lost for a while and then suddenly remembered about that covenant thing. Makes as much sense as the "not real Jews" theory.

There’s plenty of historical record and genetic evidence of ancient Israelite migration to Europe, as well as slaves taken by Romans. It’s not some great mystery why there are Jews in Europe.

I dug into that Khazars thing recently. Saw it mentioned in the context of the 10 Myths about Israel book and got curious. Read a bit more about the source of it, and there's this ironic thing that it's from somebody trying to use that fact to COUNTER semitism. Regardless, I think it's been debunked by DNA testing. Ashkenazi jews (of which I am one) share enough DNA with mizrahi and sephardi jews and not with "khazars". Personally I feel about as much connection to the holy land as I do to the eastern europe from which my great-great grandparents fled, which is very little, and mostly heritage-wise feel connected to the tri-state area, so that's my homeland.

The history of cranks who theorize what happened to the Lost Tribes of Israel is both voluminous and foolish, occupying the same precincts as cranks who seek a perpetual motion machine. Ashkenazi Jews are as Jewish as any other Jews. Anyone who says different is just huffing moonbeams.

the khazar thing is something I've only ever seen from neo-nazis and conspiracy theorists if it has been adopted more broadly that's really unfortunate

My family are a mix of Sephardis and Ashkenazis and Dutch Catholics and Muslim (peace is possible!) although everyone is non-practicing. My homeland is the entire Northwest branch of the Northern Line.

I was at a family wedding this weekend and dreaded the inevitable Israeli national anthem section. Pleasingly it was accompanied by a tentative speech with a lot of qualifiers.

I was at a family wedding this weekend and dreaded the inevitable Israeli national anthem section.

emi, is that a common thing?

Israel never qualifying for international football tournaments (altho they've a chance of making next summer's euros, as if that wasn't shaping up to be moody enough) means I've never heard the anthem. Any good, or a dreadful dirge like most?

Scotland have played Israel about 10 times in the last 4 years so I've almost certainly heard it.

The Israeli national anthem is iirc pretty sad (surprise). Fun fact: it apparently did not officially become the national anthem until November 2004.

it’s a really beautiful song

Hatikvah (the Israel anthem) is a thing of beauty but I can't remember ever hearing it at a wedding

It's interesting to me that the lyrics speak of being a free people in Zion in the future. To me that's the quintessential Jewish idea of Zion - something that will come one day.

So, I was just talking to my current high school kid, who has been complaining about the MENA group at school. Her first complaint is that it's an explicitly activist pro-Palestinian group despite being billed as a more neutral sounding "safe space for students to create community around sharing and educating the OPRF student body on Middle Eastern/North African culture," and yet the Jewish Student Connection (a social club that she participates in) is considered "non-school affiliated" while the MENA group *is* officially school affiliated.

(I don't really know the difference myself, tbh; maybe it means that one gets money and the other doesn't? It could also be because the Jewish Student Connection is openly affiliated with a religion, though it has always included plenty of non-Jews.)

The second is that in the running for a MENA fundraiser shirt is stuff like a stylized depiction of a bulldozer busting through a fence, which is pretty explicitly celebrating Hamas. The third is that this is the timeline they post on their Instagram account:

https://sites.google.com/student.oprfhs.org/advocacyforpalestinianrights/history?authuser=0

Which of course is their prerogative, but it conveniently minimizes the Holocaust and other sort of important factors of the Israel story (like, for example, any mention of the 1948 war, basically summed up as "Zionist forces invade Palestinian territory and capture much more land than was allocated to them by the Plan of Partition"). And needless to say, it falls pretty short when it comes to the current situation:

On October 7th, as the civilians in Gaza continue to be bombarded by Israeli attacks in the "open-air prison" enclosing them, Hamas launched an organized airstrike against Israel.

Hamas sets 25 interspersed explosions to break out of the Gaza blockade that has denied them movement, access to schools, social services, fertile farmland, and hospitals since 2002.

To call that a gross simplification is an understatement, imo, though it is pretty gross.

Yeah, there's a lot of inaccuracy on that page, and that one seems particularly bad.

It's quite common to hear the national anthem at weddings etc. in London, IME. It's a beautiful melody! I remember arguing with my parents, I didn't want it to be played at my barmitzvah (not for political reasons, but because I thought it would be embarassing.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHy29bn4zeE

Hatikvah slaps

It's all so fucked up. According to reporting, Turkish student at UMass Amherst punches and kicks a Jewish student carrying an Israeli flag. Attacking student faces expulsion and multiple criminal charges. Comment sections full of angry "Why is antisemitism allowed and even encouraged on campuses, that student should be expelled and face criminal charges!"

Love how objective history is antisemitic now

I think treating what Hamas did as a legit military response is a bit biased

I think destroying a border wall unjustly keeping people from land that is as much theirs as anyone else’s is an act of liberation, not an act of terror.

I'm not sure people are focusing on the property damage.

And then what happened on October 7 after they came through the wall

yeah idk if the anti-semitism thread is the place to litigate this

The second is that in the running for a MENA fundraiser shirt is stuff like a stylized depiction of a bulldozer busting through a fence, which is pretty explicitly celebrating Hamas.

That's extremely disturbing. Is there a faculty advisor for this group?

Love how objective history is antisemitic now

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Wednesday, November 8, 2023 8:52 AM bookmarkflaglink

I think destroying a border wall unjustly keeping people from land that is as much theirs as anyone else’s is an act of liberation, not an act of terror.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Wednesday, November 8, 2023 9:41 AM bookmarkflaglink

We get it. You're not exactly subtle.

w/r/t Paul Kessler's death the other day, that was about ten minutes up the road from me. There's a sizable jewish/israeli community, and i suppose a palestinian protest there would be expected to draw a counter-protest if only because it's very possible that many residents there know/knew people who were directly affected by the Hamas attack, and this was the unfortunate result.

it should be noted that in one of the videos i briefly saw it did look like a palestinian protestor was trying to help him as he was on the ground (i don't believe it was the one who allegedly struck him or pushed him.) while i hate what happened for virtually every reason imaginable and for both sides, i also hope that's not something (if what i saw was accurate) that would go unnoticed, how even in the heat of this moment there was humanity.

Let's not pretend the people who broke through the fence did it to kiss the ground of their ancestors. Start your own thread if you want that poetic fantasy.

table, you are all but saying explicitly that Hamas' murderous rampage is acceptable. I don't know if you realize this is how it comes across.

Not quite sure what to make of the two Moldovans arrested in Paris for stars of David graffiti being investigated for ties to Russia. "Putin made me do it" seems a bit weird to offer up straightaway, but the French authorities appear to be taking it seriously

That's extremely disturbing. Is there a faculty advisor for this group?

Yeah, but I don't know how neutral either of them are. I brought it to the attention of the Superintendent and our Director of Equity and Student Success after running it by our Rabbi, who has a kid at the school, too, and is a super chill dude but who nonetheless responded, when I apologized for bothering him with something so relatively small scale, that "I am up to my neck in what is going on at the high school and am currently editing a letter. The situation is bad and I think being made worse."

Here's the t-shirt in question, fwiw:
https://i.imgur.com/tjsS3yI.png

It's literally this image of Hamas in action:
https://media13.s-nbcnews.com/i/mpx/2704722219/2023_10/f_mo_lon_gazaborder_231007-zhzpb1.jpg

yeaaaaahhhh....not good

Local version:
In the speech, Knight recounts a Sept. 2021 prison break by six people from a maximum security prison in the occupied West Bank. Israel, Reuters reports in a story matching Knight's description, said the men were convicted of or suspected of planning attacks on Israeli civilians but Knight called them political prisoners.

"This was a feat of determination and ingenuity only eclipsed — only eclipsed — by the amazing, brilliant offensive waged on Oct. 7," Knight said to cheers.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jewish-group-calls-for-langara-instructor-to-be-fired-over-speech-at-pro-palestinian-rally-1.7018736

don't really think she should be fired but this shit is just so dumb

I'think in any large crowd of demonstration there will be people who say or display dubious things, and it isn't fair to criticise a whole crowd for the actions of a few individuals, but at the same time I didn't expect people to be cheering. I know group dynamics play a role and people are primed to cheer regardless of what is said, and we don't necessarily now how many people were cheering but thats still somewhat surprising as I in US/Canada at least I was under impression pro Hamas rhetoric was much less in play than in Germany or Belgium

A lot of stuff in this NYT article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/us/antisemitic-speech-palestine-israel-protests.html

“There was an active campaign on campus of saying that if you go to Hillel, you’re racist,” said Sammy Tweedy, a Jewish student from Chicago, who described himself as sympathetic to both sides in the conflict.

Mr. Tweedy said he began to feel particularly ostracized after attending a Birthright trip to Israel in 2020. “I did not have friends anymore,” he said. “And I would hear that people had heard I was a fascist or a Nazi or a racist. And I was like, ‘Where is this coming from?’”

The problems accelerated when the war broke out; he was studying in Tel Aviv. He shared Instagram screenshots with The New York Times in which students went so far as to tell him, “The blood of Gaza is on your hands.”

In October, the local chapter of Hillel wrote a letter to the college’s leadership threatening a federal complaint if it did not take steps to rectify “persistent and pervasive antisemitism.”

Mr. Tweedy, who said his complaints to the university had not been addressed, has decided to finish his degree in a study-abroad program.

“I have a pact with myself that I will never, ever step a single foot on their campus again,” he said.

The demand for ideological conformity with the Palestinian cause — as a condition of participating in other aspects of campus life — is a form of antisemitism, said Bethany Slater, executive director of the Hillel chapter of the Claremont Colleges in California.

Sarah Lawrence College

That's Jeff Tweedy's son, btw.

I thought this was a good, useful quote:

“Antisemitism isn’t primarily about hurting or killing Jews, and it’s not based on some theory of racial inferiority (or superiority),” he wrote. “Instead, antisemitism is a fear, and hatred, of Jewish power — expressed primarily as a readiness to believe that Jews, when organized and acting together on large scales, are dangerous, the very essence of evil.”

Jeff Tweedy is Jewish?

He converted. It's actually a pretty sweet story:

“Sammy, our younger son, was struggling quite a bit with the (bar mitzvah) process, and kind of begging to not to be forced to go to Hebrew school,” Tweedy told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “But it was important to us, and important to his mother.”

So Tweedy presented a heartwarming idea to the head rabbi of the family’s synagogue, the Reform Congregation Emanuel on Chicago’s North Side, to “alleviate some of (Sammy’s) kvetching”: Tweedy would go to temple each week with Sammy, and study to convert to Judaism while Sammy was working on his Torah portion.

“(I)t seemed to work. He ended up getting bar mitzvahed and I ended up converting,” Tweedy said.

Rabbi Michael Zedek performed the conversion, but during the process, Tweedy got to know Rabbi Herman Schaalman, who was his synagogue’s rabbi emeritus and continued to assist with ceremonies into his 90s.

“He spoke at Spencer’s Bar Mitzvah, and we had had lots of contact with him at our temple, before he retired and even after he retired he spent a lot of time there,” Tweedy said. “So he played a role in the kids’ interest in Judaism and I’m a deep admirer of his theology.”

Schaalman, who passed away at the age of 100 in 2017, was a legendary figure in the Reform movement. A native of Munich, Germany, he was one of five rabbis Leo Baeck brought to the U.S. in 1935 to study at Hebrew Union College. A leader in the movement for much of the 20th century, Schaalman went public towards the end of his life about having changed the ways he felt about his faith, which included questioning his belief in God.

“I was really moved by that. A lot of people’s views … on religion and things like that tend to calcify as people get older,” Tweedy said of Schaalman. “And his thinking was so nimble right up until the end that it allowed him to basically come up with a theology where it wasn’t pessimistic, it was more like ‘we don’t need a lot of (God) to be good,’ and I thought that was kind of an inspiring message for a world that’s trying to integrate religious beliefs and secular beliefs.”

The conversion process also required Tweedy to partake in a certain painful traditional ritual. He didn’t go over his circumcision story again in detail, but as he told NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” show last year, it involved a storage closet at his temple, a black operating bag and a mohel who afterwards told him that his sons were big fans.

Tweedy described the synagogue as a place where he’s simply known as “the father of Spencer and Sammy,” not a celebrity.

“You eventually blend in as a parent, and a citizen,” Tweedy said of the synagogue. “My experience with the temple, I think, has been pretty typical of most people’s. It’s just another wonderful group of supportive people.”

Tweedy sang at both of his sons’ bar mitzvahs, and he even brought along Mavis Staples, with whom he had been collaborating at the time, to sing at his younger son’s ceremony. He said the “pretty liberal” Reform environment leaves plenty of room for music (especially folk music) to be integrated into prayer. The synagogue also boasts a “semi-professional” klezmer group called the Ham-It-Up Band.

I think Tweedy has also said, essentially, that if his family was forced onto the trains again, he'd want to be with them, so he might as well be Jewish.

Btw, starting to see more clips of explicitly anti-Semitic hate speech at rallies, especially the stuff in Montreal.

Can you elaborate on that? There's a lot of misinformation being spread about what happened at Concordia yesterday

Never mind, I think I know what you're referring to

I saw a clip of somebody calling somebody a kike, and I saw a clip of a professor telling somebody to go back to Poland, you whore.

I don't know anything about the latter clip, do you have a link or can you direct me in some way?

I've seen the former, and I think it's impossible to know whether they're saying that word or "cunt," which is what the student has claimed.

got to admit, my benefit of the doubt reserves are pretty low right now.

Can't paste the link right now, but I saw it on one of those anti-Semitism aggregate accounts.

personally I believe anti-semitism is primarily about killing or hurting Jews

Heck of a fact check: https://t.co/9SKS6lOSIs pic.twitter.com/JV3PG8ZFQ1

— Talia Jane ❤️‍🔥 (@taliaotg) November 9, 2023

lol comments full of lip readers

nice of the anti-semitism aggregators to introduce the k-word into the general discourse, definitely what we as a people needed right now

it doesn't sound like either of those words to me

maybe we can get Peter Jackson to use his MAL tech to demix this and solve the problems of Israel and Palestine forever

The octopus was Ringo

Next Tuesday in Jerusalem

OK lol

You know who often uses octopus imagery? Antisemites.

Anyway, I'm glad we've got this anti-Semitism stuff sorted out. Carry on, Canada.

There is no way she's saying the K word in that video unless she retroactively was born in Georgia midsentence.

Granted, I don't blame that misinfo from spreading, I blame the person who posted the vid and made the initial claim

Honestly, I really couldn't tell one way or another from the initial vid, and the statement to the contrary comes allegedly/anonymously from the person being accused, by way of an ally of the accused, so it's not exactly some neutral defense. But I saw a second video with (to my ears) slightly better sound, and it starts off seemingly less angry and doesn't sound like what she was being accused of saying. Again, I admit my benefit of the doubt reserves are running low, so I apologize for further spreading misinformation.

The replay center in Secaucus says NOT antisemitism

https://res.cloudinary.com/ybmedia/image/upload/c_crop,h_430,w_771,x_0,y_0/c_scale,f_auto,q_auto,w_700/v1/m/e/f/efba0fa9faf9860f4c403ea65b9ebaa658fbc34e/buck-laughlin-trevor-beckwith-best-show.png
"Hmm, it looks like the ref is rescinding his accusation of anti-Semitism."

i don't blame anybody for sharing it, it's how it was framed and info spreads on Twitter quickly

Carry on, Canada

personally I believe anti-semitism is primarily about killing or hurting Jews

― symsymsym, Thursday, November 9, 2023 8:22 AM bookmarkflaglink

I interpreted what Tweedy said as meaning what starts as words or symbols or fears can turn into actions.

Kind of the frog being boiled alive thing

“Antisemitism isn’t primarily about hurting or killing Jews, and it’s not based on some theory of racial inferiority (or superiority),” he wrote. “Instead, antisemitism is a fear, and hatred, of Jewish power — expressed primarily as a readiness to believe that Jews, when organized and acting together on large scales, are dangerous, the very essence of evil.”

The quote's by a Rabbi Rubenstein at Yale, not Tweedy Jr.

I think it's true that anti-semitism almost universally does have this conspiratorial thinking about secret cabals of powerful Jews behind it at one level or another. I just find the framing a bit weird - surely anti-semitism is primarily about the actual consequences to Jews, and is about racial discrimination. And this framing doesn't leave any space for valid criticism of Jews wielding power - it's not anti-semitic for me to attack AIPAC's actions or the ADL's positions.

Jews are no less capable of using power for evil than any other group of people. It's fair for people whose families are bombed or whose lives are consigned to an indefinite military occupation to feel fear or hatred of Israel. Nobody should conflate Israel with Jewish people, but I think these kinds of definitions of anti-semitism themselves muddy the water.

I haven't read the pdf where the quote comes from, so maybe it provides more context, and I'm reading it unfairly.

Someone on my daughter's instagram account just told her the blood of thousands of children is on her hands. It's cool, though, she's distracting herself by helping her roommates hang Christmas decorations. She's decided against hanging Hanukkah decorations for the time being, though. Because something something chilling effect.

sorry jic

That's awful - I'm sorry Josh.

Terrible. People have lost their minds.

Really sorry Josh.

I feel like something has really broken out there. Some kids were running around our neighborhood yelling "White Power" last night. On Tuesday a friend who was working at a polling place had an old man call her over to help him with his ballot. He wanted to know which people running were Jews so he could avoid voting for them.

Damn. People are fucking terrible.

Xpost to Josh and Keyes

That's really messed up. I'm very sorry to hear that Josh.

Similar things have been reported about protests at Northwestern University and a friend of mine who's still there (attended as a student, then got a nice job as university staff) sadly confirmed the details. It's really insane and infuriating how too many people opposed to what's happening in Gaza have been taking it out on all people of Jewish faith - I really expected at least students in a university to know better. I was already bracing for both anti-semitism and Islamophobia to get worse - per the analyst quoted in another thread, to 9/11-era levels - but this is far worse than what I've seen in my lifetime.

Conversely, over here, people who are susceptible to yelling "White Power" are more likely to be supporting Israel's actions.

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. Fortunately she's a strong kid, and sensible and discipled enough not to reply. She just reported it to the school and moved on.

Shit's pretty fucked up right now. So much rage and frustration, made worse by ignorance and a general erosion of whatever empathy was ever there. Sometimes you just gotta put on Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week" and laugh.

"I was already bracing for both anti-semitism and Islamophobia to get worse - per the analyst quoted in another thread, to 9/11-era levels"

Yeah I posted that thread and was thinking about it earlier today...

I honestly thought this NYT article was good, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/us/antisemitic-speech-palestine-israel-protests.html and was dismayed to see Dan Nguyen and others downplaying the importance of this on bluesky and elsewhere.

The most heartbreaking thing is, my daughter is a kind, generous, caring person who spends a lot of her time helping and supporting other people (and animals!). She also has anxiety issues (who doesn't?) and, for lots of reasons, finds the Jewish community to be her safe space. When she called me today (not in tears or anything, just to check in and say hi) she told me how a lot of the more liberal voices she gravitates to no longer sound like allies, and a lot of the voices on the right, which she can't stand, are gleefully stepping in to fill that void, which disgusts her. She told me it increasingly feels like there is no place for someone like her, and nowhere is a terrible place to be. The last thing I want her to think is that it's better to just be silent.

The last thing I want her to think is that it's better to just be silent.

I feel that. Every day that passes, the more I feel I just can't speak out about the subject, both due to my own emotions as well as the potential reaction.

I can see why.

That sucks, Josh. I've noticed for a long time that people will start posting that kind of stuff on all kinds of Jewish content on Instagram regardless of if it has any connection to Israel. I'm sure it's worse now.

I saw this post reblogged by a baseball tumblr I follow and thought it was good. Linking because it’s reasonably long and if you guys think it’s full of shit at least it won’t take up too much space itt. On the dangers of false friends (and, as they would say on there: tw: antisemitism): https://postimg.cc/gallery/q7ZMf9S

I can’t read it for some reason, it comes through blurry

If you click the individual images it should be ok

XP, I relate a lot to the instinct to remain silent. In the morass of modern “discourse” it can feel like saying what you think is right also gives ammunition to the people who want to harm you. On the other hand, the loudest among us are often the worst.

I see it now gyac, thanks. Actually dovetails with what I just commented.

I haven't gone to a single march in this mess, and I doubt I will. "Pro-Israel" means many different things to different people. The same goes for "Pro-Palestine." I've heard too many voices speaking on behalf of Israel that disgust me. I've heard too many voices speaking on behalf of Palestine that disgust me. Any protests or marches that make room for these voices are not for me. I don't care if they're a minority, they're a loud minority, and I hear them.

Last night I went to a friend's house for a very small, very informal, not at all religious shiva for his (not Jewish) father. Everyone there was Jewish, to degrees, from converts to atheists to someone that wears a yarmulke to people who can't spell yarmulke without checking (that's me!) to someone with Lebanese roots who, needless to say, no longer has family there. There was, of course, discussion. But no one there was a yeller, or angry. Everyone could speak intelligently but calmly, compassionate but understanding of the complexities, balanced in sympathy but willing to call out both sides. That's what I want, that's what I need.

gyac, the one other thing that I think is important to note about that post, though, is that from a white leftist perspective it may seem easier to just look at neonazis trying to "infiltrate" pro-Palestinian protests with antisemitism, but the reality is a lot messier. Antisemitism in the Muslim world is very old and did not originate with neo-Nazis or even Nazis, I'm not saying most protesters are in any way animated or motivated by that, but I guarantee you that there are plenty of antisemites who don't need encouragement from neo-Nazis.

That’s not remotely the point of that post. That post is specifically calling out people who don’t know better about some of the terms and tropes they’re sharing and warning them that anger is no excuse for antisemitism. I’m…not really sure why you brought Muslims up, at all, since the topic of said post is broader than Nazi infiltration? It’s about people being aware of what they are saying and listening to Jewish people about the language they’re using because there are a lot of bad actors looking for recruits.

Antisemitism in the Muslim world is very old

is this true? my understanding is that european-style (i.e. conspiratorial, metaphysical) antisemitism is a relatively recent import to the region. I could be misinformed. I don't think dhimmi status for jews or christians is the same thing at all.

unless we're including babylonians, romans etc as antisemites which you could make an argument for but that's a much broader definition than I usually see from historians

yeah, I don’t think of Muslim anti-Semitism as being old, either. Of course, being raised Muslim I might be blind to an ugly history.

There is a lot of reference to conflict with Jews in the Qur’an, but my understanding is that that has to do with the social circumstances the Bedouins were in and actual military hostilities between them and neighboring Jewish tribes (of course in this era, uneasy relations between tribes were the norm.) I remember a Muslim scholar once observing that Muslim conflicts with people of the book tilted toward Christians for the next millennium (Crusades, etc.)

I have definitely heard Muslim acquaintances and family members express anti Semitic sentiments when venting their spleen about actions taken by the Israeli government. This has mostly taken the form of eliding Israel with Jewish people writ large. Historically, it made me try to avoid the discussions at all, but I now regret that. As a non-Jew, it was my responsibility to challenge the anti-Semitism as it arose and disambiguate the non bigoted critique of the country from participation in the sludge that is anti-Semitism.

I have definitely heard Muslim acquaintances and family members express anti Semitic sentiments when venting their spleen about actions taken by the Israeli government. This has mostly taken the form of eliding Israel with Jewish people writ large. Historically, it made me try to avoid the discussions at all, but I now regret that. As a non-Jew, it was my responsibility to challenge the anti-Semitism as it arose and disambiguate the non bigoted critique of the country from participation in the sludge that is anti-Semitism.

ugh my internet sucks so bad; sorry about the double post

my perception is that antiSemitism in the Muslim world is fairly young and springs from bad feeling about the conflict. As is the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment I have sometimes heard from American Jews who must have thought because I was college educated and not foaming at the mouth that I couldn’t possibly be Muslim.

I regret being a nice, polite liberal and staying quiet in the latter circumstances, too.

the new testament has some awful stuff in it too - ofc it was written before christianity and judaism were as distinct so what might have been seen as intra-jewish debates take on much darker meanings later on

I'm sure there is something analogous going on with how modern islamic antisemites use quran or hadiths but I don't know enough about it xps

there is for sure a lot of that and it is gross

That's good.

A follow up question.

I was wondering when you said

It seems to me that if supporters of a cease fire would also clearly state that they disagree with Hamas' mission to eliminate the existence of Israel that would go a long way.

Respectfully, I seriously doubt this. Also, Emmanuel Macron is calling for a ceasefire now; it’s not exactly a marginal position (except in the US). Bernie finally said it too.

― horseshoe, Friday, November 10, 2023 6:22 PM bookmarkflaglink

Do you believe it doesn't matter if people are unclear about whether Israel has a right to exist?

It would certainly matter to me. Even if just knowing who I'm dealing with.

I do think it’s hard to overstate the degree to which the Holocaust is just not central to the non Western world’s understanding of the 20th century; that was European business from their perspective, and I think much of the post-colonial world is pretty focused on their own grievances with Europe. I know that people in Muslim countries have taken up European antiSemitic texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the twentieth and twenty first centuries, which is depressing af. And I have definitely encountered the conspiracist idea of a Jewish cabal controlling everything among Muslims.

I've heard plenty of antisemitic stuff from muslims I worked with and went to school wikt - mostly starting with support for Palestine, "the jews" first used to mean israeli settlers but quickly broadening into the kind of conspiracy shit that took over a lot of the UK left and anti-war movements from the mid 00s onwards

a lot of them changed their minds after being challenged, learning more about history, actually meeting Jewish people, etc. ofc a few were just intractable bigots including an iranian counsellor I had as a teen who noticed my german name and tried to bond with me over hitler

Do you believe it doesn't matter if people are unclear about whether Israel has a right to exist?

It would certainly matter to me. Even if just knowing who I'm dealing with.

― felicity, Sunday, November 12, 2023 12:37 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think that framing of the question—that of Israel’s right to exist—doesn’t particularly resonate with me. It feels like abstract rights discourse is an odd fit for the material, violent underpinnings of all nation states. Does the United States have a right to exist? Does Pakistan? Probably not and both nations have done and continue to do a lot of harm, but they’re here, and I don’t anticipate them disappearing or being dismantled. I don’t want them to. It would complicate my own life as a US citizen, for sure, but my life isn’t worth more than the lives of the slaughtered indigenous people or enslaved Africans whom this country assaulted.

if my presence in this thread is upsetting to you or anyone else more directly affected by antiSemitism, I’m happy to bow out.

there is also a perception among people who have experienced colonialism that their suffering and atrocities they've survived are never taken as seriously as jewish suffering which is deeply unfortunate all round and is made much worse by a media that loves pitting Jews and their struggles against those other minorities in a zero sum way xps

The other day, a social media friend posted a video of someone (probably in his 30's or 40's) defending the ongoing bombings by going through all the peace deals and land negotiations officially rejected by Palestinians. (FWIW, at this point, I would say the overwhelming majority of my friends and acquaintances on social media who are Jewish are horrified by Israel's disproportionate response to Hamas, but there are five, maybe six who have maintained an uncompromising, hardline stance and this is one of them.) The information is not wrong - those were indeed failed agreements - but what's extremely unsettling to me is when his argument spends so much time in the mid-20th century, going back to the 1940's. In other words, these are events involving individuals who are likely no longer around. It's inherent to any lasting peace that you have to look forward, to understand from a practical perspective that the real hope for peace lies with newer generations who are physically removed from past conflicts and disagreements. I was already demoralized that the past month has already ensured generations of new hatred, of surviving children who will grow up angry and unforgiving for the atrocities they've now lived through whether it's the Oct. 7th massacre or the incessant bombings leveling Gaza, but a bleak future begins to look devoid of any hope if unforgiving blame can stretch back that far, at least for too many people.

It's not upsetting.

It's just from my background I can tell you that there is miles of difference from saying Israel should be held to every standard of international law and saying it shouldn't exist. I truly don't know if this is something non-Jewish people can understand.

Becuase of my background on my mother's side as well I don't know if I can be sorted into the colonizer or colonizer class. She was occupied, forcibly moved, among a population that saw many unjustified killings by the Japanese and also the Russian and Chinese communists.

Also I don't consider myself white which seems to come up a lot in the rhetoric. Thankfully few people have tried to argue this with me.

xp

To more directly answer your question (I didn’t mean to obfuscate; I just get distracted), I do not personally advocate that Israel cease to exist. I’ve always taken that as inflammatory rhetoric that Hamas and other shit-starters engage in to get a reaction. Israel has kicked ass every time conflict has become more-than-rhetorical. Again, applying a standard of legitimacy to Israel that I wouldn’t to the United States seems nakedly anti-Semitic. But I am uncomfortable with sentimental attachment to a nation; a lot of Kashmiris I know are attached to Pakistan because they view it as a “Muslim homeland” alternative to India, and…I mean, I do not want that. I both understand why European 19th century style nationalism appeared progressive and good when it arose and cast a jaundiced eye on its outcomes.

maybe I still haven’t answered your question, Felicity. I guess, I don’t think a lot about whether other advocates of Palestinian liberation want Israel to “end” because it seems like wanting to live in a world of make-believe, to erase the past 100ish years) Most activists I know who organize for a free Palestine don’t want that, for what it’s worth. If I heard someone say it, I would have follow up questions for sure. When I have heard it from a American leftists/Muslims, it has seemed like posturing.

I mean, also, it seems like what is in danger of ceasing to exist is Palestinians.

As of today, that is certainly the greater danger.

To more directly answer your question (I didn’t mean to obfuscate; I just get distracted), I do not personally advocate that Israel cease to exist.

I really appreciate this. It means everything.

I didn't think you were obfuscating either. I think these are very emotional issues and it's hard to focus and think straight when you are fearful of being accused of this or that.

And I absolutely sympathize and emphathize with the existential threat to Palestinian people. I think we have a lot in common that way.

Yes both of you otm

what does saying Israel shouldn't exist mean to you? does it imply something genocidal? or that Jews shouldn't have anywhere where they can be safe?

I'm not sure what my responsibility is here or if I should even be engaging considering my ancestors are a small part of the reason Israel became a lifeline to millions of people. I have considered that I should never talk about the subject at all. at the same time I can't ignore or punish the people of Gaza because of my inherited guilt that they have nothing to do with. I need to learn to sit with the uncertainty and contradictions and avoid my usual kneejerk reactions. I want to jump in and fix things with easy answers which is not helpful to anyone.

Well, I think there's what it could theoretically imply and what it practically implies. Theoretically, it could imply some kind of binational democratic state with equal rights for all. That sounds fine to me, but I don't live in Israel nor do I intend to, so easy for me to say. I don't think it actually has much support as an idea on either side. That, of course, doesn't mean that can never change, we just aren't very close to it now. There are also all kinds of demographic prognostications in play about who would *really* control the state if that were to happen. And of course there are fears of retribution and retaliation and civil war (in fact I think there could also be intra-Jewish and intra-Palestinian civil war).

I think it's important not to imagine that if you create a power vacuum, it will necessarily be filled with the thing you hope for. We see this play out over and over again, where we naively assume an overthrown repressive state will be replaced with democracy, and instead it is replaced by whoever is best organized, often another repressive group.

Not that this is really immediately on the table anyway. But Hamas's political goal has been to simply resist until Israel is gone, and Israel's goal under Likkud has been to erase the possibility of a Palestinian state. I do hold Israel particularly responsible for failure to do more on the settlement issue before Likkud took power. I want to scan and post a great essay from 1967 or 68 by Yeshayahu Leibowitz called "The Territories." He basically predicted that the occupation of the West Bank would be a disaster for Israel and that the fantasy of creating a "secure border" was illusory as long as Israel antagonized whoever was immediately on the other side of that border. I can't really speak to whether or where Palestinian leadership went wrong or what they were or weren't truly willing to give up under Oslo vs what they said. Negotiations are a poker game, intent is very hard to discern. But I do know that Israel has made it harder to negotiate by settling the territories, and I hold Israel responsible for that.

I think a lot of us here find ourselves in the difficult position of wanting something for Israel/Palestine that a lot of people there don't want, and that the current Israeli government is trying to destroy (and that Hamas also tried to destroy, fwiw, as their entire raison d'etre is non-capitulation to the Israeli state on anything, but I still hold Israel more responsible). I am constantly struggling with this dilemma, and as much as I would like to just wash my hands of it, I don't feel like I can, because I am too personally connected to it.

I really appreciate the reasonable and thoughtful discussion happening here. I especially appreciate the input of horseshoe, for lots of reasons but specifically for a vantage that incorporates or at least has referenced the partition of India, which may (or may not) be a model going forward. (I only say that like that because I'm not particularly well versed in its history or specific repercussions.) Conveniently, India and Pakistan have existed as they are for about as long as Israel has (a product of similar colonial meddling). Has that partition been considered a success? I'd love to know why, or why not, or how.

I would certainly not look to India and Pakistan and the partition as a model for anything!

Assuming Israel and Palestine are one day split into two, there would seem to be parallels. No?

I can only speak for myself but I think it’s a disaster. It’s fairly positional. I suppose if you’re an upper-caste Hindu nationalist, it’s working out okay for you right now, but I imagine even those people are occasionally kept up at night with anxieties about the potential for nuclear war. More specifically, Partition itself unleashed waves of brutal sectarian violence that no one has forgotten, that continue to echo in today’s sectarian violence in the subcontinent. There are plenty of Muslims (and Sikhs, and Christians, etc) in the putative Hindu sanctuary of India, and that’s been working out less and less well for them. Tolerance was enshrined in the Indian constitution in 1948, but Modi has actually removed that language and the majority of Indians seem to agree that tolerance has failed. Pakistan has repeatedly oppressed its religious minorities and also its Muslim populations (Bangladesh) and is just a terrible kleptocracy that is corrupt and terrible.

Again, my family is Kashmiri Muslims, so I have a Point of View on the whole thing. Kashmir…is going to be unrecognizable soon I think; properties considered valuable are going to be settled by Indian Hindus and Muslims will be priced out or killed. Partition was bad, and at this point I am not sure how to staunch the bleeding.

lol Tom D. much pithier and otm

Thanks for that. To be clear, I didn't mean a model as in something to be emulated, something that works, just as an example of how things might turn out. Which doesn't bode well.

Given that India and Pakistan spent nearly 20 years fighting over a glacier, it’s definitely not a model to follow. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siachen_conflict

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/suspect-arrested-in-death-of-jewish-man-after-socal-pro-israel-and-pro-palestinian-rallies/3270208/

A man has been arrested in the death of a 69-year-old Jewish man who suffered fatal injuries at dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian rallies in Thousand Oaks.

Loay Alnaji, 50, of Moorpark, was arrested Thursday at his home on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Paul Kessler. Alnaji's bail will be set at $1 million, according to the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

Details about what led to the arrest were not immediately available. In a news release announcing the arrest, the sheriff's department did not provide details about the altercation between Kessler and Alnaji at the Nov. 5 rally in the community northwest of Los Angeles.

It was not immediately clear whether Alanji has an attorney who can speak on his behalf. The Ventura County District Attorney's Office said a charging decision is expected by later Thursday and a case status update will be issued at that time.

Analji was identified as an employee with the Ventura County Community College District, where he was employed as a computer science professor. The district said in a statement released Thursday that Analji was placed on administrative leave.

Huh, go figure:

"Antisemitism was rising online. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it."

https://wapo.st/47GpBEA

was arrested Thursday at his home on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter

Seems right. You give a guy a shove, he trips, hits his head and dies, that's the charge. And yet when this happened my feed was evenly split betweeen "elderly Jew murdered by crazed Arab / woke prof" and "the Zionist lunged at the peaceful protester who had no choice but to meekly defend himself with his megaphone." And I'm sure those same people will now be evenly split between "FREE ALNAJI" and "the short prison sentence he's likely to get is a slap on the wrist that emboldens the pro-Hamas tendency on campus."

"Antisemitism was rising online. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it."

I'm just gonna come out and say it, and you guys are probably gonna think I'm naive, but I am pretty surprised that Musk just went straight to classic "Jews in the shadows are behind everything" antisemitism. And I still don't know whether to think something has gone organically wrong with his brain or whether from the very beginning when he talked about "free speech" he meant "the freedom to reveal the shadowy Jews behind everything is in danger from the shadowy Jews who control the means of information transmission." I can't rule that out!

The ADL is now cool with him cause he’s pro-Israel

Well I'm not the ADL

And I think Musk is about as pro-Israel as John fucking Hagee

Cool, cool

🚨ADVISORY! 🚨
Masked neo-Nazis have been spotted at the Library Mall marching toward the Capitol Building. They look like they might be Blood Tribe but unconfirmed. More info to follow as it becomes available.
Please stay safe! pic.twitter.com/bpILMsVgFd

— MadCityRWWatch (@WiRWWatch) November 18, 2023

It’s so weird for an extremely powerful billionaire to complain that Jews control things. Like he has more power than all but a handful of people in the entire world. Unless Jewish space lasers blew up his latest launch.

But he lacks the freedom to say whatever racist or anti-semitic shit he imagines, that's the rub.

must be economic insecurity

But the thing is despite being perhaps the most powerful and autonomous man in history, he doesn’t have 100% power to just control reality. So it must be the Jews.

Lots of people disagree and/or dislike like him, and objectively this can't be the case if people were acting with free will, but as we know individual agency doesn't exist it is a question of who is pulling the strings. He is now in a powerful position and is pulling the strings and yet.....thre are still people not playing ball.

This can only mean there are more strings that people somehow further up than him are pulling

dilettante and anvil fully otm about how this psychology works

I wish I could find it now but a couple of years ago I read a long article about Tolyatti, and if I recall correctly it had something about the city mafia boss and then an FSB head meeting, and one of them asking "yes but who is pulling the strings really", and that at the top there was still the perception someone further up was really controlling things (which may just have been a function of the fact their control wasn't omnipotent)

The point being I guess that leaders and powerful people aren't immune to conspiratorialism, may even be more prone to it, as controllers themselves and perceiving the world through a controller/controlled lens

only the Jews could be so devious as to get him shadowbanned on his own website

Also, I think some of this stuff is anti-semitism, but some isn't anti-semitism - but these aren't completely distinct, and some of the stuff that isn't anti-semitism today could become so tomorrow

For a lot of people with this mindset, its not necessarily Jewish people that are pulling these other strings, its the CIA, its capitalists, its Americans - and there's nothing inherently anti-semitic about that. But there's overlap and underlying thinking is the same

So its not just individuals that have no agency, the same is true for movements such as color revolutions or Maidan. Its also why Ukraine isn't real, and neither is Ecuador, Albania, or New Zealand.

I don't feel like posting this on the Israel thread(s), but I thought this was some interesting context/background for those Philly restaurant protests. Apparently this group has been antagonistic to Israeli restaurants for years. They consider Israeli food Palestinian culinary appropriation. This is a story I saw from a couple of years ago:

https://philly.eater.com/2021/6/23/22546803/philadelphia-food-festival-canceled-apologies-israeli-food-truck

And this was a more recent piece about the failure of "food diplomacy":

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/dining/israel-hamas-war-divides-american-chefs.html

I don't think it's anti-Semitism, but it does seem like small potatoes (no pun intended) in the grand scheme of things, and a waste of energy on the part of protestors. But then, I also feel it's kind of ridiculous when any group claims exclusive rights to any particular cuisine, given that historically food has always been a fusion of influences and ingredients.

It’s like this group never heard of Mizrahi Jewish people?

I think (and this *is* suited to the anti-Semitism thread) that a lot of people conflate Judaism with Eastern-European immigrants. Maybe because they're more easily recognizable as immigrants? But of course there are Jews in Israel from all over, including from the middle east and Africa. My rabbi growing up was from Morocco.

I long for the day the I/P hummus wars are at the jokey level of the Nigerian/Ghanaian jollof rice wars.

Many of the MENA foods that have come to be a part of Israeli food are not even from the Levant. If a Palestinian restaurant serves shakshuka, is that cultural appropriation?

I don't know that it's antisemitism directly -- I guess you could tie it to a trope about Jews being inauthentic, not having "their own culture" or whatever, but mostly I think it's just ignorant and an example of why that framework of looking at culture has its limits.

Yeah, I think it's just a trope tied into thinking of all Jews in the area as being Eastern European. Oh, look at these Polish people coming down here to serve falafel, the audacity!

We got into an argument as a family about those congressional hearings. My position was that those university presidents made fools of themselves, not just for their meal-mouthed responses but also because they were easily led into a pretty familiar "when did you stop beating your wife?" trap that left them with no good answers, at least none that would satisfy their disingenuous interlocutors, who want to define the terms of protest to use to their rhetorical and legal advantage. I also pointed out my own discomfort at seeing these Trump supporting assholes coming to our purported defense, and raised their presence as a red flag.

My family's response was outrage at these higher education avatars, since there *has* been a rise in anti-semitism, and anything close to a denial felt like a further assault on at least their perception of safety.

I sympathize and am conflicted myself. I think one reason that anti-semitism sometimes seems inflated or amplified is that the number of Jews is relatively minimal. You never see huge numbers of angry people in support of Jews in any context, so a mass of people in the mere tens, let alone tens of thousands, pointing angrily in your general direction, even if they are not necessarily pointing at you specifically, is bound to raise the level of paranoia and, again, at least the feeling of being targeted (imo). Someone on that cursed thread invoked "the enemy of my enemy is not always my friend," and that of course works both ways and can lead to the alienation of those in the middle (in every sense). When I point out to my daughter that Stefanik is a piece of shit, and my daughter's response is essentially "well, at least she's against anti-semitism," it does maybe indicate that a lot of so-called allies aren't being clear in their support of Jews in the face of all this Israel/Palestine noise.

I personally have seen a whole lot of "well, *of course* I'm against anti-Semitism," or "no one I saw at the rally was anti-semitic," which is kind of the rhetorical or anecdotal equivalent of "one of my best friends is Jewish," invoked as a form of inoculation. If just a handful of voices among the protests and protestors are virulent and they still have a place there, I take little comfort in the support of the silent majority. It's like saying "not all cops" or "not everyone at Charlottesville." That's little solace if you're someone targeted by the proverbial bad apples.

Anyway, here's some good old fashioned anti-semitism amplified by current events and ignorance:

"Festival’s rejection of menorah lighting leads to accusations of antisemitism"

https://wapo.st/41fYHBk

That Virginia incident was extremely sad and ignorant. The WaPo headline added insult to injury.

But the question, Josh, is would you hesitate for a second to send your own kid to any of those colleges? I wouldn't.

OK, sorry, I guess that's not THE question, that's not fair. It's just A question.

I'm not Jewish, but the incident at Cooper Union (where the students hid in a library while protestors banged on the windows and yelled at them) is pretty concerning to me and I think that, yes I would have major issues with that if I were Jewish and my child were considering going there. That's something that crosses a line and it sounds like the college could have done a better job in addressing it. If these students were black and those protestors were white this wouldn't even be a discussion.

If these students were black and those protestors were white this wouldn't even be a discussion.

Josh, I found that a really thoughtful and interesting post.

When I point out to my daughter that Stefanik is a piece of shit, and my daughter's response is essentially "well, at least she's against anti-semitism," it does maybe indicate that a lot of so-called allies aren't being clear in their support of Jews in the face of all this Israel/Palestine noise.

I guarantee you if you had white supremicists marching on a college campus screaming at black students huddled in a library in the US the motherfucking shit would hit the fan, and for good reason. It would be all you'd hear about for weeks. There would be BLM marches across the country again. I'm not saying authorities or those in power would necessarily be responsive but people would care!

This isn''t the synagogue I grew up in, but it's down the street and I spent many hours of my childhood hanging out there. My parents still live in Albany most of the year. gift link:

Man Is Arrested After Firing Gun Near Albany Synagogue

One thing I have learned in the past two months is that while I become more emotional as I get older on the superficial level of e.g. crying in movies, I also become more dispassionate in how I form my beliefs about things. Which is to say, this incident is horrifying and literally hits close to home, but I just immediately classify it as an outlier from which I don't jump to conclusions or feel triggered to react. As I wrote about a month or so ago on one of the other threads, my wife is in the (non-clergy) leadership of our synagogue and for the past couple weeks she is drowning in demands from the more law-and-order/paranoid faction of our community to have an armed guard at the synagogue. While I recognize that there is value in that as a deterrent, I feel completely clear-eyed that that choice would be complicit in a descent towards a way of life -- paranoia, distrust of others, belief that conflict and tribalism will win out over basic human decency -- that I don't ascribe to. But then shit like this happens and that position just gets harder and harder to defend to the people who don't see it that way. Sigh.

my synagogue has had security (not sure if armed) during the high holidays as long as i can remember. there have never been any anti-semitic attacks or anything to prompt this, i think it was prompted by violence in israel

Here's the local reporting: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/mufid-fawaz-alkhader-heads-court-temple-israel-18541327.php

this happened in the Bay Area a few years ago: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/man-with-history-of-mental-illness-convicted-of-threatening-san-francisco-synagogue/

Nothing happened to this guy when he did it in Berkeley because people here dismiss threats by the mentally ill. He finally had to threaten an SF synagog for anything to happen to him.

The Jewish Community Center in SF has always required trunk checks when you park in their garage and have major amounts of security when you enter. It's paranoid to a degree but yeah, shit like this happens and then you think "well, alright".

I guarantee you if you had white supremicists marching on a college campus screaming at black students huddled in a library in the US the motherfucking shit would hit the fan, and for good reason. It would be all you'd hear about for weeks. There would be BLM marches across the country again. I'm not saying authorities or those in power would necessarily be responsive but people would care!

our synagogue doors lock automatically, and since 10/7 we have a rotating group of volunteer congregants who stand by the door on Saturday mornings to greet (read: screen) people as they walk in.

High holidays is common to have that level of security, it's inherently a high profile time. To do it regularly feels pretty different, especially outside a big city (I'm in Western Mass).

Who organised the BLM protests? Black people, many of whom have since died in mysterious circumstances. This is a version of the argument made about battered women’s shelters - why don’t they exist for men - when the answer is always the same: the group that wanted them had to push for them themselves.

I think I mentioned before but maybe not on here, I was travelling through some random bit of Essex years ago and passed a Jewish cemetery. It had high gates, barbed wire, what looked like a guard’s office. I’d never seen anything like it. I texted a friend of mine who’s local and Jewish to ask about it, and I was like, is this a special cemetery? and she was like, no, that’s just what they’re like. I found the unsaid, that this is how people are forced to live so unspeakably awful.

There is a separate community security force I would see when I lived in London, called Shomrim, which is dedicated to this sort of protection and the CST (Community Services Trust) also covers synagogues. There is an old synagogue near me that’s in use and I take pictures of churches and such often so I was outside looking at the stone and the windows and I’d been there maybe ten seconds when I saw the CST sign, warning me that I was being filmed. I knew I was doing nothing wrong, but the notion of having to live in such fear - unspeakable.

But the question, Josh, is would you hesitate for a second to send your own kid to any of those colleges? I wouldn't.

No, but I think that's because Jews are so attuned to a baseline level of discomfort that many understand there is no definitive "safe" space, with an irony being the closest many may feel to such a thing (synagogue, say, or Hillel or similar concentrations of Jews) just emphasizes your bullseye status, not least because imo Jews are not often perceived as a protected class (as the man said, Jews don't count). I do know a vibrant Jewish community was important to my older daughter when she was applying to school, and it's important to my younger daughter as well. But it's just another stress inducing aspect of being stuck in the middle when, say, you're interested in Penn because their bachelor of nursing program is well regarded but slightly less competitive to get into than some other schools, but then you see all this shit on the news (legit or no) that make you question your decisions and goals.

There is so much we just look beyond - meetings with the FBI at our synagogue, for example (which in our case has apparently been happening), extra security at cemeteries (!) - because it's expected by us. But it's also mostly invisible to the public at large, because why wouldn't it be? I know this is true for other groups as well, but there is literally no place on earth where Jews are anything more than a tiny minority except ... well, you know. Hence the baseline level of discomfort.

imo Jews are not often perceived as a protected class (as the man said, Jews don't count).

yeah this is the heart of the issue in a lot of ways I think. These days, jews in the US are considered white. That's a relatively recent development though and I think we all know that whiteness is something that is conferred on groups of people, and can also be taken away. But right now, US culture largely considers Jews white; and so when Jews are targeted, as in the above situation at Cooper Union, I think lots of people (on the left, particularly) shrug and feel they can take it, or worse, deserve it.

(complicated by the fact that 'jews' is both an ethnicity and an religion and there are certainly plenty of people who identify as 'jewish' because of their religion but are, in fact, ethnically not jewish)

Black Jews among others probably would be confused to hear they are considered white

Don’t really get your deployment of scare quotes around religiously Jewish contrasted with the “fact” of being ethnically Jewish either, wanna unpack for me

oh it wasn't scare quotes, I simply mean people use the word jews and jewish to describe both ethnically jewish people and those who converted to judaism who come from different ethnicities. there was no implication in the usage of the quote other than to offset the word / term itself

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/07/one-in-five-young-americans-think-the-holocaust-is-a-myth

20% of 18-29 year old Americans think the holocaust is a myth is the headline here, but

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_tT4jyzG.pdf#page=83

digging in shows

20% of 18-29 year old Americans think Jews have too much power in America

younger people are much more likely to hold both these views than older people
liberals are more likely believe both these things than conservatives
biden voters are more likely believe both these things than Trump voters
Democrats are more likely to believe these things than republicans

I realize there's overlap with the last 3 categories, but still thought it noteworthy the patten repeated

sorry that second one should be "28% of 18-29 year old Americans think Jews have too much power in America"

and urban voters are more likely than suburban voters who are more likely than rural voters - to follow the pattern

I blame tik tok

Here's the local reporting: https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/mufid-fawaz-alkhader-heads-court-temple-israel-18541327.php

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, December 8, 2023 8:30 AM bookmarkflaglink

So this is a context where the shooter yelling "Free Palestine" turned into the conduct of discharging a shotgun outside a synagogue. Outlier. But on the rise.

I don't know if this Columbia incident from October was widely reported:

https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/10/16/former-student-faces-hate-crime-charges-from-da-granted-supervised-release-after-allegedly-assaulting-general-studies-student/

I was just watching videos of people with megaphones interrupting students trying to attend lectures at Harvard on 11/29/23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz0IU6dJSNI

The question under Title VI - is does this create a hostile environment with disparate impact on certain students.

And does this help the situation in Gaza somehow? It just seems to play into cynical hands while also making Jewish students and Muslim students uncomfortable.

anyway I'm not sure what to make of the 20% of that demographic thinking the holocaust is a myth. I glibly blamed tiktok but it's obviously a deeper problem. I have a hard time believing the holocaust is not being taught in schools; my son is a senior and they certainly covered it in world history when he was in 10th grade (they didn't cover the Armenian genocide though.. I wonder what percentage of that demographic is even aware that was a thing at all?). So is it being taught, and then unlearned due to internet propaganda? The pattern on the final three elements is disturbing and I think might bring to light antisemitism in the progressive left. But I dunno.

Keep in mind those reported studies that find some non-zero percentage of students can't (for example) find America on the map, and that's the sort of learning that doesn't even face the headwinds of concerted propaganda efforts.

Conversation in one of the other threads about I/P mentioned American young people not knowing about/denying the Holocaust:

On the subject of 20% of American children not knowing about/denying the Holocaust - you have to question their education. It’s something I learned about in school like everyone does, though I think many of the worst details aren’t taught to children. I remember doing a history project when I was nine which was a newspaper about the defeat of Hitler. I wonder how much damage has been done by history being an elective subject at the stage when you are learning a lot more detail, of how to contextualise events, the details of said events.

To me, such a possibility would never cross my mind because I knew it happened - we learned about it, there are photos. I remember seeing a video which showed the room with the shoes at Auschwitz. To learn about history you are learning about events that you have never personally witnessed, but which have occurred. If you don’t choose to continue learning history in school, you might never learn about how to establish which things are true, or why it’s worth doing so.

I worry that increasing authoritarianism in governments across the world leads people in search of their own information to charlatans and monsters who dilute their truth with conspiracism. There is also a problem with discerning which sources are accurate and real - if you are at all left wing living in the UK, you know that the BBC runs cover for the government. This is a problem - the BBC is lying to you about stuff that you can see, so why could they be trusted on anything? You would always see this on ukpol Twitter, a certain seam of media-illiterate people falling for conspiracies all over the place because in their desperation to find information sources that told them what they saw was true, they were more inclined to believe less credible sources than before. Tl;dr if you fall for one thing you are likely to fall for others.

Needless to say, this is bad.

But then Germany supposedly has educated its children on the Holocaust and the country’s role in it, and the country is still riddled with Neo-Nazis. So it can’t just be as simple as education, but it would certainly be something. I can’t speak to how it is in America since I don’t know anything about the curriculum or what freedom schools have to teach it as they do, but I would be really surprised if it wasn’t at least a factor.

It’s something I learned about in school like everyone does

Nope.

Really? What did you learn about? Not even the Kindertransport?

I saw that too, and with younger people more likely than older to think the holocaust is a myth that does point towards a change in education. But the fact the same pattern is followed with liberals more likely than conservatives, Biden voters more likely than Trump voters, and Democrats more likely than Republicans, I don't know if education is necessarily the whole story here

And the 28% thinking Jews have too much power, this feels more of an active opinion than the holocaust opinion, which could be a more passive one due to a lack of education

I asked my 17 1/2 year old what he thought about it and his immediate response was the same as mine when I heard it: "conspiracy morons read about things on twitter and believe it"

(FWIW he had plenty of holocaust info in world history, but we live in Berkeley where, despite a lot of fucked up shit about our school district, I'm convinced he got a solid education)

Really? What did you learn about? Not even the Kindertransport?

Nothing at all. Nothing about World War II in general.

where were you located?

(and when I guess)

Learned a lot about Mao and the China though for some reason! And the Russian revolution!

China, not the China.

the China was Human League's b-side to the Lebanon

20% of American children not knowing about/denying the Holocaust

Not children. Americans 18-29. Voters.

https://archive.ph/2023.12.09-072959/https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/07/one-in-five-young-americans-think-the-holocaust-is-a-myth

Another 30% "don't know" if the Holocaust is a myth.

As I said this on the USpol thread a while back, the lesson we should have all learned is to pay attention to wackadoos like Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green and watch for trends. There is a difference between some vile outlier data point on social media and when it gains momentum and becomes mainstream.

A lot of people dismissed Trump and MTG out of hand on the merits of their views. Now look who is running the House and leading the polls.

my UK holocaust education was probably better than average with a lot of focus on the brutality - which was effective at burning the horror into our brains - but there was little to nothing about the context or history, and way too much crowing about how "we" stopped it (I assume every allied country does this shit). it was a bad thing that happened but the badness is then taken to somehow justify whatever the current political situation is in a very roundabout way. if you don't like the political situation and are willing to entertain antisemitism then I suppose the lack of context could make denial easier to consider

xps Germany has educated its children to believe that their national redemption will come through support for Israel and Jewish forgiveness which is awful in all kinds of directions

I haven't read this piece since it came out but I remember it being a much needed shot of cold water
https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2021-05/judaism-antisemitism-germany-israel-bds-fabian-wolff-essay-english

too much crowing about how "we" stopped it

I don't remember learning about the Holocaust in school so much as in popular culture at the time.

If the US was stopping the Holocaust I don't think that vast majority of American civilians or soldiers inteneded that or knew they were stopping any kind of mass extermination program at the time because they were not even aware.

My very ahistorical understanding is that the U.S. entered the war becaue Pearl Harbor was bombed. There was a general awareness of mistreatment of Jewish people in Europe but I thought the evidence of death camps did not come out in America until after the war ended.

Feel free to correct this ofc

(when I say "mass extermination program" I refer to Holocaust specifically, not all the people the US and allies killed including mass atrocities in Japan)

Not children. Americans 18-29. Voters.

notably, I found out that poll had a sample size of 200 people so I'm not sure it's representative

I don't know how accurate that YouGov poll is but one element here is that the Holocaust is now history for an 18-year old and is subject to the same problems as expecting any normal young person to know much about history. Here at ILX our parents or grandparents lived through the war, potentially fought in the war (or experienced the Holocaust itself) - it wasn't really part of the past, it was an element in the lives of people we interacted with regularly.

Sadly these kind of social media driven antisemitic sentiment and conspiracies are on the American left or "left" as well. I think it's been a forbidden topic for far too long.

I have appreciated ilxor Left's consistent acknowledgement that some antisemitism exists when discussing the left.

the left has been antisemitic for as long as there has been a left (of course so has the right and the right has been worse but why do I feel the need to say this) - it's very difficult to talk about it without being perceived as having some sort of agenda

"Learned a lot about Mao and the China though for some reason!"

same here, I had a history teacher who was a Marxism Today reader and he went heavy on The Long March! Never did anything about the holocaust in history. The teacher who talked the most about the holocaust was an RE one, Father Myers, who had a Jesuit missionary background and was quietly scathing when he had to play some Catholic anti-abortion propaganda video to us 13/14 yr olds.

I received what I realize now is a very comprehensive education about the Holocaust, but I also grew up and went to some of elementary and middle grades in Philadelphia’s suburbs, which have an enormous Jewish population.

I didn't do history, I did "Modern Studies", I was the only one actually interested in the subject though, the rest of the class consisted of wasters who were only there because they didn't want to do History or Geography. Our teacher was very right wing, but he was fucking great though, definitely my favourite teacher! A really interesting person.

Now wondering if it was strange that I had a teacher who taught us about Agent Orange and showed us pictures of the Viet Cong tunnels when I was eight.

There is a very good book(let) about the manifestations of antisemitism in left wing spaces. The author shared it online before his death and it is freely and legally available here. I know his daughter a little bit - she is a wonderful person.

Americans 18-29. Voters.

It strikes me that voters in this cohort have grown up in a world where the digital manipulation of media, elaborate conspiracy theories, and the saturation of the internet with falsehoods and propaganda are taken for granted, and critiques of colonialism/imperialism that undermine confidence in the reliability of historical records have become popular in academia. iow, their sense of what is believable beyond the limits of their personal experience has become subject to much higher levels of doubt and cynicism than previous generations.

Not sure where this goes - but on the subject of sources, I learned about The Forward (forward.com) from posts on ilx.

Then learned this past Thanksgiving that my grandfather, an old time progressive socialist, used to read the newspaper version of The Forward in Yiddish every night.

My hometown is a suburb with a significant Jewish population, where I went to the same schools as my mum did, with many of the children of her Jewish classmates. She said that in the 1950s and early ‘60s when she was a schoolkid, the Holocaust was only talked about in hushed ways because it was so close, and so painful to the survivors. But they knew something unforgivably terrible had happened.

By the time I got to school, we had Anne Frank in the curriculum and the Holocaust miniseries on TV. We also had a World Religions curriculum developed by two history teachers because kids were being antisemitic about Jewish kids getting extra days off school, so the adults in the room were like: here’s why, and it’s a unit this semester. After Mom’s time but before mine, we had people’s aunties and uncles who were camp survivors come to assembly, tell the story, explain and show their tattoos.

I feel so fortunate to have grown up there.

their sense of what is believable beyond the limits of their personal experience has become subject to much higher levels of doubt and cynicism than previous generations.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Saturday, December 9, 2023 12:22 PM bookmarkflaglink

True, and AI aggravates this. There's also human nature and prejuduce and disbelief combined with cognitive difficulty processing what was happening the first time evidence of the Holocaust started coming out.

From a 2018 Time article about what Americans knew and when:

public opinion polls demonstrating that while half of U.S. respondents in 1943 thought the fact that 2 million Jewish Europeans had been murdered was just a rumor, by 1944 about three-quarters believed concentration camps were really part of the Nazi plan — and yet they still couldn’t fathom the number of victims involved. (A Gallup poll that year shows that most people who dared to guess thought the number killed would be in the hundreds of thousands, or less.)

https://time.com/5327279/ushmm-americans-and-the-holocaust/

tbh I struggle to fathom the numbers even though I know they're real. part of me wants to find fault in these polls because I don't want them to be representative but whether they are or not it's disturbing

xps "that's funny..." is an excellent and informative and provocative text and everyone should read it. the stuff about the 80s helped make a bit more sense of the mess in the late 10s UK left for me. few people will agree with him on every single point but you expect that from a self described "anti-zionist zionist"

(the link gyac posted upthread)

I haven't read this piece since it came out but I remember it being a much needed shot of cold water
https://www.zeit.de/kultur/2021-05/judaism-antisemitism-germany-israel-bds-fabian-wolff-essay-english

― Left, Saturday, December 9, 2023 11:03 AM bookmarkflaglink

Read that. And saw it had been put through some intense fact checking process because apparently the author later said he is not Jewish and people wanted to confirm the author was Jewish. Which fact checking process involved going through and reading a bunch of the author's mother's emails.

Which all seems very sad to me, in the category of uninvested people feeling they have the right to demand independent verification of things they ordinarily would accept. And people with Jewish ancestry possibly feeling it's easier just to hide it or not highlight it rather than deal with the scrunity coming from people who just must know.

As for the article itself - regardless of whether the author is "truly" Jewish (a concept that seems strange to me as the daughter of a convert) this notion of other people "fetishing" a point of view becaue they believe it comes from a Jewish person hit with me.

Like to the effect of what Lily Dale said, if you find yourself pressurizing your Jewish friends to say just the right things ... maybe look at why you might be doing that.

We have some friends that are pretty strong Evangelical Christians. To their huge surprise the wife's ancestry test came back with over 50% Ashkenazi DNA. So these blood based tests always strike me as weird. So yeah ... contradictions.

When I was in high school we had a Holocaust survivor as a featured speaker in our history class. I don’t think that kind of thing is possible nowadays.

xp wow I didn't know about any of that drama

the fetishization also applies to the way anti-zionist or Israel-critical Jews are sometimes held up or used as shields by leftists. it puts them (your supposed comrades) in a very difficult position that people don't seem to even think of or care much about

hopefully people on the left understand these days that it's racist to interrogate Muslims and Arabs about where they stand on "islamism" or whatever so I don't know why this is different. because most Jews are perceived as "white" these days (sort of, by most people)? idk

xp that happened at my dad's school in Germany. I don't know if it still happens anywhere. it's very sad to think about

As mentioned before my wife's father was a Holocaust survivor.he never talked about it, he was the oldest of four children and the one who was sent out on secret errands to get food and supplies. He was only 11 when Greece was invaded so his early teenage years were spent in hiding on at best in a very precarious place. His younger brother, however, wrote a whole book about the family during the war. It's very detailed. The most sobering parts, for me: the list he compiled of thr number of their relatives who died in the holocaust (86 people), the 10 classmates in his first grade class who died (out of 15), the percentage of the Jewish population of his city who died (97%).

My wife has felt caught between a rock and a hard place, with recent events. So she's simply inclined to not think about it. For many the Holocaust isn't ancient theoretical history, it's a vv near miss.

fwiw can confirm didn't learn anything about WWII at school. I also didn't do History GCSE. we got as far as Victorian England and I think the last thing we did was about Bismarck, we didn't even get to WWI.

I hung out with an intelligent mid-30s guy recently who didn’t know anything about WWII except there was “a guy named Hitler or something”. But I also knew somebody who even at age 26 considered himself “Christian” but didn’t know there was a difference between Protestantism and Catholicism, or even that these distinctions existed. Both were schooled outside of the public school system

I don’t remember learning about Holocaust in school, but remember I learned about it (and segregation) by bombarding my parents with questions after reading Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself

As mentioned before my wife's father was a Holocaust survivor.he never talked about it, he was the oldest of four children and the one who was sent out on secret errands to get food and supplies. He was only 11 when Greece was invaded so his early teenage years were spent in hiding on at best in a very precarious place. His younger brother, however, wrote a whole book about the family during the war. It's very detailed. The most sobering parts, for me: the list he compiled of thr number of their relatives who died in the holocaust (86 people), the 10 classmates in his first grade class who died (out of 15), the percentage of the Jewish population of his city who died (97%).

My wife has felt caught between a rock and a hard place, with recent events. So she's simply inclined to not think about it. For many the Holocaust isn't ancient theoretical history, it's a vv near miss.

― omar little, Saturday, December 9, 2023 2:18 PM bookmarkflaglink

Those are some very sobering statistics indeed. Thank you for sharing that.

When I was in high school we had a Holocaust survivor as a featured speaker in our history class.

my american history teacher was a WW2 vet who was basically a socialist, looked just like Kurt Vonnegut and regaled us with the horrors war for a whole year, he was amazing. This was 1987.

the same high school just had to let go of the current history teacher this year for apparently denying the holocaust and distributing conspiracy nonsense to students. He had been doing this for years until someone did something.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/hayward-teacher-on-leave-after-complaints-of-antisemitic-conspiracy-theories-being-taught

Our high school actually has a holocaust studies class.

I recall Spielberg I think made it his mission to interview and document every Holocaust survivor he could.

Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself is a wonderful book.

So glad to see it mentioned, like an old friend.

We had to read Night as the centerpiece of our 8th grade language arts curriculum— realizing that this was exceptional was truly unnerving to me.

The "citizenship in the UK" test you need to do to apply for British nationality has a section on WWII that never mentions the holocaust or Jewish people at all. And if you think "well it's just about the British experience of it", nope - it does mention Pearl Harbour.

i was taught absolutely nothing about the holocaust at school here in scotland and had to educate myself about it. my teenage step daughter has been taught a tiny bit about it but in a very nebulous fashion. she has however been taught about WW1 in great, great detail. seems mad.

Mcgill out at Upenn
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/us/university-of-pennsylvania-president-resigns.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20231209&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=162391437&segment_id=152208&user_id=de55aa93334761c67172b9effa0847b0

The amount of people online who were calling her a raging antisemite even before the hearing (and not to mention the trucks with screens that said ‘Magill is an Antisemite’ drive around Upenn campus make me wonder about what the hell people mean by anitsemite.

She allowed Roger Waters to be invited to a literary festival. ANTISEMITE

j/k. when I found out it was Waters that was behind that entire kerfuffle my jaw dropped. First off, Waters is a putz. He absolutely plays around with that line of what is antisemitic and what isn't, which is not good. He's a poor communicator and too strident. His music has sucked since 1981 and he is personally charmless. But the main allegation about his antisemitism comes from him wearing the Hammers uniform in Germany, which is obviously poking fun at the Germans. Also, no literary festival should invite him, wtf. They had legit writers at that festival. If I were on that panel and they invited Waters I'd be incensed.

Imagine losing your job as a university president because of the guy who wrote Radio KAOS

She actually banned him from the campus.

Imagine losing your job as a university president because of the guy who wrote Radio KAOS

The Roger Waters thing had nothing to do with it. This is 100% about Congressional Republicans and their bullshit hearing.

The head of Penn's Board of Trustees, Scott Bok, left too; in his outgoing email, he wrote:

The world should know that Liz Magill is a very good person and a talented leader who was beloved by her team. She is not the slightest bit antisemitic. Working with her was one of the great pleasures of my life. Worn down by months of relentless external attacks, she was not herself last Tuesday. Over prepared and over lawyered given the hostile forum and high stakes, she provided a legalistic answer to a moral question, and that was wrong. It made for a dreadful 30-second sound bite in what was more than five hours of testimony."

...

I believe that in the fullness of time people will come to view the story of her presidency at Penn very differently than they do today. I hope that some fine university will in due course be wise enough to give her a second chance, in a more supportive community, to lead. I equally hope that, after a well deserved break, she wants that role.

It’s more about the donors pulling out since that festival. It’s been rolling snowball since then.

the festival appears to be the precipitating issue

Also, UPenn did get sued by two students yesterday under Title VI. These incidents are much more disturbing than the festival, but I'm not sure if these particular incidents were discussed at that hearing or were widely known until now.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/business/students-claim-university-of-pennsylvania-civil-rights-antisemitism-on-campus/index.html

(there's only one incident in the article, sorry. but it's still concerning. I dunno that it's "university president must resign" concerning)

(and the festival is one of the 'incidents' in the lawsuit; the incidents go back to 2015, but the festival apparently "unleashed a wave" of antisemitism on campus...I haven't read the full allegation)

I dunno. Stuff like this:

"One of the plantiffs in the lawsuit says that on October 9, while walking on campus wearing garb that identified her as Jewish, including a Star of David, she walked by a group of pro-Palestine protestors.

One of the protestors yelled to her, “you are a dirty Jew, don’t look at us,” she said.

Other protestors joined in, taunting Davis with: “keep walking you dirty little Jew,” “you know what you’ve done wrong,” it says.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/08/business/students-claim-university-of-pennsylvania-civil-rights-antisemitism-on-campus/index.html

That is flatout wrong, unacceptable antisemitism. No doubt about it.

Stuff like this:

Columbia University senior Yusuf Hafez was in class in late October when his friend alerted him that his photograph was being shown around the university on a truck under a banner that proclaimed he was among “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites,” according to a recent lawsuit.

The conservative nonprofit, Accuracy in Media, also published a website containing his full name, he alleges. He says the website, which CNN has not been able to see independently, falsely claimed he was the president of a student organization that signed a pro-Palestinian letter that called for the university to cut ties with “apartheid Israel.” Hafez had not held a leadership role in the organization since May 2023, according to his suit.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/28/business/students-lawsuits-israel-hamas-war/index.html (weirdly linked to in previous article as reference to antisemitic incidents on the UPenn campus, but it isn't)

That is just flat out unacceptable, wrong, bigoted bullshit by a conservative outlet. That is also targeted harassment and completely wrong, if they are claiming Hafez is 'antisemitic' because he is critical of the actions of the Israeli government. Maybe he said something explicitly 'antisemitic' but I don't know what that would have been. This is going straight back to 'criticizing the government of israel is antisemitic' which I think is a dangerous, horrible belief but it seems to be one the government is happy to advance. It requires everyone to take for granted the legitimacy of ethnostates as organizations which I cannot accept.

It requires everyone to take for granted the legitimacy of ethnostates as organizations which I cannot accept.

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm), Saturday, December 9, 2023 7:02 PM bookmarkflaglink

What is an "ethnostate"? Aren't most countries like Japan and Korea "ethnostates"?

Didn't learn in any detail about: WWI, WWII, Holocaust, colonialism, the ongoing Nakba. All done via reading, film, social media, TV, media, any other scraps. Hardly perfect but it's what it is and you move in the world and have the hard conversations with it. Don't see any other way but look at who is being oppressed by whom and go from there.

if criticizing the government of Israel is believed to be inherently antisemitic, it would seem that the government of Israel is defining itself as an ethnostate. Or maybe it's something else, but something that's hard for me to define; some kind of theocratic ethnostate, like, well, Iran. No doubt it has a much more liberal and democratic type of government, but the state seems to define itself around ethnic and religious identity. That's something I'm uncomfortable with; as problematic as they are, I still believe in 'melting pots' or 'mosaics' where there are no barriers to liberty or power for any people regardless of ethnicity or religious identity.

(yes I am aware there are no other countries where that is 100% true)

if criticizing the government of Israel is believed to be inherently antisemitic

There plenty of actual antisemitism to discuss without introducing that particular red herring.

Here is the complaint in a lawsuit filed against NYU for Title VI violations.

From Paragraph 107:

Ingber recounted that students
are horrified and frightened as chants of “gas the Jews” and “Hitler was right” ring out on
campus, and students and professors serve up a “constant contextualization and justification of
Hamas’s brutal terror attack at NYU,” both in the classroom and around the school. I

Apparently Penn issued guidance to students to hide their Jewish garb.

Eyal Yakoby, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, said that while walking to class a few days ago he had seen "90 percent of pigs are gas chambered" written in chalk, adding: "Let me be clear: I do not feel safe."

https://www.newsweek.com/jewish-college-students-campus-antisemitism-experience-1849959

yes those students should be expelled.

(the ones shouting that at anyone, that is. Or anyone who writes that on campus. That should violate a code of conduct. I would have to hear specifics on this: “constant contextualization and justification of Hamas’s brutal terror attack at NYU” to know what i think about it. Justification sounds bad to me; contextualization seems necessary to understand what even happened?)

187. In response to a survey distributed to NYU Jewish groups, other students
recounted egregious acts of antisemitism, including:

. . .  Professor Valerie Forman insisted on discussing in class the conflict in the
Middle East, which was completely unrelated to the subject she was teaching,
and asserted that “Hamas was a military group, not a terrorist organization,
and Israel was a group of colonizers.” Professor Forman also claimed that not
many Jews had been killed, and that there was no proof of babies being
beheaded and nodded in agreement at the statement the “Israeli
people . . . deserve what had happened to them.”

 A few days after Hamas’s October 7 attack, Professor Marie Cruz Soto
addressed her class, asserting that Israel is a colonizing power and deserves to
be destroyed, Hamas is part of the resistance, violence from Israel permeates
the entire world and directly causes violence in America and for people of
color globally and “rich Jewish donors that control NYU” are trying to silence
her.

https://www.kasowitz.com/media/bnblicby/complaint-v-nyu.pdf

Here is the Penn complaint

https://www.kasowitz.com/media/focjlca0/university-of-pennsylvania-complaint.pdf

‘For example, over the weekend of September 22-24, 2023, Penn proudly hosted an anti-Jewish hate- fest, euphemistically dubbed the “Palestine Writes Literature Festival,” that calls to mind the infamous August 2017 Unite the Right hate rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.’

‘After Hamas’s horrific mass slaughter, rape, and kidnapping of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, one of the invited speakers at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival stooped to the previously unimaginable low of joking about an Israeli baby Hamas had burned in an oven, asking “with or without baking powder?” Similar stomach-turning anti-Jewish conduct, by students and faculty alike, are commonplace at Penn.’

Subject of the infamous Bari Weiss tweet.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/08/palestinian-poet-refaat-alareer-killed-in-gaza

Aren't most countries like Japan and Korea "ethnostates"?

those countries are and it's to their immense discredit. I don't think most countries are even if they aspire to be. Israel is more ethnically diverse than those examples but is governed according to principles of ethnic supremacy so I think the label fits

Israel is not ein the top 37 countries with 85% or more monoethnicity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoethnicity

Not sure why people are so invested in the ethnostate label.

Because of the occupation of Gaza, the settlement of the West Bank; it is by definition an apartheid state, even if one doesn't want to label it as such

Having listened more to that Congressional Hearing, (talked about it on another thread but there was a point that was more relevant to this one), it is asserted and agreed upon by both Congresspeople and Uni presidents (and a former-president) that "education" is the best method of combating anti-Semitism in the West. I don't disagree, but find that the "education" that is being described so often falls exclusively to "Holocaust education". A much-more salient line of education insofar as fighting anti-Semitism is post-WW2 expulsions of Jews across the Arab peninsula and Northern Africa; the Farhud in Iraq and the 60s massacres, the expulsion of Jews from Oman and Syria and Jordan and Yemen. How many Jews reside in Egypt now? three, according to Wikipedia.

Arguments about archaeological evidence indicating that "Palestine belongs to the Jews, historically" avoid a much more convincing argument for Israel's existence as "a place for Jews to live safely": there are literally no other nations in the area where they can exist, safely.

if criticizing the government of Israel is believed to be inherently antisemitic

There plenty of actual antisemitism to discuss without introducing that particular red herring.

This, to me, is the crux of the issue, though. The argument that "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism" (isn't this the law in Germany? it is absolutely asserted by ADL and so on), seemed to be the focus of the Congressional hearings; this conflation is endangering Jewish people. The bullshit intention of this conflation is "if you criticize Israel, you're being anti-Semitic, so don't criticize Israel". But: the inverted logic of this assertion is, "if you are being anti-Semitic, you are fighting Israel"-- a student yelling "gas the Jews" might themselves feel that they're just expressing solidarity with dying Palestinians, without understanding that they're actually being stupid Nazis who deserve expulsion. Am I making sense here? I'm trying to say "the anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism conflation is very dangerous, will inflame anti-Semitism rather than quell anti-Zionism, and deserves far more pushback than simply labelling it as a red herring."

According to wikipedia the scholarly term is "ethnocracy"

Israel has been labeled an ethnocracy by scholars such as Alexander Kedar,[14] Shlomo Sand,[15] Oren Yiftachel,[16] Asaad Ghanem,[17][18] Haim Yakobi,[19] Nur Masalha[20] and Hannah Naveh.[21] It is also viewed as an apartheid state by various organisations, including B'tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, due to actions committed against Palestinians that they see as emblematic of such a state.[22][23][24]

However, scholars such as Gershon Shafir, Yoav Peled and Sammy Smooha prefer the term ethnic democracy to describe Israel,[25] which is intended[26] to represent a "middle ground" between an ethnocracy and a liberal democracy. Smooha in particular argues that ethnocratic democracies, allowing a privileged status to a dominant ethnic majority while ensuring that all individuals have equal rights, are defensible. His opponents reply that insofar as Israel contravenes equality in practice, the term 'democratic' in his equation is flawed.[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocracy

Well, it's about religion rather than ethnicity surely?

a student yelling "gas the Jews" might themselves feel that they're just expressing solidarity with dying Palestinians, without understanding that they're actually being stupid Nazis who deserve expulsion. Am I making sense here? I'm trying to say "the anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism conflation is very dangerous, will inflame anti-Semitism rather than quell anti-Zionism, and deserves far more pushback than simply labelling it as a red herring."

― spider alert: 🕷️🕷️ (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, 10 December 2023 14:04 (two minutes ago) link

I don't think you're completely making sense insofar as taking seriously what the Jewish students on these US campuses are complaining about in terms of wanting to feel safe to study, no.

Maybe I'm having trouble following because the idea that people have been yelling "gas the Jews" on a US University campus for weeks and weeks with no serious administrative action is so distracting and emotionally upsetting that I don't really have that much energy to get worked up about the rest.

Rationalizing "gas the Jews" sounds completely irrational to me. I don't understand how any University administrators can fail to prevent that. This should never have gotten to the point of having a Congressional hearing.

Blaming the hearing and who is politicizing it it sounds a bit like blaming the Jewish students for being upset about these conditions.

Well, it's about religion rather than ethnicity surely?

― Free Ass Ange (Tom D.), Sunday, December 10, 2023 6:10 AM bookmarkflaglink

I guess that's a can of worms to open. The US theoretically has freedom of religion, but it's definitely moving closer to state religion all the time.

Not sure why people need to use "anti-Zionist" when there is the perfectly good phrase - "criticism of Israel." There is no shortage of things to criticize. It's almost as if they want to draw complaints of being antisemitic, so they can then argue that antisemitism doesn't exist or something. I don't get it.

Because of the occupation of Gaza, the settlement of the West Bank; it is by definition an apartheid state, even if one doesn't want to label it as such

I've heard this mentioned recently, but IF (and I know thats a big if) Israel ended the occupations and settlements, would that mean it would no longer be considered an apartheid state? This is generally the case with occupying forces, with somewhat similar systems in Zaporizhia or Abkhazia? I don't know if thats a meaningful distinction or not, is it considered to be apartheid within its borders too, or in the territories it occupies?

The Penn situation definitely seems fraught, but I'm uncomfortable when people mix horrifying fact with hyperbole. I have no doubt a lot of Jewish students on campus don't feel safe, or have encountered things that have at the very least crept up to the edge of anti-semitism, if not past it. It's also pretty clear that (at least before the resignation of that inept and ill-prepared president) the school's response has fallen short of measures that would satisfy many of its Jewish students. But claims like "Penn issued guidance to students to hide their Jewish garb" or "an Israeli student whose identity and personal info was sold online for a bounty has not left his dorm room in weeks out of fear due to death threats" or "classmates and professors chanted proudly for the genocide of Jews" seem questionable to me. If they're accurate, things are worse there than I thought.

Likewise, I've seen plenty of disgusting justifications of the Hamas attack (I've even started to see people claiming it was made up, or was some sort of false flag, or asking for proof or whatever bullshit), but (per the NYU complaint) "chants of 'gas the Jews' and 'Hitler was right' ring out on campus"? Really? I've seen a lot of shit come out of these protests, and a lot of what I consider anti-semitism. Some assholes apparently disrupted the Hillel Hanukkah celebration up at UW-Madison the other night, "shouting political slogans and obscenities." But I've seen very little in the way of outright calls for the death or genocide of Jews, let alone chants, at least as framed by that asshole congressperson's gotcha question at those hearings. Again, if these claims are honest and accurate, then things are worse than they seem.

a student yelling "gas the Jews" might themselves feel that they're just expressing solidarity with dying Palestinians, without understanding that they're actually being stupid Nazis who deserve expulsion

I’m also going to point out on this side of the ocean, doing such a thing would be considered a criminal offence and I would agree with a person screaming such in public to be charged appropriately. Fuck that. Bad fucking fellow travellers.

Yes, thank you gyac. And Josh, while there is some drama in the way legal complaints are written, the underlying facts are indeed much worse than I thought.

I see the topic of "are Jewish students on US campuses being subjected to levels of discrimination and harassment that violate US civil rights laws?" sort of weaponized and subsumed under a lot of other finger pointing.

No matter how well meaning, that feels like the sort of indifference and standing silently by from people who should be allies that has historically permitted the unique evil of hatred of Jewish people to flourish and become deadly.

Again, while it's ultimately probably a distinction without a difference, I do think there is a difference between school bullying and harassment and chanting "gas the Jews." The former is cause for internal/school discipline, the latter is hate speech. I've not seen many clear examples of the latter lately, fortunately, but that doesn't mean the environment is not currently conducive to the sentiment. That is, while I have not myself seen many examples of that stuff amidst the litany of more verifiable claims of harassment, it wouldn't surprise me if they happened. It's just a pretty extreme claim to make, though, especially in the context of that dubious congressional hearing. It makes it a little too convenient to play into the hands of bad faith GOP jerks who would use ad hominem accusations as a cudgel. For example, while I did not watch those hearings, my understanding is that at least one of the university presidents dodged the gotcha by responding along the lines of "I have not heard claims of people chanting 'death to the Jews'" (or equivalent)," rather than Penn's disturbing equivocating.

@ gyac and felicity, I feel you're missing the point of what I was trying to express, and I blame myself for not expressing it more clearly; for this I apologise. I'm not excusing anti-Semitic rallying cries like these in any way-- may those who say such thing go to jail-- my argument is that the conflation of "criticism of Israel" (broadly defined by those who both critique Israel, and those who would argue that Israel is above critique, as "anti-Zionism"; but I do agree that the term is loaded from every angle) and "anti-Semitism" has the effect of inflaming anti-Semitism rather than quelling critique of Israel. This is broadly the basis of why so many Israel-critical Jews have adopted the "not in my name" adage; they seek to set a clear boundary between their Jewish ethnicity/beliefs and the present-tense actions of the Israeli state.

Aside from massive failure to read the room (just say yes, all genocide is bad when the white hot light is on you - you can explain the nuance of Title VI and First Amendment in video tweets later) the critique of the University presidents that resonated with me were (1) the disingenuous double standards, and (2) a bit of hubris in the way they acted like they could wriggle out of answering straight questions.

The double standard is that University campuses have historically never been shy about taking action where exercise of free speech has been offensive. There are a few very unsympathetic examples but one that was brought up was accepted applicants posting offensive messages on Facebook and having their offers rescinded. That's not even a Title IV violation, just a "character" thing.

Regarding the hubris, I'm probably biased from spending years in law. But the number one rule of being under oath is you answer the question. Don't try to answer a different question - it looks like you think you're above the law.

When Claudine Gay was asked about the Ukranian flag or if marches calling for the death of other groups of students would violate school policy you could see that she understood the trap she had been led into and did not want to answer the questions. Just say yes or no. There was a Ukranian flag, it was an exception. Not answering the question being asked like a mere nobody would have to looks elitist and out of touch.

The better thing is to make sure you are never in a position to have answer anyone's questions under oath in the first place, but see above.

xp I get you. To me I get people being angry about the atrocities happening, I just wouldn’t justify crossing that bridge.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/jewish-students-provocative-banner-harvard-university/46066578

This story had been doing the rounds and it disturbed me. The article is opaque about where it originated; it is credited to both “a group claiming to represent Jewish students” and “they(Hillel) believed it was paid for by an outside conservative group”.

I get that the statement is intending to be provocative, but the use of the Palestinian flag pushes it well over the line from daft student tactic to something worse. I don’t see who this is for or who this helps, frankly, especially when there is a mention that schoolchildren saw the banner and were upset by it.

This is broadly the basis of why so many Israel-critical Jews have adopted the "not in my name" adage; they seek to set a clear boundary between their Jewish ethnicity/beliefs and the present-tense actions of the Israeli state.

― spider alert: 🕷️🕷️ (flamboyant goon tie included), Sunday, December 10, 2023 7:05 AM bookmarkflaglink

That's ok. I know you believe this. And, to put it very gently, I think it gets to sort of what being an ally is - letting the people you're supporting lead the discussion and centering what they think is important - perhaps to the exclusion a bit of what you think is important, in some moments.

As for the "not in my name" Jewish people - this might close to the fetishing and tokenism of certain points of view when those views are brought up by non-Jewish people. It's been expressed as a bit of an irritant in this and other threads. There are a lot of interesting discussions about criticizing Israel. Perhaps they go better in another thread, or in another moment that is not right in the middle of this campus thing.

Thank you both— and I agree with your assessment of the presidents’s performance under inquiry, too, felicity

The reason I feel the campus hearings were a trap is that they let disingenuous scumbags like Stefanik define the terms of debate, to further imo nefarious goals. For example, I don't think she is for a second serious about confronting anti-Semitism on campus, but I do think she and her cohort would love to pressure these liberal elites into setting standards that people like Stefanik could then use to punish or ban protestors or protests of their choosing in the future. Like BLM, say, or, people who protest or harass conservative voices. Their goal is not the safety of Jewish students, their goal is the weakening of liberal institutions of higher education.

For example, the Wisconsin GOP just more or less tried to extort the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They tried to leverage funding for a new engineering building and raises in return for firing several DEI administrators and establishing a conservative academic think tank, or something like that. The University, thankfully, did not take the bait, because they recognized the GOP's offer as bad precedent, less about giving the school something it wants and more about getting something *they* want that they could in turn exploit for further culture war gains.

It boggles my mind that being opposed to a nationalist political ideology has been conflated with hatred of Jewish people. It isn’t the same thing, no matter what anyone on ILX or anywhere else says.

Regarding antisemitism on campuses, criticism of Israel absolutely has to be part of the conversation, because of the conflation of antisemitism and criticism of a state-adopted ideology .

xpost They’ve definitely chilled the atmosphere for any university thinking of inviting a Palestinian speaker, or anyone else who has been critical of Israel.

From another UK perspective -- and following on from what JiC and others have said -- I have seen campus conflict (over trans issues, for example) and harassment being inflated to ultimately undermine educational establishments with a moral panic around student 'radical politics', when newspapers and politicians with an agenda get involved.

There are plenty of complaints here and once the dust settles it would be good to see if there could be processes to de-escalate the conflict in the campus. Maybe the students who are shouting "gas the Jews" are thugs whose humanity cannot be salvaged. As are the ones putting the Palestinian flag on a plane at such time.

But maybe they can.

The reason I feel the campus hearings were a trap is that they let disingenuous scumbags like Stefanik define the terms of debate, to further imo nefarious goals. For example, I don't think she is for a second serious about confronting anti-Semitism on campus, but I do think she and her cohort would love to pressure these liberal elites into setting standards that people like Stefanik could then use to punish or ban protestors or protests of their choosing in the future. Like BLM, say, or, people who protest or harass conservative voices. Their goal is not the safety of Jewish students, their goal is the weakening of liberal institutions of higher education.

The campus hearings were a trap if you're concerned primarily with policing GOP jerks or safeguarding the jobs of University presidents. Why are Jewish students in need of anyone -- GOP or Democrat -- being their mouthpiece to bring attention to this though?

Recognizing they set up gotcha moments for a despicable party does not negate that there is harassment and discrimination on campus and increase in hate crimes against Jewish people in North America. It's not like they cancel each other out.

Either you don't believe things are as bad as the students say, or you cannot conceive that questioning led even by Democrats can elicit any kind of material enforcement of civil rights law.

I really despise Stefanik, but the kind of putting the cart before the horse of close-mindedness of refusing to look at a situation because who is also profiting politically from it is kind of intolerant. You can be opposed to harassment and discrimination without endorsing Stefanik, and I wish people would stop playing into this propaganda and giving her so much attention while acting like "refusing to watch the hearings" is some sort of virtue.

As for DEI - of course the GOP will try to dismantle it. That is one of the reasons I have been posting since October that it is the responsibility of people who lead legitimate Pro-palestine protests to make sure they have no nazis or other blatant antisemitism. Or you get .... this.

It boggles my mind that being opposed to a nationalist political ideology has been conflated with hatred of Jewish people. It isn’t the same thing, no matter what anyone on ILX or anywhere else says.

Regarding antisemitism on campuses, criticism of Israel absolutely has to be part of the conversation, because of the conflation of antisemitism and criticism of a state-adopted ideology .

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Sunday, December 10, 2023 7:47 AM bookmarkflaglink

Respectfully, that does not seem like your call to make. Who is doing this "conflating"? Is it every individual Jewish student, or are you treating them not as individuals? If you care about criticizing Israel to the point that alarm bells go off in your mind and you must bring up Israel every time a Jewish person wants to talk about studying free of garden variety anti-Jewish harassment and discrimination, that seems like a huge issue.

To be really real, I was kind of shocked that I saw you post something a few years back that you don't hate anyone except "Zionists." I found that truly breathtaking.

xpost They’ve definitely chilled the atmosphere for any university thinking of inviting a Palestinian speaker, or anyone else who has been critical of Israel.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Sunday, December 10, 2023 7:49 AM bookmarkflaglink

If you read the allegations in the entire complaint, this is an arms race that also goes for the symbolism and rhetoric for protests and boycotts of Israel. Campuses papered with flyers with swastikas? I don't think Jewish students want that either.

This is broadly the basis of why so many Israel-critical Jews have adopted the "not in my name" adage; they seek to set a clear boundary between their Jewish ethnicity/beliefs and the present-tense actions of the Israeli state.

And sometimes I want to go beyond this and think “why should I, a Jew, be forced or expected to talk about Israel at all” - it’s rather like expecting someone Muslim to have an opinion on terrorism. Circumstances are dire enough for the Palestinians right now that silence is not an option for me, but I still rankle at the need (in my perception) to set a boundary at all.

You can be opposed to harassment and discrimination without endorsing Stefanik

Then find some other way to express your opposition. The Republican Party harbors actual Nazis and Nazi sympathizers in its ranks. They seek the overthrow of American democracy and the installation of a white Christian theocratic government. Accepting their "help" on the issue of campus anti-Semitism, no matter how important it is to you, is short-sighted to say the least. Their goal is not the protection of Jewish college students; their goal is the destruction of the American university system. They just happen to be saying the words you want to hear right this minute, and the fact that you can't see that is mind-boggling.

I read the complaint up until I saw allegations that ran counter to how some events actually happened at Penn. The protesters who targeted the restaurant in Center City Philadelphia did not ‘rampage’ through the Upenn campus beforehand. After the Goldie’s protest they attempted to march toward the campus and were stopped by University Police. It seems an attempt to tie another highly reported event in the area outside Penn into criticism of the University itself.

Unperson - Please type up a list of topics I am allowed to speak on, and how - paying special attention to the treatment of women and minorities - and have it on my desk by end of business.

My sister in law is African-American and considers herself a NeverTrump Republican. Can you do a list for her as well? Thanks in advance.

I read the complaint up until I saw allegations that ran counter to how some events actually happened at Penn. The protesters who targeted the restaurant in Center City Philadelphia did not ‘rampage’ through the Upenn campus beforehand. After the Goldie’s protest they attempted to march toward the campus and were stopped by University Police. It seems an attempt to tie another highly reported event in the area outside Penn into criticism of the University itself.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Sunday, December 10, 2023 8:37 AM bookmarkflaglink

I believe you. I wasn't there. I don't blame you for not reading all of it.

The complaint wasn't in my style and there were some iffy seeming characterizations in there. I generally take adjectives with a heavy grain of salt. But I give credence to allegations of names, dates, references to physical evidence such as flyers and the testimony of witnesses who will be under oath. That is what cross examination and the litigation process is for. The firm is aggressive but not disreputable as far as I know.

Respectfully, that does not seem like your call to make. Who is doing this "conflating"? Is it every individual Jewish student, or are you treating them not as individuals? If you care about criticizing Israel to the point that alarm bells go off in your mind and you must bring up Israel every time a Jewish person wants to talk about studying free of garden variety anti-Jewish harassment and discrimination, that seems like a huge issue..

Unperson - Please type up a list of topics I am allowed to speak on, and how - paying special attention to the treatment of women and minorities - and have it on my desk by end of business.

You, like me, are free to speak on any topic of your choice, in any way you see fit. (After all, neither of us are college students.) You are also free to choose any allies you like in your crusade against campus anti-Semitism. When the people you have allied with turn their attention to you, I wish you all the luck in the world.

I appreciate that. Hopefully you have changed and backed off your earlier statement about hating "Zionists."

I would really like criticism of Israel to be a discrete topic that can be discussed separately from anti-semitism. I do agree that people cynically conflate them as a shield. I think we agree and I understand your statement better. If a person injects that into the argument, then it's fair game. I just don't think it should be considered inevitable the people should be bringing Israel up preemptively to Jewish people or on the subject of antisemitism generally if that topic has not been raised.

I agree people can be pro-Palestian and not antisemitic. They can even be pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel, and against the fascistic extremes in both governing bodies.

When the people you have allied with turn their attention to you, I wish you all the luck in the world.

Honestly, the fucking nerve of unperson acting like he’s any sort of moral authority. Fuck that.

You, like me, are free to speak on any topic of your choice, in any way you see fit. (After all, neither of us are college students.) You are also free to choose any allies you like in your crusade against campus anti-Semitism. When the people you have allied with turn their attention to you, I wish you all the luck in the world.

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Sunday, December 10, 2023 8:54 AM bookmarkflaglink

Oh spare me the fake concern trolling. I have posted about Trump's plans to dismantle the US Constitution and deploy the military against his enemies in the USPol thread. These people are not my allies.

And posting about women's bodies in a discussion of AI in a "character" so you can use the word "t*ts". You're gross.

Your only contributions to ILX antisemitism discussions to date as far as I remember have been to tell Jewish posters that you're not concerned about Bradley Cooper's fake nose and to raise Stefanik's name repeatedly when I am trying to discuss Title VI campus violations.

You seem really concerned about antisemitism. Great allyship. Hope you get FPed for a week.

Personally, I felt much more threatened at the start of the Trump administration than I have at any other time in my life. I actually considered exit strategies. That is not to say I don't feel threatened now, but when there are extreme standards set by actual Nazis unfurling swastikas (whether in Orlando or Madison), or, say, the Charlottesville march, under the literal banner of armed militias, with actual chants of "Jews will not replace us," I feel more threatened by those organized white supremacists with allies in Washington than I do incoherent student protests. So when outright Trump supporters profess to fight anti-Semitism, I would take their support more seriously if they themselves did not support actual anti-Semites and white supremacists, or support and vote for their ringleader god-emperor.

Which is not to dismiss what is happening on college campuses, which is real and, even if it doesn't always rise to the level of outright hate speech, imo, certainly constitutes at least disconcerting harassment that should not be allowed unchecked. I just wish there was a way to confront it without hyperbolic distortion of the already disturbing facts or resorting to assistance from disreputable politicians. And yeah, Democrats participated in those hearings, too, but they're victims of the same rhetorical trap. If they didn't assail these inept/ensnared college presidents then the same bad faith GOP leaders would accuse *them* of supporting anti-Semitism, which is GOP 101: accuse your enemy of what you yourself have been accused of.

I appreciate that. Hopefully you have changed and backed off your earlier statement about hating "Zionists."

I would really like criticism of Israel to be a discrete topic that can be discussed separately from anti-semitism. I do agree that people cynically conflate them as a shield. I think we agree and I understand your statement better. If a person injects that into the argument, then it's fair game. I just don't think it should be considered inevitable the people should be bringing Israel up preemptively to Jewish people or on the subject of antisemitism generally if that topic has not been raised.

I agree people can be pro-Palestian and not antisemitic. They can even be pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel, and against the fascistic extremes in both governing bodies.

I just wish there was a way to confront it without hyperbolic distortion of the already disturbing facts or resorting to assistance from disreputable politicians.

Yes, which is why I keep suggesting that people view the primary sources and draw their own conclusions. Instead of relying on other posters or the media to digest it for them.

But apparently that suggestion throws people into a rage. So I stopped.

one of the invited speakers at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival stooped to the previously unimaginable low of joking about an Israeli baby Hamas had burned in an oven, asking “with or without baking powder?”

this was poet Refaat Alareer btw, who died in the past few days in Gaza. I know a couple of people who knew and knew of him, and I was unfamiliar with his poetry; I read some after his death and found it rather moving. I also read the NYT story on him that they retracted after more video of him in the classroom came to light. I think you could credibly say he has expressed anti-semitic beliefs, so I understand the upset his being at that festival could have caused.

xp

I don't think anyone here is suggesting that we take Republicans more seriously. It's obvious Stefanik is a ghoul and was asking ridiculous bad faith questions to trap those college presidents. Unfortunately, the presidents handled those questions about as badly as they possibly could, which did not help things whatsoever. Noting that they did a bad job is not the same as siding with Republicans.

that was xp to Josh...

xpost he was targeted for assassination by the IOF, he didn’t just “die.” Also his entire family was killed.

part of the issue with the University presidents and their answers to these questions is that ... they are academics. Welcome to how academics answer questions. There is a lot of rationalizing and context all the fucking time. Was that politically savvy of them? No. They should have done better. Their brains don't work that way. Does it mean they are not invested in the safety of their students? I don't know, but I don't think so. At any given time, any protected group in a University likely feels that institutions are not doing enough for them. I absolutely buy that. I think some standards are going to have to be set on how and what works and is acceptable in the bounds of Title VI and the first amendment. But I get very nervous when we start purging academics. We've seen that play out in other countries.

I don't at all think they should lose their jobs based on their testimony, nor do I think that they don't care about the safety of their students. Their answers were reasonable from a highly legalistic and academic perspective, just utterly misguided based on the venue. If you are going in front of congress to answer questions about a loaded topic like this, you need to be prepared for ridiculous, OTT bad faith questions.

Right. One would hope they would have prepared better or known what was coming. It's like they never watched a congressional hearing before.

I do not think any of these presidents are antisemitic. But this probably cost Magill any chance for a federal judicial nomination.

She had a very good background for it - RBG clerk, constitutional law professor, daughter of an 8th Circuit judge. But no way would anyone nominate her now.

She seems like a nice person. But it's a bit hard for me to be too upset for her. She has tenure and she'll have good jobs and there are many qualified candidates for federal judge and university professor jobs.

Whoever told her to smile should be fired though.

Josh, I am sympathetic to your daughter's "at least" view a bit because, as a female in the legal field, I often don't have the luxury of automatically commanding attention and having everyone sit up and listen when I start speaking, or taking me seriously and crediting me with my ideas or assuming I am lead counsel the way my white, male colleagues do.

So just throwing out the entire hearing because of who some of the questioners were, when a lot of people (maybe Muslim Americans or students) would probably love to have such a hearing. It seems a bit luxurious when the purpose of Congressional hearings is to shed light on things.

one of the invited speakers at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival stooped to the previously unimaginable low of joking about an Israeli baby Hamas had burned in an oven, asking “with or without baking powder?”

---
xpost he was targeted for assassination by the IOF, he didn’t just “die.” Also his entire family was killed.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Sunday, 10 December 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Body hasn't been found either, from what I've seen. Any mention of him has that quote of his in the twitter comments, purely deployed as an attempt to stop humanising him.

xpost I don't disagree, but the clip that got the most traction was predicated on something that (fortunately) I don't really see out there that much: the outright explicit call to harm Jews, or similar. That I think explains why the presidents struggled to answer what seemed to be a straightforward question: does calling for the genocide of Jews constitute bullying or harassment? But in this context it's not so straightforward, imo. If someone answers "yes," then the follow-up would be: then why haven't all these people been punished/expelled/fired for saying (example x/y/z)? If someone answers "no," then the follow-up would be: you don't think (example x, y, z) rises to the level of bullying or harassment? In both cases skipping right past any proof that anyone actually was "calling for the genocide of Jews," the explosive claim at the heart of the original question, and leading to pressure for action without even an investigation.

I looked at the transcript, and I guess it was the MIT president that dodged this line of questioning most successfully:

Congresswoman Stefanik: Yes or no, calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying and harassment?

President Kornbluth: I have not heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus.

Congresswoman Stefanik: But you've heard chants for Intifada.

President Kornbluth: I've heard chants which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people.

Congresswoman Stefanik: So those would not be, according to the MIT's code of conduct or rules.

President Kornbluth: That would be investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe.

Imo, Stefanik was invoking her ad hominems and hypotheticals in service of less transparent goals: the future stifling of speech *she* doesn't like. I welcome those aforementioned lawsuits, because maybe they will shed light on this issue in a more neutral setting. That said, I am not a lawyer, but I would be shocked if some of those most damning charges - that a school tolerated student/faculty chants of "gas the Jews," that UPenn formally informed Jewish students to hide their Jewishness, things along those lines - were proven in court. But if they *are* proven, then like I said, things are worse than even I thought.

(xpost)
unfortunately when you put something like that out into public it's going to stick

Yes. His poetry and his lectures will be widely read, and others will stop at that quote.

Pound and Eliot are still widely read despite their horrible views on Jewish people so it's possible the work can transcend the person. Maybe not for a while.

Yes or no, calling for the genocide of Jews does not constitute bullying and harassment?

(xpost)
unfortunately when you put something like that out into public it's going to stick

Pound and Eliot are still widely read despite their horrible views on Jewish people so it's possible the work can transcend the person. Maybe not for a while.

but the clip that got the most traction was predicated on something that (fortunately) I don't really see out there that much: the outright explicit call to harm Jews, or similar

If the predicate is wrong then it costs absolutely nothing to say a call for genocide of Jews would be harassment.

Then you can discuss the predicate.

I suppose one question is, "does calling for genocide violate Title VI?" According to Hochul, as of yesterday, yes it does

https://midmichigannow.com/news/nation-world/gov-hochul-to-college-university-presidents-calls-for-genocide-made-on-campus-violate-human-and-civil-rights-laws

Then the follow on question is "what constitutes calling for genocide?" Does using the term 'intifada' mean you are calling for genocide?

Yeah. But blunt force hearings are not sympathetic to nuance. They're not even conducive to follow-up questions. In fact, they're rarely even useful for fact gathering at all. These sorts of hearings mostly exist to let each interlocutor grandstand and score points. It's like the great Mitch Hedberg joke: "The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall."

Is chanting "from the river to the sea" advocating for genocide? I think we are in an interesting time.

These sorts of hearings mostly exist to let each interlocutor grandstand and score points.

Right, which is why reading the room is essential.

I explained like the January 6th hearings it's not clear in the beginning where this goes besides getting attention. A lot of people were congused why there were Janaury 6 hearings.

They seem to have issued subpoenas and maybe they will drop it when it becomes a Supreme Court test case like with affirmative action. Who knows.

one of the invited speakers at the Palestine Writes Literature Festival stooped to the previously unimaginable low of joking about an Israeli baby Hamas had burned in an oven, asking “with or without baking powder?”

---
xpost he was targeted for assassination by the IOF, he didn’t just “die.” Also his entire family was killed.

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Sunday, 10 December 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Body hasn't been found either, from what I've seen. Any mention of him has that quote of his in the twitter comments, purely deployed as an attempt to stop humanising him.

― xyzzzz__, Sunday, December 10, 2023 1:32 PM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I’ve seen a whole bunch of other tweets reposted including stating that most Jews are evil, mocking the father of a 9 year old hostage, celebrating 10/7 and chastising multiple people for merely expressing sorrow or disapproval at the targeting of civilians.

Did he deserve to die for being hateful? Of course not. Can I understand why a Gazan might become hateful? Sure. But I can also understand why an Israeli might become hateful after 10/7. I ultimately don’t know why he was killed, is there any clear info on that? I had never previously heard of him so I am only going on what I have seen on the internet recently.

xpost For a second I was congused by your post and almost reached for a dictionary. ;)

It's a legal term of art. Congusing, I know.

xxp No clear info on why beyond the assumption of a continuous target of doctors, journalists and Palestinian society.

I have a feeling this issue is likely to hit the Supreme Court at some point. When we get to terms that some groups feel are “genocidal” by implication, it’s just not clear to me if it can be considered a violation of Title VI.

And thankfully we can count on this Court to issue the right decision.

Any decision they make is going to piss someone off. There is an argument to be made that people should not be offended by words.

I realize this is getting into the “creepy free speech” area

Opinion To fight antisemitism on campuses, we must restrict speech

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/10/university-pennsylvania-president-magill-resigns-antisemitism-speech/

Hasn't Germany outlawed all sorts of Nazi stuff over the years, flags, etc? Has any other country gone that far? Is that too far?

Yes and I believe other countries have as well but could be wrong. It doesn’t seem to have stopped an insurgent Neo Nazi movement

Likewise, have hate crime laws stopped hateful acts? Or is the point of the law to punish and not deter? I dunno!

The German laws did a good job of keeping everyone they rehired in the military and security apparatus post-war from slipping and getting them bad press.

Hasn't Germany outlawed all sorts of Nazi stuff over the years, flags, etc? Has any other country gone that far? Is that too far?

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, December 10, 2023 11:49 AM bookmarkflaglink

There's an influential Internet law case, Yahoo! Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et l'antisémitisme (LICRA), 433 F.3d 1199 (9th Cir. 2006), about the conflict of French law with the First Amendment in the U.S.

Yahoo! was ordered to comply with an order from a French court prohibiting the sale of Nazi memorabilia the the effect they were available to internet buyers in France, even though the advertisement was permitted in the US under the FIrst Amendment..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!

The Wikipedia article goes over some of the restrictions in France criminalizing Nazi displays.

Article R645-1 of the French Criminal Code prohibits to "wear or exhibit" in public uniforms, insignias and emblems which "recall those used" by

an organisation declared illegal in application of Art. 9 of the Nuremberg Charter, or by
a person found guilty of crimes against humanity as defined by Arts. L211-1 to L212-3 or by the Law № 64-1326 of 1964-12-26.
Display is allowed for the purposes of films, theatrical productions and historical exhibitions.

In 2011 the fashion designer John Galliano was tried in France for violation of some criminal code. I don't know the citation other than some vague reference in news articles to laws making the expression of antisemitic ideas illegal.

Just a note that this also cuts both ways— what about students for whom the flag of Israel represents their relatives being displaced and slaughtered?

or not even just students, people

I'll note that the University of Missouri decided this wasn't a Title VI violation :

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/mizzou-will-not-to-punish-student-over-viral-racist-comment-39258907

Ok yeah - injecting "what about Israel" - aren't you conflating things in just the way just discussed?

(xpost) or rather, under the first amendment. I'm not sure why there wasn't a Title VI complaint

table, I was responding to Josh's question about other countries.

Why the need to whatabout and "both ways" every single time - this is the antisemitism thread.

I thought we agreed that forcing Jewish people to discuss Israel every time they want to discuss other topics of antisemitism is kind of offensive.

https://aaup-penn.org/statement-of-the-aaup-penn-executive-committee-on-the-resignation-of-president-magill/

In recent months, trustees, donors, lobbying organizations, and members of Congress have repeatedly misrepresented the words and deeds of Penn faculty and students who have expressed concern for Palestinian civilians and criticized the war in Gaza, going so far as to suggest that faculty who have publicly condemned Hamas were Hamas supporters and that groups protesting genocide were calling for genocide. These distortions and attacks on our colleagues have not addressed the scourge of antisemitism—a real and grave problem. Instead, they have threatened the ability of faculty and students to research, teach, study, and publicly discuss the history, politics, and cultures of Israel and Palestine. These attacks strike at the heart of the mission of an educational institution: to foster open, critical, and rigorous research and teaching that can produce knowledge for the public good in a democratic society.

The ability of donors, lobbying groups, and members of Congress to destabilize the University of Pennsylvania reveals the need to restore a strong faculty voice in the governance of the institution. The next president must defend the principles of shared governance and academic freedom, which protect the educational mission of the university. And they must correct what has become a dangerous myth suggesting that the defense of academic freedom and open expression is in any way contradictory to the fight against antisemitism. We intend to see that Penn’s next president lives up to this responsibility.

Previous statements:

https://aaup-penn.org/statement-on-threats-to-academic-freedom-university-governance-and-safety-at-the-university-of-pennsylvania/ (10/28)

https://aaup-penn.org/aaup-penn-letter-on-targeted-harassment/ (11/20)

https://aaup-penn.org/urgent-message-mec-11-28-film-screening-and-further-threats-to-academic-freedom/ (11/28)

https://aaup-penn.org/aaup-penn-statement-on-dec-5-congressional-hearing/ (12/6)

felicity, I am merely responding to things mentioned in the thread around free speech, hateful rhetoric, and symbols.

I could have used a better example— there are plenty of people who live in the US who consider our flag a hate symbol, myself among them.

What I am trying to get at is that banning or bringing into the legal spectrum certain words, symbols, and bits of language that specific communities rightly find offensive and hateful is an ultimately difficult thing to do without privileging certain populations over others, which can lead to negative consequences for all involved.

Your own links say the AAUP agrees that Penn has not secured a safe campus for Palestinian, Arab, Jewish, or Muslim faculty or students.

In fact, as AAUP-Penn has documented, university policies have exhibited a pattern of discrimination against faculty and students—including Jewish members of our community—who have articulated criticisms of Israeli government policies or of the current war. While offering free, enhanced security to some Jewish institutions, faculty, and students on campus, the university administration has failed to defend the safety and academic freedom of faculty and students who have voiced concern for Palestinian civilians. These include Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim members of our community, Jewish students in Penn Chavurah, and faculty from other religious, national, and ethnic backgrounds.

I could have used a better example— there are plenty of people who live in the US who consider our flag a hate symbol, myself among them.

Sure, why don't you try that. The US national anthem is literally about bombs and rockets.

The more I've dug into UPenn, the more aghast I am, but about things that don't seem to have been a major issue this time. this Amy Wax person, for instance, who is in the law school who an outright white supremicist, who also invites Neo Nazi Jared Taylor to give guest lectures. She has not been fired. I'd rather Magill get shitcanned for allowing Wax to be on faculty though I guess she's provided some kind of union protection? Why isn't there a Title VI complaint about her?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/4/18/kiros-amy-wax/

Students saying 'intifada' seems like small potatoes compared to a law professor who keeps bringing a Nazi in to teach her classes.

Amy Wax seems abhorrent. Just can we not create these false either/or dichotomies.

There are a lot of lurid details on these campus probes - I think they are up to 15. Of course I am suspicious because they seem to be covered primarily by right wing media like NY Post and Fox. So I refrain from bringing them all up.

I'm not aware there aren't complaints about Wax. Someone would have to file it. The complainant might want to be anonymous because of retaliation.

I think that what some people are trying to say, felicity— and I mean this with respect— is that *we* aren't the ones who are creating these dichotomies. The institutions are, and these injustices are all linked, so bringing in other instances isn't meant as diminishment, I don't think, but rather trying to hold institutions accountable across the board. Whether this is the thread for that is up for debate, but again, that isn't for me to decide.

I think people might be confused about Magill's administrative role versus academic tenure. Removal as President does not mean she is "shitcanned." Mcgill still has tenure at the law school.

It sounds like there are complaints about Wax but response is slow. Some of the Title VI turnaround time from the federal government was 4+ years. Maybe they are moving faster now.

*we* aren't the ones who are creating these dichotomies.

That's fine if you mean a we= everyone.

Rather than a "we versus Jewish people," which is how it feels when you repeatedly shove "Israel slaughter" in the middle of other topics being discussed by Jewish posters.

If you could stop that, at least on the antisemitism thread, that would be great. If you want to start another thread or even board about the wider topic that would be great.

What's annoying too is people coming along and creating dichotomies or hierarchies of privilege and being like "who did this??!!" Super annoying especially to get lectures on privilege from white men. I thought you felt it was infantilizing to assign virtue based on identity, anyway.

yes I agree with table. I think university administrations should be held accountable for harassment that happens on their campuses if it crosses the threshold of acceptable behavior. I don't love administrators in education; I think they get paid too much to the detriment of professors and adjuncts. At the same time I don't envy their roles that much, given the accountability they have to face. I'm not crying over Magill losing this role specifically; I didn't go to UPenn, my kid isn't going there, and I only know one person who teaches there, but I am concerned that she's having to step down over a situation that seems less dire than the Amy Wax situation, frankly (though admittedly I also don't know how Wax's tenure and contract protects her).

I think it's important to differentiate clear offenses (someone telling a jewish student 'this is all your fault' or telling them they should be gassed) versus nebulous ones (the Palestine Writes festival, students and teachers saying "from the river to the sea"). If there is a preponderance of the former that went unaddressed, then she absolutely should have resigned, and the university better get specific about what violates the code of conduct or not. If they adopt the NY standard that Hochul wants--that calling for genocide violates Title VI--they'd better be clear what 'calling for genocide' means. If it means saying "from the river to the sea" then I think we are in dangerous waters (forgive the sea pun).

I personally don't feel I know enough about the facts to draw any ultimate conclusions. What I saw indicates a duty to investigate under the law.

The Wapo opinion piece from the person in UPenn's Open Expression Committee is clear that words like "intifada" and "from the river to the sea" are antisemitic calls for genocide, and need to be restricted. It makes me wonder if there are any pro-palestinian statements that can be made that would not be defined as antisemitic under these rules. The irony is that there is an actual genocide underway, which is why these statements are being made in the first place.

Notwithstanding my feeling about the term "intifada," I in no way support the witch hunt against these U. presidents

Prof. Finklestein's WaPo piece didnt refer to to any rules. It's her opinion.

I'd say your paraphrase misreads it a bit.

With or without the First Amendment, calls for genocide against Jews — or even proxies for such sentiments, such as calling for intifada against Jews or the elimination of Israel by chanting “from the river to the sea” — are, in the present context, calls for violence against a discrete ethnic or religious group. Such speech arguably incites violence, frequently inspires harassment of Jewish students and, without question, creates a hostile environment that can impair the equal educational opportunities of Jewish students.

While it sounds unreasonable to you reading about it online, I would give some deference to Prof. Finklestein being on Penn campus. She seems to have some insight into the coding of words and how they are taken as threatening or not, and to whom.

Man alive explained how this in understood with knowledge of the conflict. Do you feel the need to center your own perception over those who are arguably closer to the facts or more affected?

With another racial minority or sex would you say, well I'm not threatened by X, therefore X is not harassing?

We don't have to agree. I dont see it as a witch hunt against presidents. I have worked on civil rights cases. I want to see if there is harassment or discrimination.

xp to akm

Btw The Amy Wax situation has been going on since 2017. Magill became President in July 2022.

That's atrociously slow.

With another racial minority or sex would you say, well I'm not threatened by X, therefore X is not harassing?

I think it would depend on what X was. By this criteria, anyone could make up any situation, say it's threatening, and you'd have to take their word for it, which I don't think is a good thing to do.

I'm struggling to think of another real scenario where a statement is being interpreted as a proxy for a genocidal or even racist/bigoted belief and is making people uncomfortable enough that they they feel unsafe (i'm sure there are a million, but I can't think of any right now). The closest thing I can think of is the display of confederate flags. If a black student said they were made uncomfortable by this, obviously I wouldn't question it, because it's been thoroughly debated in culture, and confederate advocates have lost their argument that the flag stands primarily as a 'symbol of heritage' and not a proxy for a racist system.

For this particular issue, the reason I have a hard time believing that the statement 'from the river to the sea' MUST be accepted as a proxy for advocating genocide is that the Likud party uses essentially the same phrase.

such as calling for intifada against Jews or the elimination of Israel by chanting “from the river to the sea”

This is an abuse of language in incredibly bad faith.

it's also rich to argue that pro-palestinian student activists in the US are advocating for genocide with a phrase when Israel is actively perpetuating a genocide.

and to clarify: there are obviously many, many, many jewish people who do not to agree that 'from the river to the sea' is inherently antisemitic or genocidal. The only person I know who believes this is an elderly Finnish American woman who converted to judaism two years ago and who also tells me that Israel isn't an apartheid state, arabs are just 'lesser citizens' and that's ok.

Masha Gessen wrote this astonishing piece that covers territory as broad as Germany’s memory of the Holocaust, the notion of singular evil, the remembrance of ex-Soviet Jews, Ukraine and Russia and Poland, and how the past isn’t past. I went through after reading looking for a particular paragraph to share and maybe the conclusion is most fitting. It covers a lot of what we have discussed over these various threads. Maybe this thread isn’t the best place for it but it seemed to be to me.

The day I arrived in Kyiv, someone handed me a thick book. It was the first academic study of Stepan Bandera to be published in Ukraine. Bandera is a Ukrainian hero: he fought against the Soviet regime; dozens of monuments to him have appeared since the collapse of the U.S.S.R. He ended up in Germany after the Second World War, led a partisan movement from exile, and died after being poisoned by a K.G.B. agent, in 1959. Bandera was also a committed fascist, an ideologue who wanted to build a totalitarian regime. These facts are detailed in the book, which has sold about twelve hundred copies. (Many bookstores have refused to carry it.) Russia makes gleeful use of Ukraine’s Bandera cult as evidence that Ukraine is a Nazi state. Ukrainians mostly respond by whitewashing Bandera’s legacy. It is ever so hard for people to wrap their minds around the idea that someone could have been the enemy of your enemy and yet not a benevolent force. A victim and also a perpetrator. Or vice versa.

Yeah that is a great piece of writing and reporting. Clear-eyed and tragic.

I'm not finished reading this yet, so I'm just dropping the link:

How Bad Is Anti-Semitism In America, Really?

The author (Eric Levitz) offers seven points:

1. Antisemitism is a genuine social problem in the U.S. But the U.S. is nevertheless an exceptionally safe country for Jews.
2. Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.
3. Antisemitism is much more prevalent on the American right than on the American left.
4. That said, some of the more doctrinaire variants of social-justice ideology are problematic from a Jewish point of view.
5. Some strains of pro-Palestine activism in the U.S. betray anti-Jewish animus.
6. The existence of antisemitism within the pro-Palestine movement tells us nothing about the merits of the Palestinian cause.
7. Anti-Palestinian sentiment is a much bigger problem in America today than antisemitism.

That piece is kind of a mess.

That Gessen essay ends with three mighty paragraphs.

Like the New Yorker's recent hit piece on Hasan Minhaj I didn't think much of it.

Really? What did you object to? Not looking to argue, just curious. I thought it was pretty powerful.

That Gessen essay ends with three mighty paragraphs.

hard agreement.

Naomi Klein's Doppelganger ends with a very good examination of Palestine/Israel that much of the instant opinion/thinkpiece space doesn't have the room for. Big recommendation for the book - make room for it if you can.

Going to put a hold on that at the library asap.

felicity, I appreciate what you've said and I get you, my wife has been hurt and troubled by so much from both sides of the conflict, and a lot of that comes from the discourse and the dog whistles (both unintentional or clearly intentional) appearing within it. I suspect it's something she thinks about more than when she was younger, both bc of recent upticks in anti-semitism and due to us having a young kid.

Found a swastika on a desk in my classroom today. No way of knowing if it's a random swastika or one specifically directed at me.

Ugh. I often wish it wasn't so easy to be so hurtful.

Naomi Klein's Doppelganger

Started this the other day and have already recommended it to several people.

she sold me on it with her appearance on the Jewish Currents podcast - I'm telling everyone I know about it and hoping someone will buy it for me this year since I have no money atm

I'm really sorry to Lily and everyone else who is going through this shit right now. I don't think it has been this bad within my lifetime before. I hope saying that isn't contributing to a climate of fear but I doubt it's news to anyone

so sorry Lily :(

"random swastika" ugh. I'm sorry Lily

So sorry Lily.

Lily, that sucks. I’m so sorry.

Sorry Lily, that is terrible.

Horrific.

awful

I was mulling this more and I really, really do not want to see language that is meaningful to people taken away from them. I understand that "intifada" has a long history and many contexts. I even think it is kind of a beautiful word. I don't want to tell people never to use it. I care more about whether people are actually justifying murder of civilians than what word they use. If people want to say that, they can say it. I just hope that people really think through what they are ok with, what kind of carnage is acceptable to them to achieve their goals, which goes every bit as much if not more for supporters of Israel.

So very sorry, Lily

Absolute crap Lily; is this a higher ed institution or HS or lower? Any investigation or announcement from the administration?

The other night, somebody smashed up a large menorah by Oakland's Lake Merritt, and threw it in the lake. So last night they brought a new one, and a bunch of people were there, maybe a hundred or so, to watch the lighting. It was a very Bay Area crowd, a lot of people wearing keffiyeh scarves... the AG Rob Bonta spoke, and then they lit the menorah. It was a pretty cool scene all in all, I'm glad I went down.

At least there was a more or less happy ending.

This lawsuit just filed against Carnegie Mellon documents an alleged long campaign of anti-Semitism against a Jewish student:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24223185-canaan-v-carnegie-mellon

much of that is terrible, but again there are moments of conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism which obscures the very fucking real and scary incidents of the latter. Terrible that the student had to go through that.

(to be specific, the act of emailing the student articles from an explicitly anti-Zionist magazine is definitely anti-Semitic given the context, but that magazine is not anti-Semitic, it has published work by numerous Jewish scholars and architects, including numerous people who are close friends of mine)

A menorah was vandalised in Islington Green, less than a mile from my place but has been relit this evening.

And I don't think anybody had posted news or clips of that far right Polish politician that dramatically extinguished a menorah in their parliament.

The Oakland incident may or may not have been anti-semitic.. to be fair, there are crazy people who throw things in the lake all the time, including rental scooters and trash cans
But it's being investigated as a hate crime

I think the targeting of not really religious Jewish totems associated with a not really religious holiday really underscores the amount of latent anti-Semitism out there. It's like, people are generally so ignorant of Judaism and its customs that the menorah is probably about as far as they go. Of course, that could also be because it's pretty much the only public display of Judaism you see anywhere.

there are crazy people who throw things in the lake all the time, including rental scooters and trash cans

not to mention bodies

I deleted a mention of the Pole because I wasn’t sure which government building the menorah was in.

As to Islington, who would do such a thing? Horrible.

Lily I'm so sorry to learn about the swastika.

Belated to Lily - that's terrible.

This lawsuit just filed against Carnegie Mellon documents an alleged long campaign of anti-Semitism against a Jewish student:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24223185-canaan-v-carnegie-mellon

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, December 14, 2023 11:04 AM bookmarkflaglink

Horrific. That's classic harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. That this took place in the shadow of the Tree of Life massacre is beyond.

Really not understanding this urge to define people, magazines, etc. as instrinsically not "anti-Semitic" because of the inclusion of certain pieces of content. Surely it's the individual acts or statements complained of that matter.

people who are close friends of mine

Respectfully, if you are referring to Steven Salaita, what is the point of mentioning your being friends with him in view of these horrific allegations.

Pointing to other things mixed in there seems like a fetishization or tokenization of certain points of view. The "some of my best friends" argument.

And since when has professors making students read blogs or write blogs become an instrument of campus harassment. I've seen this elsewhere.

it would help if that complaint actually stated what articles were being sent to her (this is the site: https://thefunambulist.net, btw). There are lots of things on this site. That said, sending anything to her as a response was idiotic. I'm regularly surprised by how badly organizations handle serious complaints. Everything leading up to the sending of the article is bad enough.

Here's a strange irony -- the Funambulist featured, in 2018, a positive article about eruvs. Something I randomly found poking around the website.
https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/cartography-power/atlas-legal-fictions-jewish-eruv-piper-bernbaum

In fact, it notes

Although it is intended to facilitate Orthodox Jews specifically, it does not eliminate others from being part of the designated space. The consequence is an open, permeable boundary that establishes community, maintains tradition, and yet allows interaction with new environments and other cultures. It is both spatial and social in its existence, a true place of “mingling” between public and private, old and new, the traditional religious practices of one culture, and the modern urban fabric of contemporary cities.

Which only highlights the deep wrongheadedness and antisemitism of the professor who compared eruvs to the west bank wall and sent the student this website. But it's also hard for me to see the site as "anti-Jewish" from what I am reading.

Belated thanks for all the sympathy, everyone. It made me pretty depressed for about a day, but ultimately I've got 165 students and 164 of them didn't do it, and once I'd had a day with them to remind myself of that, I felt comfortable in my classroom again. It does make me worry about what's showing up in spaces the teachers don't see, though.

<3

Respectfully, if you are referring to Steven Salaita, what is the point of mentioning your being friends with him in view of these horrific allegations.

Pointing to other things mixed in there seems like a fetishization or tokenization of certain points of view. The "some of my best friends" argument.

Sorry for making assumptions. You are right that assumptions are not helpful.

My point was that it would be very nice if the focus could be on the horrific national origin and ethnic discrimination this plaintiff experienced at Carnegie Mellon. The buts seemed to minimize that and I was briefly annoyed.

By the way I didn't see any accusations that "people think they are antisemites" in reference to your specific friends.

My other point was that strawmanning that type of accusation and generalizing to groups is harmful and not useful. It can be used as a basis for showing that specific accusations are made in bad faith. I don't think that is what is happening with the plaintiff from CMU.

Don't know what to make of this weirdness:

The marketing materials for Anthony Hopkins latest feature film, a Holocaust biopic titled “One Life,” are set to be amended after controversy ensued over the lack of reference to Jews.

“One Life” tells the story of Nicholas Winton (played by Hopkins), better known as the British Oskar Schindler. Winton helped save the lives of over 600 children – the majority of them Jewish – from the Nazis during World War II.

But there has been disquiet over marketing for the movie after it was claimed Jews had been erased from the synopsis.

The furor started after British media retailer HMV tweeted about the film and referred to the children saved by Winton as “Central European” rather than Jewish. A number of independent cinemas also used the term “Central European” instead of “Jewish” while describing the film on their websites.

See-Saw Films, who produced “One Life,” and Warner Bros. Pictures., who are distributing it in the U.K., subsequently also came under fire for omitting the word “Jewish” from their marketing materials when describing the children saved by Winton, although they did not use “Central European.”

Warner Bros. in the U.K. declined to comment but Variety understands that following the criticism all Warner’s official marketing for the film will be amended to describe the children as “predominantly Jewish,” which reflects the fact that while most of the 600+ Czechoslovakian children were Jewish, a handful of them were non-Jewish political refugees.

I'm not surprised to hear about antisemitism in the UK film industry unfortunately but I am pretty surprised by this kind of soviet bloc style erasure

(I'm assuming the film itself isn't doing this? I hope not)

I really hope the marketing department just fucked this up somehow and it wasn't some kind of top down edict. either way it's baffling and troubling. especially if there are economic or political reasons why they made these choices and it wasn't just incompetence

A piece on the film itself.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/01/nicholas-winton-saved-my-father-from-the-nazis-heres-how-one-life-betrays-him

a handful of them were non-Jewish political refugees.

"100 or so" according to the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/04/one-life-marketing-materials-altered-following-jewish-backlash

Contains the bizarre wording

the film-makers, who were conscious that 100 or so of the children were political refugees rather than Jewish.

"Rather than"

Children being ethnically cleansed from Czechoslovakia because of Nazi persecution are not also political refugees, ok Guardian.

Well, the Jewish children were being persecuted simply for being Jewish, the non-Jewish children because of the political backgrounds of their parents, so it's a shorthand way of differentiating between them.

They had it right the first time. It's not hard to word this in a way which doesn't deny agency to the Jewish parents as well (who no doubt held some politically opposed views too). It sounded like the non-Jewish children were being given some sort of politics test.

Understandable why this kind of saviour narrative would irritate in the film as well.

I mean letting people emigrate from a war zone they want to leave is good, I wouldn't be alive without it.

This kind of awkward wording is more like just cluelessness or implicit bias from the fact the Jewish population is so comparatively low in the UK and Europe because of ... (Friday Night Dinner neighbor Jim voice) you know