Anti-Jewish violence is, of course, anti-Semitic
Jill Jacobs a Conservative Jewish spiritual leader, is the executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.
She’s tweeted that she(a) blames “long-term tensions” for anti-Semitic attacks on Jews in Broklyn; (b) these “horrible attacks” do not easily fit into “left-right category”; and (c) that all this is not “parallel to white nationalists whose beliefs are based on anti-Semitism.”
Jacobs is looking in only one direction — to the far-out extremist right — and is not particularly worried about blacks and Muslims knocking head coverings off Jews, punching them as they walk to and from synagogue, breaking their windows and such.
What are “long-term tensions”? Is she alluding to claims of economic oppression of African-Americans? Is she sympathetically channeling charges of assumed white privilege by Jews — the latest left-wing formulation of anti-Semitism which, of course, is then transferred to the Israel-Palestine issue. Arabs, it is presented, are of color; Israelis are white (don’t ask about Iraqis, Yemenites of Ethiopians); and Zionism, therefore, is a form of oppression that justifies revolutionary violence.
But Jacobs takes it one step more. Eli Steinberg, writing in the Forward, pointed out that Jacobs approvingly quoted Mark Asher Goodman, also a Conservative spiritual leader, who seemingly disparaged Chassidim in writing
“We are a sacred moral community. Our Torah is a book of actions, not a rallying point for mumbling in an ancient tongue while wearing the garb of our grandfathers and gathering for a shtickle of herring afterwards.”
There is a shared and even at times coordinated theme that runs through the Jewish progressive left. The Jewish Worker tweeted, in protection of Eli Valley, that “American Jewish leaders, to all of our disgust, dismay and trepidation, sure seem to be” in cahoots with Nazis. Valley’s “artwork” was denounced by the ADL as bigoted, stereotyping Jews as blood-sucking monsters drivel. Some on the left believe that Jews somehow deserve to reap the hatred of long-term tensions. As they push material that if not outright anti-Semitic is nevertheless clearly understood as such, they are dabbling in danger to the Jewish community as a whole.
Even worse is the in-step phenomenon of how liberal media outlets highlight marginal minority Jewish voices as if “representative” of the community. First, the journalist is fed information by extremist left-wing Jews, which is then published. The source then quotes that news item to give it coverage and then the journalist reintegrates that fully unrepresentative view as the true reflection of Jews. And the spiral continues.
The Washington Post, it appears, has published within the span of just a few days, two op-eds and a report, all one-sided against the Trump executive order. The New York Times acted similarly, overloading in favor of one point of view.
Jacobs seems to be delving into hair-splitting definitions in order to keep the focus primarily on only one source of anti-Semitism. That not only is wrong, unhelpful and immoral, it is not being Jewish. And she appears to extend that to her main area of professionalism as T’ruah’s director: undoing Israel’s “occupation.”
For example, she published in the Washington Post last May that while she personally does “not support boycotting Israel, partly because so much of the movement is rife with anti-Semitic undertones,” nevertheless, to her mind, “one may even boycott Israel without stepping into anti-Semitism if it’s clear that the tactic aims to pressure Israel to change its policies.”
She knows that distinction not only is too subtle for anti-Semitic anti-Zionists, but that the Palestinian sovereignty movement she supports rarely, if at all, troubles itself to make that distinction in their propaganda or in their shouts of “from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” — the result of which would be Israel’s obliteration, not to mention Jewish deaths.
Therein lies the worse of her culpability. She downplays or reduces the potency of Islam-generated pro-Palestinian promoted anti-Jewish actions and pronouncements so that her main goal, which is not local Jewish safety, is protected: that is, vilifying and pressuring Israel enough so that it surrenders its national legacy of the Land of Israel. She sacrifices Jews in America for Arabs in a preferred Palestine.
Jacobs is, to my mind, providing anti-Semitism with a cover that purposefully and disingenuously awards it a worth, enough that it should even be forgiven due to the “sins” of Israel. And portraying those who seek to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitism on campus, like the Trump excutuve order does, as themselves anti-Semites, by tweeting. “Don’t fight antisemitism with anti-Semitism.” are not only irrational, but seeking the injury of Jews. They have failed the “sanity test.”
I repeat, doing that is not only wrong and immoral, it is not being Jewish.
Yisrael Medad is an American-born Israeli journalist and political commentator.
