Anti-semitism thread: onwards from 2023

https://jewishcurrents.org/anatomy-of-a-moral-panic

^ excellent article

https://i.redd.it/prkj8mig5iyc1.jpeg

This is apparently from US Santa Cruz. I don't think that it's inherently antisemitic, but I think it gets to the heart of a really problematic tension in this whole thing. Hillel is pretty much the center of mainstream Jewish life for non-Orthodox Jewish students at many college campuses (personally I never liked Hillel, but that was for other reasons and beside the point). It also happens to have ties to Israel, just as much of mainstream Jewish life does.

This has sometimes been portrayed as a "cynical" effort to "equate Zionism with Judaism" or to "brainwash" Jews. But I think that's an unfair characterization that avoids the complexity of it. I think these Jewish organizations have promoted Israel because they genuinely attach Israel to Jewish survival and Jewish self-determination. In fact I think even a lot of the most awful people in Israeli leadership feel that way. I mean otherwise it doesn't really make any sense - the purely "cynical" reasons to be Zionist don't seem that strong. Israel isn't a giant oil field or a strategically essential strip of land (at least I don't think it is today). I don't think anti-zionism is anti-semitism, but I think the reason some Jews experience it that way is that Israel is very much genuinely entangled with their sense of Judaism, Jewish identity, and liberation from generational trauma and persecution.

I don't really have an answer to this tension. I don't expect Palestinians or their advocates to accept the idea that liberation from Jewish trauma should have come at their expense. I just think that's what makes the anti-zionism vs anti-semitism issue very difficult. I would prefer that divestment efforts targeted things directly associated with the Israeli regime and Israeli military, even though I don't think the reasoning behind targeting Hillel is entirely crazy.

First sentence of the wikipedia article on 'Jewish population by country':

As of 2023, the world's core Jewish population (those identifying as Jews above all else) was estimated at 15.7 million, which is approximately 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population. Israel hosts the largest core Jewish population in the world with 7.2 million, followed by the United States with 6.3 million.

Seems like each one of those numbers and their relationship to one another carries enormous implications for understanding some of the complexities man alive has tried to convey.

Yes, exactly. and that 15.7 million is only roughly the level it was at pre-Holocaust. So it puts many Jews in somewhat of a difficult or uncomfortable position, caught between what might hit them in the gut as right/wrong vs what they have learned to believe is necessary for survival. I mean yes, there *is* a concerted propaganda effort to get Jews around the world to identify with Israel. But many of the Jews targeted by that propaganda also have familial connections to the Holocaust and/or pogroms. I don't so much because my family came to the US relatively early, but my wife does on both sides. In my small progressive Jewish synagogue discussion group on Israel recently, in which nearly everyone in the room was at a minimum pro-Cease Fire, if not outright anti-Zionist, several of the older people in the room of 20 mentioned their familial connections to the holocaust.

One of the things I have tried to confront over the years is this obsession with survival, which I have internalized somewhat, and how it dominates thinking. There's a clip I love in a documentary about Yeshayahu Leibowitz where the interviewer asks him "What can guarantee the survival of the Jewish people?" and he responds: "Nothing."

On some level IDK why I even bother continuing to press these ideas. It feels a little like a lost cause at times. It is hard sometimes to see Zionism demonized, but it also feels like the absolute worst aspects of Zionism are the ones that are winning, so it's a strange place to devote my energy, making this kind of partial defense. I still prefer "post-zionist" to "anti-zionist" for myself only because of the historical background.

Asking to ban this group because of its political ideology is dangerous waters IMO. Obviously campuses should ban outright racist organizations, but Hillel does not strike me as that. I suppose it’s curious though that they will not extend membership to Jews who describe themselves as anti Zionist.

Things get dicier if the university is public.

Xp is that a national Hillel policy or a local
One? Wasn’t aware of that.

Thanks for those posts man alive. I won’t speak for them, but a few good friends have gotten at some of these tensions in talking about how they turned away from Zionism not as a means of rejecting Israel— some are dual citizens, even— but as becoming more in touch with how their faith cannot be defined or encompassed within what is essentially an ideological apparatus that was, at one time not too long ago, “on the fringes,” so to speak.

Xp is that a national Hillel policy or a local

I do not know. I only know what I've seen other jewish people saying on Bluesky (Helen Rosner from the New Yorker, for instance, who posted the following):

http://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did%3Aplc%3Afkpg2nmdux5jxsykgsicpjkq/bafkreic6ba4wd4osjrxmhofr2ebvj3on7fdid46iz7fyqz5y6lccaxbgde@jpeg

which I realize looking at this does not support her contention, and she got a bunch of pushback on it then didn't answer when asked if she was ever in Hillel.

Not understanding how the first point isn’t just incorrect but also an incitement

Being a Jewish AND Democratic state is not possible without continual ethnic cleansing

^ ^ ^

I didn't get a chance to watch this, but the superintendent of our school district was involved in this today; from what I read she handled herself well, though maybe not as well as the NYC superintendent. These people seem better able to handle this horseshit than the presidents of Ivy League colleges.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/us/antisemitism-hearing-schools/index.html

Being a Jewish AND Democratic state is not possible without continual ethnic cleansing

yes

Show your work.

Where I am coming from here is that there was a history of ethnic cleansing in Christian countries of Europe… and for the most part, they are not doing anything like this anymore…

I'm persuadable either way here as its not an opinion I hold with strong conviction but what is it that makes Israel not a democracy? I realize this things are on something of a sliding scale with a lot of hybrid regimes out there too but don't know what it is that would push it out of the category entirely

inclined to agree with table here tbh. Any country where there's a state religion and/or explicitly priveleged ethnic class... the track record is not good. With Israel being created with this *specific* goal, is it really any surprise things turned out the way they did.

Basically if Germany got to remain a country after what they did….

inclined to agree with table here tbh. Any country where there's a state religion and/or explicitly priveleged ethnic class... the track record is not good. With Israel being created with this *specific* goal, is it really any surprise things turned out the way they did.

Most countries were founded with an explicitly privileged ethnic class! That is historically the rationale for creating a state (country)… I feel like the recency of Israel’s creation is a key factor

In my reading the demand for Israel to remain "a Jewish nation" means that Jews will always be in control of the government. If Israel has a Democracy and the non-Jewish population continues to grow at current rate they will eventually be able to command political power. Which is why Israel has to remove non-Jews from the voting population by one means or another.

How many of European states in question are still de jure "Christian" in the laws being written and enforced?

Is reactionary hostility to refugees and immigration (or the mainstreamed Islamophobia of a state like France) not a modern version of the ideology that lead to ethnic cleansing in the past?

many of the

How many of European states in question are still de jure "Christian" in the laws being written and enforced?

Is reactionary hostility to refugees and immigration (or the mainstreamed Islamophobia of a state like France) not a modern version of the ideology that lead to ethnic cleansing in the past?

Which is why Israel has to remove non-Jews from the voting population by one means or another.

In what ways are they doing this? I'm not overtly familiar with what happens within Israel so I'm not arguing against necessarily

occupying gaza and the west bank without integrating them fully into israeli government and society, leaving a huge percentage of the muslim population without voting rights or self-determination

because the Palestinian residents of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem cannot attain Israeli citizenship and thus can't vote in Israeli elections

I guess my hope is that a two state solution is possible with everyone having rights and dignity and this will be like the 21st century equivalent of Alsace-Lorraine. I totally accept that this could be magical thinking

But isn't that the case when any country occupies somewhere else? That seems a function of invasion/occupation rather than democracy within the country itself. The US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq but we didn't say it made the US less of a democracy. Any democracy in a country is surely always confined to its own borders and not to places it invades and occupies

Basically if Germany got to remain a country after what they did….

They didn't though, they were split in two for 41 years.

But isn't that the case when any country occupies somewhere else? That seems a function of invasion/occupation rather than democracy within the country itself. The US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq but we didn't say it made the US less of a democracy. Any democracy in a country is surely always confined to its own borders and not to places it invades and occupies

so there's these people called settlers

anvil: all the Israelis who live in the Occupied Territories have voting rights, just the Palestinians do not. This is part of why Israel is described as an apartheid state

(xp)

you might find this useful: https://www.972mag.com/gets-vote-israels-democracy-2019/

Pretty sure the Iraqis were not kicked out of their on what is now American territory

of their homes

this is probably not the right thread for this discussion but this is a good piece on the inaccess to democratic representation among Palestinians of East Jerusalem: https://www.jerusalemstory.com/en/article/who-represents-palestinians-jerusalem

Israel is a democracy, but so were apartheid South Africa and the US during Jim Crow. Also, the occupation is coming up on 60 years now. Military invasions don't usually last that long these days, but I'm sure once Israel accomplishes the objectives of the Six-Day War they'll be ending the occupation any minute now

The US invaded Afghanistan and Iraq but we didn't say it made the US less of a democracy. Any democracy in a country is surely always confined to its own borders and not to places it invades and occupies

That is a horrible example given that the US actually has colonies (and a mainland district!) without complete representation in the federal government and limited self-government. DC and Puerto Rico (among others) do make the US 'less of a democracy' than it could and should be.

the problem is considering democracy a binary state

I should clarify as it may not have come across properly but I'm opposed to both invasions and occupations, this isn't to defend Israel.

I understand about the settlers, we see a similar dynamic in Crimea too, but I think democratic rights are usually categorised about what is within a countries actual borders not when they're invading someone else's. The problem is the invading and the occupying, which is bad.

Lots of countries allow citizens living outside their borders to vote, but plenty don't allow that. We don't factor that into whether we consider a country democratic or not though

the problem is considering democracy a binary state

is this true? I think its fairly well established there are lots of what might be classified as hybrid regimes, Turkey, Hungary, possibly the US

Maybe the difference you’re not seeing is that Gaza is not just a country that Israel is occupying but the result of an ethnic cleansing

Like the Palestinians should be where Israel is

democracy feels like a red herring here since there are no real democracies at the level of the state at best there are more and less democratic tendencies. it's not binary but if we want to consider bourgeois democracies with partial voting rights for bourgeois parties democratic it doesn't mean very much

re: ethnic cleansing in christian europe it's still happening constantly both directly and as outsourced to africa, the middle east, the ocean...

also germany has no right to exist and should have been abolished long ago