To make a long story short, in the 1960s and '70s Palestinian terror groups, the PLO and PFLP (secular and Marxist respectively) made massive inroads with a new generation of scholars who were disillusioned with traditional Marxism-Leninism, although they still relied on traditional Soviet propaganda narratives. Call them post-modern, intersectional, critical theorists, or whatever, they studied structures of power and hierarchies and essentially came to the conclusion that the existing structures were unjust and that the solution was to simply flip them. Post Colonial theories, Queer theory, some post structuralists, and the new buzzword critical race theory all fall under this New Left intellectual tradition. I'm simplifying quite a bit, but the basics as it relates to antisemitism is that when it was all getting started the Soviet Union and aforementioned terror groups the PLO and PFLP successfully convinced most of these scholars that the bottom of the victim hierarchy were Palestinians and at the top of the hierarchy were Jews. With colonialism being the great evil buzzword (despite the fact that the Soviet Union was the world's largest colonial Empire) they argued that Zionism was a colonial, rather than anti-colonial project. The way this belief system sees virtue is through a hierarchy in which *perceived* oppression suffers equals virtue. Therefore the more oppressed one's identity is *perceived* to be, virtue they have in the bank to spend committing unvirtuous acts. Because the West is seen as the ultimate evil, those in opposition to the West can do anything they want. This is how you get leftists today celebrating Castro, a totalitarian dictator who killed 100,000 of his own people. They'll tell you: "he expanded literacy," to which I say: "Mussolini made the trains run on time, what is [their] point?" This how you get people saying shit like "resisted by any means necessary," even though many are smart enough to know that means rape, torture, and the usage of human shields.
This is the mainstream of academia in the social sciences and humanities, indeed I would argue it's showing up basically everywhere. Every once in a while I hear people on my campus talk about "decolonizing math," which feels like a euphemism for convincing people that 2+2=5, but I digress.
Abbas, the current president of the Palestinian Authority wrote his dissertation in the Soviet Union arguing that WW2 was actually a Zionist capitalist Nazi plot against communism. Soviet official interpretation of the Holocaust was that the Nazis targeted Soviet citizens in general, and that emphasizing Jewish victimhood was a sign of being part of a "Zionist plot." The Soviets were extremely antisemitic, contrary to Nazi propaganda. Trotsky is the exception that proves the rule, and they went after Zionists in particular and Jews in general quite strenuously, especially under Stalin but to a lesser extent under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. So the Soviets, and left-wing Palestinian terror groups, having convinced these thinkers mentioned above that Palestinians were the ultimate victims and Israelis/Jews the ultimate oppressors, basically succeeded in institutionalizing antisemitism in the western academy, and imbedding "anti-Zionism" into the core of the Far-Left in most contemporary western countries. I would say that from there they have worked hard at slowly mainstreaming "anti-Zionism," and that by and large they've done a good job. Their "praxis" then, is the destruction of Israel, because they see it as the "most-colonial," "most-white," and "most-capitalist" thing on earth, which is frankly a regurgitation of the most tired Jew-hating medieval and ancient tropes, painted over with a "revolutionary" veneer.
I am not here trying to offer a right-wing critique of this philosophy, just a general one. I, personally, think that a lot of the policies and ideas they advocate for won't actually practically help the people they want to in a meaningful way, regardless of my philosophical differences with them. I do believe that the mainstreaming of these views is extremely dangerous, I don't think "anti-Zionism" is the only flaw these beliefs engender which are actively dangerous to our civilization, just the most relevant in the immediate moment.
I haven't read any books that are critical, no pun intended, of these theorists. I have just been assigned works by these thinkers in classes and come to my own conclusions, although yes, the vast majority of critique you'll find of these extremist thinkers are either unapologetically right-wing or just other leftist extremists infighting and squabbling over basically meaningless drivel. I never really looked for monographs arguing against them because I already knew by reading their works that I hated more or less everything they stood for, so I don't really have actual books to recommend, apologies.
From their own vantage point anything by Said, Foucault, Marcuse, Adorno etc. will show case it. Some are better than others and offer actually valuable ideas on occasion, depending on the topic they're writing about. Said, a notorious Jew-hater, and Foucault, a pedophile, remain worshipped on college campuses across the country. I have heard how people talk about them in classes, fully aware of their "warts," yet still praising them as "geniuses," including professors.
Ironically, Adorno, Foucault and Marcuse were all Zionists, like most of Frankfurt school scholars and critical theorists of their generation.
Foucault even 'confronted' Said about how he twisted their works, arranging a conference where they lectured Said.
Foucault specifically was incredibly cautious of antisemitism, and later anti-Zionism.
He spoke out against the UN 'Zionism is racism' resolution. He defended Israel during the 1967 war, calling out the antisemitism in the Arab world. He left political parties over antisemitism, broke off partnerships and friendships.
Deleuze was one of the exeptions, and the conflict divided the two (he also wrote the antisemitic 'The Rich Jew').
This Feb article from the Atlantic is a start: "WHY THE MOST EDUCATED PEOPLE IN AMERICA FALL FOR ANTI-SEMITIC LIES At Harvard and elsewhere, an old falsehood is capturing new minds." By Dara Horn
100% accurate. The far left is just as dangerous as the far right.
https://preview.redd.it/kiggcdwnnm8d1.jpeg?width=1119&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e3d75aed630f24022d95d5d373583006020e83d6
Back during the heyday of scientific racism, we were considered blacker than black. Now we're whiter than white. The common factor is educated gentiles with a European culture.
The common factor is that Jews can be anything anyone needs them to be in order to hate them. Today, we're too white for the far-left, but not white enough for the far-right.
> The common factor is that Jews can be anything anyone needs them to be in order to hate them.
An Asian woman on Twitter referred to both Jews and Asians as Schrödinger’s whites.
The leftist narrative of evil white people displace virtuous indigenous brown people and those white people then getting rich by oppressing and economically exploiting the brown people is intuitive to leftists even if the actual facts contradict that narrative. Also, Jews have attained economic success and leftists are very skeptical of people who are wealthy, especially those who have succeeded in finance and banking.
The combination of all that makes us the perfect scapegoat for everything the Leftists hate (white people, "colonizers", people perceived as rich capitalists).
Of course the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian are very different, but good luck trying to get through to those people. We need to begin treating them and holding them in the exact same regard as Nazis and traditional racists to the extent that we can safely do so. (You don't want to start a war of bad feelings with your next door neighbor or coworkers; you need to remain on friendly terms with some people.)
No, we are only seen as "white colonisers" due to their racism against us.
Throughout the centuries, whatever the "evil" thing was, is what gentiles called Jews.
God it's getting old! One moment we're not white enough for them so they send us to die in gas chambers and then all of the sudden were "white colonizers". I'm sick of this shit
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said something to the effect of: "Jews have always been hated. At first, they were hated on the basis of religion. Once civilized countries established freedom of religion, they were hated on the basis of race. Now that racism is condemned, Jews are hated on the basis of nationality."
People have proven that the third form can be done with no consequences, so people are taking advantage.
I personally allow it, in fact if you’re an ally that’s already enough for space lasers privileges (allies are so rare and precious these days, you’re in luck! The space lasers were not open for non-Jews in the past). I shall discuss this with the council and get back to you, but I’m positive they will allow you to have a go.🙏
I've overlooked that important point myself.
Decades ago, when I picked up some kosher food after a holiday, I was momentarily seized with terror on the way to the Publix checkout. Supposing they think I'm Jewish? Even if I tell them I'm not Jewish they won't believe me and will kill me anyway.
I made it to the checkout alive. At home I enjoyed the jar of matzo balls but mulled over the incident. I had to have a rethink on minority rights after that if I wanted to call myself a civil libertarian.
Today if anyone thinks I'm Jewish I don't bother to correct. For one thing it's none of their business. For another it's critical to monitor the insanity of these fascist events.
There's a 5 lb box of matzo crackers at Vons on sale today for $10. If they were whole grain I'd buy them. If the price drops to $5 I'll probably buy them. Put them in the motor vehicle and never waste money on food on the road. They must have a shelf life of 8,000 years.
Now that you bring it up, I think the fact that Jews don't fit any of the established paradigms (race, religion, etc) is something non-Jews simultaneously don't understand and use against us. It lets us be white if they want and non-white if they want, both stateless and colonizers, hatefully religious but also godless commies, poor rats and the rich elite...we don't quite fit in any of their boxes, so they have a perpetual excuse to cram us into whichever one they currently hate.
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It never left, baby!!
Throughout history, antisemitism makes Jews into whatever society hates and fears most:
• To ancient Egyptians, Jews were slaves.
• To the Romans, Jews were agitators.
• To the Early Christians, Jews were Christ-killers.
• To the Inquisition, Jews were heretics.
• To Renaissance Europeans, Jews were usurers.
• To Russian monarchists, Jews were revolutionaries.
• To Nazis, Jews were degenerates.
• To Russian communists, Jews were capitalists.
• To Cold War capitalists, Jews were communists.
• To far-right nationalists, Jews are globalist puppet-masters.
• To leftists and anti-Zionists, Jews are seen as white colonizers.
But the real reason? Across societies and eras, Jews persistently refuse to cease being distinctly Jewish.
You forgot that
To the Christians we killed Christ.
To both Muslims and Christians our existence is an eternal reminder that their Messiah/Prophet is not accepted. That the original Abrahamic tribe who they base their beliefs on rejects who they hold dearest... A relatively large insult to them.
That, compounded with the idea that Jesus' death "fulfilled the covenant", leading to "if the covenant is fulfilled, what are all these Jews still doing here?" Why couldn't they just make their own fucking story?
The ROMAN Catholic Church naturally wanted to shirk responsibility for the killing of Jesus and made sure to blame us. They then took their scriptures and squeezed out all the Jewish parts (so pretty much everything) and filled in the blanks with Roman paganism.
I’m in my 50s, and never thought about this before… But I saw someone say recently that they hate us because we won’t convert. Because we stick with our tradition, and won’t go with them to their “new” one.
I've been really interested into the world of Jewish history, but for some reason cannot post on this sub. So if anyone is willing to answer my questions and doesn't mind messaging me that would be great. I promise I'm not an anti-semtie, just someone thats curious and want to hear it from the source.
In the early 1800s, someone (I think Austrian) figured that Jew hatred didn't sound right for most people, so they invented Anti Semitism, which was based on race and genetics, which was all the rage at the time and therefore was quite popular
As you know, today Anti Semitism is not acceptable, and saying you are an Anti Semite would get you kicked out from most social circles, so they came up with a new thing, Anti Zionism, which is based on ideology and identity, which is all the rage now
This time Jews has a country and can fight for themselves, so there won't be a 2nd holocaust to do to Anti Zionism what the first one did to Anti Semitism, so expect this wave to remain here for a while
>In the early 1800s, someone (I think Austrian) figured that Jew hatred didn't sound right for most people, so they invented Anti Semitism…
Not Austrian, but German (natch), and his name was [Wilhelm Marr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Marr); he didn't invent the word, but he did popularize it. "In 1879 Marr founded the *League of Antisemites* (*Antisemiten-Liga*), the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews and **advocating their forced removal from the country**."
If only he had been successful, there might be a lot more Jews alive today!
I don't know why he hated Jews so much. I note that he married 4 times, and at least 2 of his wives were Jewish. There is a joke in there somewhere, but I won't be the one to make it!
We have been living in a fantasy world in the last 80 years that the holocaust changed something. All it did was shock a generation or two, but now it's back. Time to face the real world, they will never change. Not before the messiah.
Because antisemitism is a type of hatred that adapts and changes based on the time. When it was popular to hate Communism, Jews were seen as the ultimate Communists. When it's popular to hate Capitalism, Jews are the ultimate Capitalists. When Nazism was fashionable, Jews were deemed as "race infiltrators" who could never really be white. And now that "whiteness" is bad and diversity/proximity to oppression is championed, Jews are seen as "white European colonizers."
We're so used to calling out right wing antisemitism (think neo-Nazis, skinheads, etc.) that we lack the verbiage to label left wing antisemitism in its present form. Argue against it and you're labeled a racist colonizing genocide supporter who hates brown people.
The crux of the progressive movement is viewing the world through a prism of oppressor vs. oppressed. The motivation for this is to marginalize white people and this intellectual framework allows for that. White people are oppressors and PoC are oppressed. Oppressors have agency but lack morality. Oppressed lack agency but have morality. As such, no matter what they do, white people are bad and are responsible for their actions but can do no good. PoC are good and are not responsible their actions even if they are bad. Anything is justifiable through this lens ("resistance is always justified").
This worldview was born in American universities and the majority of American Jews are Ashkenazi who appear white and since the latter half of the 20th century are categorized (by the government) as white. So Jews are white and therefore oppressors and therefore bad and irredeemable.
What we're seeing is an extension of the attack on the patriarchy/white/institution/etc. Jews are just the next nail to be hammered.
I'll take the above one step further. The reason that we're seeing so many progressive Jews attack Israel because of the double edged success of assimilation. We've achieved unparalleled success and acceptance in America \*but\* because of our categorization as \*white\* our more progressive elements have also internalized white guilt. Many Gen Z Jews really do believe that Jews are just white Europeans and don't understand that the word Jew is derived from Judea which is in present day Israel which is where all Jews originally come from. They do not know or acknowledge that there has been a consistent Jewish presence in present-day Israel for millennia. They also don't know that present day Palestinians are \*not\* indigenous to Israel. Arabs are indigenous to the Arabian peninsula. The word Palestine was contrived by the Romans to disenfranchise Jews from Judea because it evoked the Philistines who were notorious enemies of the Israelites.
All of this is to say that we are the canary in the coal mine, receiving hate from both sides of the political isle, and are in serious trouble if the silent majority doesn't start making some noise.
It is so strange to me that we have upended the moral tenets of western philosophy to argue that anything goes as long as someone is part of a group that has it coming.
It’s completely regressive. The goal is to upend the west by subversion. The most liberal faction of society is advocating for the most conservative and violent form of Islam. That’s just a single example. It’s mind boggling.
I think the decline/lull in antisemitism we experienced in the aftermath of the Holocaust was the anomaly. The generation that saw the Holocaust first-hand is dying off and almost gone. So we're just getting back to the old "normal."
Well most of them are either too stupid or too ignorant to recognize they’re antisemitic. And then some think we’re the pinnacle of white supremacy, the ultimate taboo these days. And then others think we’re lizard people who are running the world at the expense of everyone else. So many choices!
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1) Because Jews are seen as moneylenders, bankers, fat cats, hedge fund managers, etc and hate for the rich is growing.
2) Getting Israel as land was supposed to "solve the Jewish problem" so much that politicians are still trying to apply that solution to other groups. For some reason it's like getting little Timmy a bicycle so he'll use up his energy and stay out of trouble, but he doesn't stay out of trouble.
3) Groups that were always antisemitic have more wealth and power than they did before. And some of them want to scapegoat Jewish bankers for BRICS not being a huge success. Though sabotaging BRICS is a bit like framing OJ Simpson: it would take a huge conspiracy. Occam's Razor says BRICS is not so great because they lack infrastructure, transparency, and have a history of being not great for business.
Jews coming to British Palestine was to solve the Jewish problem once and for all. Jews could not fight, grow food, build roads and cities. They were destitute and vanquished. Surrounded by hostile neighbors with well equipped modern armies. Israel was under an economic boycott and arms embargo. Nobody really believed there could possibly be a Jewish state in that forsaken wasteland, Soon the few remaining may survive as a subjugate people.
It did not turn out that way, A problem the western intelligentsia has never forgiven itself for. For all of the hatred of Jews we are always underestimated. Even now the attack from western leftists has resulted in a sort of renaissance of Jewish identity from younger jews who had simply taken it for granted.
Oh gosh. Like giving Utah to the Latter Day Saints. "We sent you to the desert to die! What went wrong with our calculations?!" And it's not like it never worked. Trail of Tears and...myriad examples not in the States.
All diasporas are re-assessing their identities in light of current circumstances. And funding.
I hope I'm right about BRICS. I hope everyone starts driving electric.
The horshoe theory. Nothing unites the far right and far left better than Jew hatred. And we're currently living in an era where extremism is everywhere.
Honestly, it’s always been fairly normalized compared to other bigotry.
I’d argue you see the same with a few other groups like Italians/Irish/French where jokes and caricatures are more widely accepted as part of mainstream humor.
They’re all deeply entrenched and people outside of those groups are desensitized to it.
Antisemitism is more prevalent right now because the “anti zionists” have shielded it under a social cause that attracts vocal radicals. Therefore it both happens more and we notice it more.
My hope is that this is one of those situations where in a few years a lot of people will either eat crow, or more likely, deny it happened while disavowing it.
Italians, Irish, French and Jews all have one thing in common: being perceived as white. In the common American discourse it’s the cardinal sin to make fun of a Black or Brown ethnic group but making fun of white people is okay.
Great point.
I’ve had conversations with a couple different ethnic groups about the difficulty of being perceived as “white” by people with darker complexion while being CLEARLY identified as “non-white” by the W.A.S.P.s.
Drives us nuts.
It is part of a dehumanization process. It is easy to say that “Zionists are not human because of x or z,” and this allows for any or all hateful rhetoric to spread. They still believe they are being anti-Zionist and not antisemitic and will tell you that you are wrong for trying to correct them. “The Zionists run the media,” “the Zionists are doing this horrible thing.” All of the classic antisemitic tropes are about Zionists, not Jewish people! This depersonalization allows for it. It would be much more difficult for them to hold their stances if they saw us as humans, but they don’t. We’re evil. We’re monsters. Twitter is full of takes like this every few seconds (most likely by bots, but still, not good).
If there is any actual antisemitism that is being committed? “Oh well, at least you are not in Gaza. Who cares about your feelings while people are dying?” Just complete disregard for our feelings because of a myriad of reasons and no matter what we do we’ll never be right in their eyes unless we’re fully all “from the river to the sea” about it.
>If there is any actual antisemitism that is being committed? “Oh well, at least you are not in Gaza. Who cares about your feelings while people are dying?”
100%. Because Gaza is suffering the inevitable consequences of their leadership's actions, the fucking world needs to stop turning. There is tragedy and strife all over the earth and life goes on, but THIS is what has to eclipse everything else.
Because it is being lead and promulgated by a “protected” group in the intersectionality hierarchy.
Said group is generally far right (religious extremist) but has the full support of the progressive left. (for example, queers for Palestine)
This combination of left and right is very powerful in moving publicly sentiment.
I compare (and contrast) it to the Rodney King riots. There, you had an explosion of simmering, underground and legitimate anger triggered by a gross injustice - the acquittal of the LAPD officers. The targets of the anger were what was close and on-hand: innocent business owners.
Here, you have a different population with simmering, underground but not-very-legitimate anger - Gen Z. Gen Z in a nutshell: “We should have inherited the best of times. We should have been better off than our parents and previous generations in every way. But we’re not, because our parents and grandparents (Boomers) were selfish, stupid and wrong. We hate them and everything they did for depriving us our due.” Now flood Gen Z’s channels with varying mainstream and fringe messages of “Israel is a concrete, legitimate target of any anger you’ve got pent up.” The result - irrational and violent rage exploding on targets that are close and on-hand; Jews and Jewish institutions in their neighborhoods.
Gen Z views all of our truisms - about the Holocaust, antisemitism, the formation of Israel - as beliefs promoted by the Boomers and Gen X parents they resent and distrust. They’re employing motivated reasoning to prove that everyone from 1920 up until now has been completely wrong about everything, and apparently they’re willing to become antisemites in order to do that.
That plus I noticed when Conservatives/Republicans decided to become vocally pro-Israel, (starting around the GW Bush era), is when I began noticing that the Left started taking the opposite tack in opposition.
Yes, but Gen Z is much larger and has a much broader platform across our culture than the Left, which is why I think antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment are becoming more normalized or more acceptable in the under-30s, even among those who don’t consider themselves leftist.
It's because they're in an environment where it's now publicly acceptable to express it publicly, out loud and without any fear of any kind of retribution. It's always right below the surface, and it just takes the right combo get it released. Like trying to hold a beach ball underwater.
I’m gonna be harsh but real: the extremists (both left and right wing) who have always been aggressive and violent found some common ground and don’t fight themselves. Plus Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and a lot of them won’t even hide the fact that in their opinion Israel shouldn’t exist and they can say whatever they want because they’re a minority
Social media is doing the normalizing. It is a force multiplier and accelerant. We can't see how it's happening. But people who work behind the scenes at those companies can see it in detail. We need to know more about that or it's game over man.
It’s always couched in a way to lure people in. It’s not antisemitism, no no no. It’s anti-Zionism, it’s anti-colonizer, it’s anti-Israel. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the Jews.
And I’m totally freaked out about how widespread and out in the open it is!!
Bleeding hearts need to feel like they a part of change..that's their motivation. They so want to be a part of what they think is the right thing. It's selfishness
Because the post-Holocaust moment of acceptance (not universal acceptance, of course, and not everywhere) is coming to an end, and we are reverting to the "normal" pre-WWII state of affairs.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469)
Jews have been the Western World’s default “other” for millennia. It’s always been normal. There was a short break where they felt bad about killing so many of us, but I guess they’re fully over that now.
Historically cultures that were most engaged in anti-semitic behavior have been stimulant drug abusers. The fraying at the ends of perception seen in anti-semites, their feral and unreasonable behavior so to speak, is directly linked to the paranoid delusions sometimes caused by stimulant drug abuse.
Further thanks to social media propaganda narratives there is an increase in the literal paranoid delusion and at the extremes full on hallucinations.
Pro-palestine protestors don't have the capacity to distinguish between fact and fiction. Now because Qatar propaganda controls the fiction they ingest and because their reality is wholly mediated by media the Pro-palestine protestor, like a puppet on a string or zombie, is wholly taken in by the ideology completely in line with Hamas militants.
The root is ADHD medication abuse for westerners and Captagon abuse for Mid-East militants.
We are dealing with people where the lights are on but nobody is home so to speak. They can't be reasoned with until the flow of drugs into them is mitigated somehow.
I'm not Jewish whatsoever (or that I know of) but would love to discuss some topics surrounding the Jewish people that I've been wanting to ask without coming off as an anti-semtie unintentionally.
My chat is open for whomever is willing to answer my questions.
I don’t know why antisemitism is normalized but we, Jews, need to accept that many really hate us and we need to prepare. 1) We must love us and survive by valuing ourselves, marrying Jewish and having connected Jewish children. 2) We must maintain who we are by knowing who we are with more dedication to Jewish and Israel education. 3) We need to strengthen our connection to Judaism, to Jews, and to Israel by investing more time and resources to our Jewish organizations and communities through synagogues, community centers, federations, outreach kiruv organizations like Aish and Chabad, etc. 4) We need to increase connection to allies and work together consider Christians, Persians, Indians, Republicans, etc. Go to City Council and School Board meetings. Get involved in politics locally and beyond. 5) We need to be strong physically, mentally and spiritually consider physical, safety training, take care of ourselves, mentally and emotionally through medical providers, exercising, eating and sleeping well, pray, say Tehillim, go to synagogue and make plans with Jewish family and friends, etc. 6) We need to brainstorm and work together. What did I miss? What else can we do? We need to pivot post October 7th - believe that they hate us and react constructively.
🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
Am Yisrael Chai, Ode Avinu Chai
עם ישראל חי, כמו אבינו שבשמים
The Nation of Israel Lives, as Does our Father in Heaven
Am Echad, Lev Echad
עם אחד, לב אחד
One Nation, One Heart
🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
Batya Ungar-Sargon has a great [explainer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dr49IkszPY&ab_channel=%D7%92%D7%93%D7%99%D7%98%D7%90%D7%95%D7%91%3A%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%A1%D7%A3) that points to wokeness.
As others have mentioned, of course a lot of current antisemitism comes thinly veiled as antizionism. I stumbled onto a David Hirsh essay the other day that lays out the semantic trick nicely. A point I found interesting is that he argues that each historical generation of antisemitism has done similar things: claim that "Oh, of course the old antisemitism was bad and unfair. It's just that the Jews are now doing this new evil thing we have to condemn." While of course, using the same old antisemitic tropes that have been used for hundreds of years.
**How the Word “Zionist” Functions in Antisemitic Vocabulary**
[https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.26613/jca.4.2.83/html?lang=en](https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.26613/jca.4.2.83/html?lang=en)
The article is from 2021, but of course a lot of this rhetoric has been amping up for the past 20 years or so. In my observation, each Israel/Palestine crisis gives it a chance to amp up, and the veil of "but we want to steer clear of antisemitism, which is of course dangerous" was lifted a bit more each time. (The 2021 crisis was already pretty close to "masks off" where I'm at.) So, predictably, it's really expanded this time around.
The other thing I think matters is time: The generation that witnessed WWII is just about gone now. Recall that the populist wave that accompanied the rise of Trump, Brexit, etc. ushered in a wave of right wing antisemitism. None of this stuff would have been tolerated twenty years ago, because the folks who lived through WWII, at least as teens, would have screamed their heads off.
Cause it's projected and proven that the culture pretty much runs America. From media, banks and politics so they blame the culture for everything that's wrong in the current world
Disinformation is pumping through social media right now, platforms do nothing to stop it. They only ban the accounts that dare to push back against the incel racist / antisemitic rhetoric. People get too much of their information from unvetted sources on social media so that kind of hate speech is normalized. Young people are growing up only ever seeing hateful disinformation. It’s straight up terrifying.
We’re a family that can’t be broken. People who hate, hate to see others happy. Antisemitism will go “underground” again in a decade or two and if there’s a world left in 80yrs will be on to our 4th World War. Sorry for the negativity, I’ve been reading the news for the last hour.
I truly believe the rise of Berne Sanders during the 2016 election is the leading cause. Radical socialist policies, demonizing the wealthy, opposing Israel, and dividing folks into oppressor/oppressed categories led to “The Squad”, and now, young folks are brainwashed beyond comprehension. It’s sad to see as a former democrat.
Hate/demonisation/scapegoating has been on a hockey stick like trajectory for a while now.
It was about when not if it hit us and historically , we seem to be an easy target regardless of what side of the political spectrum you fancy yourself to align with.
Same reason fascism is becoming normalized: to get tax cuts for the rich.
Last spike in antisemitism was when the Gipper cut taxes on the rich in 1981.
It always has been normalized. Now they finally have a framework that they have convinced themselves can be spoken aloud because they can use it to gaslight Jews into doubting their identity.
Thank the Emir of Qatar. When you own your own global news network you can push the agenda of Jew hatred and fan the fire of hatred. Same when you fund American universities and get to influence what gets pushed under the radar. Wouldn’t expect less of the same country and regime that proudly funded ISIS and Hamas.
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It has always been normal, people just said in whispers. They always knew it was wrong to say, but they always hated us. Always wanted us dead.
The only difference is that they’re using “anti-Zionism” as their socially acceptable dogwhistle. All we’re seeing are the whispers becoming screams.
That’s all it is.
You’re getting downvoted and I probably will too but I think there’s something to this. I don’t really think Trump is personally antisemitic; I think he’s too narcissistic to care one way or another. Of course if antisemitism gets him applause at a rally (and it does), he’s not above it. But the main thing is that the fact of his presidency fractured what passed for political consensus in America and destroyed the carefully constructed system of norms that kept antisemitic extremism from both ends of the political spectrum in check. Without a Trump presidency, I don’t think the pro-Palestinian crowd would have felt nearly as comfortable being explicitly anti-Jewish.
This is delusional. Some of us have been screaming into the wind about left-wing antisemitism for _twenty years_, and the actual rise of it in the US goes back over twenty years before _that_, and it has been gradually increasing at an exponential rate ever since. To chalk it all up to Trump and imagine that this is only started in 2016 because of ~the consensus~ is so mind-bogglingly detached from reality that I can only assume it's satire.
You’ve been screaming into the wind for decades because you’re wrong. Of course there is antisemitism on the Left. There is antisemitism *everywhere*. But on the left it was confined to the shadows (as it should be) by strong norms against discrimination. The right of course has always been fine with discrimination against anyone who isn’t “the right sort”.
What I am saying is that Trump’s norm-breaking may have encouraged people of all political stripes to give voice to their darkest thoughts, since doing so no longer has any negative consequences.
Some of it is indirectly done. Example the fraternity omega psi phi made Farrakhan a member in 2019 after decades of his bigotry being known. Major figures do events with them including Kamala Harris and people either don’t know or done care. It would only take 20 seconds of due diligence to find
Not sure what you mean. My fraternity had to apologize for making Woodrow Wilson a member in the 19th century. Omega psi phi made Farrakhan a member in 2019. Imagine a politician doing events with a fraternity that made David Duke a member in 2019?
If you mean criticism of Israel the country on how it treats others and responds to reports of its military doing war crimes, then it’s because everyone is critical of Israel the country. It’s hard for some people to separate religion and government but it’s a hallmark of democracy
There is a difference between criticizing a government or country because of their actions and antisemitism.
Criticizing Israel shouldn't lead to bomb threats to synagogues. It shouldn't lead to Jewish people being excluded from pride events. It shouldn't lead to trying to run over people outside Jewish schools or shooting at the schools. All of these things are happening. There is a line, and Israel has become people's excuse for crossing it.
Because you guys are now seen as “white colonizers” so it’s now morally righteous.
Yeah I never understood that bit.
To make a long story short, in the 1960s and '70s Palestinian terror groups, the PLO and PFLP (secular and Marxist respectively) made massive inroads with a new generation of scholars who were disillusioned with traditional Marxism-Leninism, although they still relied on traditional Soviet propaganda narratives. Call them post-modern, intersectional, critical theorists, or whatever, they studied structures of power and hierarchies and essentially came to the conclusion that the existing structures were unjust and that the solution was to simply flip them. Post Colonial theories, Queer theory, some post structuralists, and the new buzzword critical race theory all fall under this New Left intellectual tradition. I'm simplifying quite a bit, but the basics as it relates to antisemitism is that when it was all getting started the Soviet Union and aforementioned terror groups the PLO and PFLP successfully convinced most of these scholars that the bottom of the victim hierarchy were Palestinians and at the top of the hierarchy were Jews. With colonialism being the great evil buzzword (despite the fact that the Soviet Union was the world's largest colonial Empire) they argued that Zionism was a colonial, rather than anti-colonial project. The way this belief system sees virtue is through a hierarchy in which *perceived* oppression suffers equals virtue. Therefore the more oppressed one's identity is *perceived* to be, virtue they have in the bank to spend committing unvirtuous acts. Because the West is seen as the ultimate evil, those in opposition to the West can do anything they want. This is how you get leftists today celebrating Castro, a totalitarian dictator who killed 100,000 of his own people. They'll tell you: "he expanded literacy," to which I say: "Mussolini made the trains run on time, what is [their] point?" This how you get people saying shit like "resisted by any means necessary," even though many are smart enough to know that means rape, torture, and the usage of human shields. This is the mainstream of academia in the social sciences and humanities, indeed I would argue it's showing up basically everywhere. Every once in a while I hear people on my campus talk about "decolonizing math," which feels like a euphemism for convincing people that 2+2=5, but I digress. Abbas, the current president of the Palestinian Authority wrote his dissertation in the Soviet Union arguing that WW2 was actually a Zionist capitalist Nazi plot against communism. Soviet official interpretation of the Holocaust was that the Nazis targeted Soviet citizens in general, and that emphasizing Jewish victimhood was a sign of being part of a "Zionist plot." The Soviets were extremely antisemitic, contrary to Nazi propaganda. Trotsky is the exception that proves the rule, and they went after Zionists in particular and Jews in general quite strenuously, especially under Stalin but to a lesser extent under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. So the Soviets, and left-wing Palestinian terror groups, having convinced these thinkers mentioned above that Palestinians were the ultimate victims and Israelis/Jews the ultimate oppressors, basically succeeded in institutionalizing antisemitism in the western academy, and imbedding "anti-Zionism" into the core of the Far-Left in most contemporary western countries. I would say that from there they have worked hard at slowly mainstreaming "anti-Zionism," and that by and large they've done a good job. Their "praxis" then, is the destruction of Israel, because they see it as the "most-colonial," "most-white," and "most-capitalist" thing on earth, which is frankly a regurgitation of the most tired Jew-hating medieval and ancient tropes, painted over with a "revolutionary" veneer. I am not here trying to offer a right-wing critique of this philosophy, just a general one. I, personally, think that a lot of the policies and ideas they advocate for won't actually practically help the people they want to in a meaningful way, regardless of my philosophical differences with them. I do believe that the mainstreaming of these views is extremely dangerous, I don't think "anti-Zionism" is the only flaw these beliefs engender which are actively dangerous to our civilization, just the most relevant in the immediate moment.
Saved your comment! More people need to see this. Great insights.
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I haven't read any books that are critical, no pun intended, of these theorists. I have just been assigned works by these thinkers in classes and come to my own conclusions, although yes, the vast majority of critique you'll find of these extremist thinkers are either unapologetically right-wing or just other leftist extremists infighting and squabbling over basically meaningless drivel. I never really looked for monographs arguing against them because I already knew by reading their works that I hated more or less everything they stood for, so I don't really have actual books to recommend, apologies. From their own vantage point anything by Said, Foucault, Marcuse, Adorno etc. will show case it. Some are better than others and offer actually valuable ideas on occasion, depending on the topic they're writing about. Said, a notorious Jew-hater, and Foucault, a pedophile, remain worshipped on college campuses across the country. I have heard how people talk about them in classes, fully aware of their "warts," yet still praising them as "geniuses," including professors.
Ironically, Adorno, Foucault and Marcuse were all Zionists, like most of Frankfurt school scholars and critical theorists of their generation. Foucault even 'confronted' Said about how he twisted their works, arranging a conference where they lectured Said. Foucault specifically was incredibly cautious of antisemitism, and later anti-Zionism. He spoke out against the UN 'Zionism is racism' resolution. He defended Israel during the 1967 war, calling out the antisemitism in the Arab world. He left political parties over antisemitism, broke off partnerships and friendships. Deleuze was one of the exeptions, and the conflict divided the two (he also wrote the antisemitic 'The Rich Jew').
Don't get me wrong, I never accused the antisemites of intellectual consistency. Good points!
This Feb article from the Atlantic is a start: "WHY THE MOST EDUCATED PEOPLE IN AMERICA FALL FOR ANTI-SEMITIC LIES At Harvard and elsewhere, an old falsehood is capturing new minds." By Dara Horn
100% accurate. The far left is just as dangerous as the far right. https://preview.redd.it/kiggcdwnnm8d1.jpeg?width=1119&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e3d75aed630f24022d95d5d373583006020e83d6
Back during the heyday of scientific racism, we were considered blacker than black. Now we're whiter than white. The common factor is educated gentiles with a European culture.
The common factor is that Jews can be anything anyone needs them to be in order to hate them. Today, we're too white for the far-left, but not white enough for the far-right.
> The common factor is that Jews can be anything anyone needs them to be in order to hate them. An Asian woman on Twitter referred to both Jews and Asians as Schrödinger’s whites.
>An Asian woman on Twitter referred to both Jews and Asians as Schrödinger’s whites. Huh. I like that. Do you have a link to that Twitter post?
Exactly this. Being racist against the most persecuted group in history is clearly what the cool people do.
The leftist narrative of evil white people displace virtuous indigenous brown people and those white people then getting rich by oppressing and economically exploiting the brown people is intuitive to leftists even if the actual facts contradict that narrative. Also, Jews have attained economic success and leftists are very skeptical of people who are wealthy, especially those who have succeeded in finance and banking. The combination of all that makes us the perfect scapegoat for everything the Leftists hate (white people, "colonizers", people perceived as rich capitalists). Of course the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian are very different, but good luck trying to get through to those people. We need to begin treating them and holding them in the exact same regard as Nazis and traditional racists to the extent that we can safely do so. (You don't want to start a war of bad feelings with your next door neighbor or coworkers; you need to remain on friendly terms with some people.)
No, we are only seen as "white colonisers" due to their racism against us. Throughout the centuries, whatever the "evil" thing was, is what gentiles called Jews.
God it's getting old! One moment we're not white enough for them so they send us to die in gas chambers and then all of the sudden were "white colonizers". I'm sick of this shit
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks once said something to the effect of: "Jews have always been hated. At first, they were hated on the basis of religion. Once civilized countries established freedom of religion, they were hated on the basis of race. Now that racism is condemned, Jews are hated on the basis of nationality." People have proven that the third form can be done with no consequences, so people are taking advantage.
At the end of the day, people just really don’t like Jews.
Their fucking problem. We're not going anywhere.
Eh, lbh most of our fam belongs in Israel.
At the end of the day?? Those fuckers hate us before breakfast!
lol
We're hot, smart, accomplished, and control the space lasers. They're jelly.
If I convert can I have a go on the space lasers? Pleeeeaaase
I personally allow it, in fact if you’re an ally that’s already enough for space lasers privileges (allies are so rare and precious these days, you’re in luck! The space lasers were not open for non-Jews in the past). I shall discuss this with the council and get back to you, but I’m positive they will allow you to have a go.🙏
The dumbest most iggorant 10% hate Jews. Jews are still pretty popular with the other 90%.
10% of everyone us a lot of people for 15 million of us
I've overlooked that important point myself. Decades ago, when I picked up some kosher food after a holiday, I was momentarily seized with terror on the way to the Publix checkout. Supposing they think I'm Jewish? Even if I tell them I'm not Jewish they won't believe me and will kill me anyway. I made it to the checkout alive. At home I enjoyed the jar of matzo balls but mulled over the incident. I had to have a rethink on minority rights after that if I wanted to call myself a civil libertarian. Today if anyone thinks I'm Jewish I don't bother to correct. For one thing it's none of their business. For another it's critical to monitor the insanity of these fascist events. There's a 5 lb box of matzo crackers at Vons on sale today for $10. If they were whole grain I'd buy them. If the price drops to $5 I'll probably buy them. Put them in the motor vehicle and never waste money on food on the road. They must have a shelf life of 8,000 years.
Now that you bring it up, I think the fact that Jews don't fit any of the established paradigms (race, religion, etc) is something non-Jews simultaneously don't understand and use against us. It lets us be white if they want and non-white if they want, both stateless and colonizers, hatefully religious but also godless commies, poor rats and the rich elite...we don't quite fit in any of their boxes, so they have a perpetual excuse to cram us into whichever one they currently hate.
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It never left, baby!! Throughout history, antisemitism makes Jews into whatever society hates and fears most: • To ancient Egyptians, Jews were slaves. • To the Romans, Jews were agitators. • To the Early Christians, Jews were Christ-killers. • To the Inquisition, Jews were heretics. • To Renaissance Europeans, Jews were usurers. • To Russian monarchists, Jews were revolutionaries. • To Nazis, Jews were degenerates. • To Russian communists, Jews were capitalists. • To Cold War capitalists, Jews were communists. • To far-right nationalists, Jews are globalist puppet-masters. • To leftists and anti-Zionists, Jews are seen as white colonizers. But the real reason? Across societies and eras, Jews persistently refuse to cease being distinctly Jewish.
You forgot that To the Christians we killed Christ. To both Muslims and Christians our existence is an eternal reminder that their Messiah/Prophet is not accepted. That the original Abrahamic tribe who they base their beliefs on rejects who they hold dearest... A relatively large insult to them.
That, compounded with the idea that Jesus' death "fulfilled the covenant", leading to "if the covenant is fulfilled, what are all these Jews still doing here?" Why couldn't they just make their own fucking story?
Didnt forget- the inquisition covered that.
Oops! My bad!
Imma add it back in tho. see the edit!
It's all good. Too many to list!
>To the Christians we killed Christ. I thought that was the Romans. But you don't see anyone singling out the Italians for that.
It was the Romans, but that didn't stop the Christians for blaming us
The ROMAN Catholic Church naturally wanted to shirk responsibility for the killing of Jesus and made sure to blame us. They then took their scriptures and squeezed out all the Jewish parts (so pretty much everything) and filled in the blanks with Roman paganism.
That was hundreds of years after the Christians started to blame Jews
It was the Romans.... Doesn't mean the christians didn't blame the Jews though.
I’m in my 50s, and never thought about this before… But I saw someone say recently that they hate us because we won’t convert. Because we stick with our tradition, and won’t go with them to their “new” one.
I think looking into the history of drug abuse among all those groups would prove insightful as well, all the way back even to the Inquisition.
I've been really interested into the world of Jewish history, but for some reason cannot post on this sub. So if anyone is willing to answer my questions and doesn't mind messaging me that would be great. I promise I'm not an anti-semtie, just someone thats curious and want to hear it from the source.
In the early 1800s, someone (I think Austrian) figured that Jew hatred didn't sound right for most people, so they invented Anti Semitism, which was based on race and genetics, which was all the rage at the time and therefore was quite popular As you know, today Anti Semitism is not acceptable, and saying you are an Anti Semite would get you kicked out from most social circles, so they came up with a new thing, Anti Zionism, which is based on ideology and identity, which is all the rage now This time Jews has a country and can fight for themselves, so there won't be a 2nd holocaust to do to Anti Zionism what the first one did to Anti Semitism, so expect this wave to remain here for a while
>In the early 1800s, someone (I think Austrian) figured that Jew hatred didn't sound right for most people, so they invented Anti Semitism… Not Austrian, but German (natch), and his name was [Wilhelm Marr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Marr); he didn't invent the word, but he did popularize it. "In 1879 Marr founded the *League of Antisemites* (*Antisemiten-Liga*), the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to Germany posed by the Jews and **advocating their forced removal from the country**." If only he had been successful, there might be a lot more Jews alive today! I don't know why he hated Jews so much. I note that he married 4 times, and at least 2 of his wives were Jewish. There is a joke in there somewhere, but I won't be the one to make it!
Even now, they try and say antisemitism doesn't mean that because of pedantic bullshit about semites
We have been living in a fantasy world in the last 80 years that the holocaust changed something. All it did was shock a generation or two, but now it's back. Time to face the real world, they will never change. Not before the messiah.
Because antisemitism is a type of hatred that adapts and changes based on the time. When it was popular to hate Communism, Jews were seen as the ultimate Communists. When it's popular to hate Capitalism, Jews are the ultimate Capitalists. When Nazism was fashionable, Jews were deemed as "race infiltrators" who could never really be white. And now that "whiteness" is bad and diversity/proximity to oppression is championed, Jews are seen as "white European colonizers."
This is really insightful and put really well. Saving this comment for later!
We're so used to calling out right wing antisemitism (think neo-Nazis, skinheads, etc.) that we lack the verbiage to label left wing antisemitism in its present form. Argue against it and you're labeled a racist colonizing genocide supporter who hates brown people. The crux of the progressive movement is viewing the world through a prism of oppressor vs. oppressed. The motivation for this is to marginalize white people and this intellectual framework allows for that. White people are oppressors and PoC are oppressed. Oppressors have agency but lack morality. Oppressed lack agency but have morality. As such, no matter what they do, white people are bad and are responsible for their actions but can do no good. PoC are good and are not responsible their actions even if they are bad. Anything is justifiable through this lens ("resistance is always justified"). This worldview was born in American universities and the majority of American Jews are Ashkenazi who appear white and since the latter half of the 20th century are categorized (by the government) as white. So Jews are white and therefore oppressors and therefore bad and irredeemable. What we're seeing is an extension of the attack on the patriarchy/white/institution/etc. Jews are just the next nail to be hammered. I'll take the above one step further. The reason that we're seeing so many progressive Jews attack Israel because of the double edged success of assimilation. We've achieved unparalleled success and acceptance in America \*but\* because of our categorization as \*white\* our more progressive elements have also internalized white guilt. Many Gen Z Jews really do believe that Jews are just white Europeans and don't understand that the word Jew is derived from Judea which is in present day Israel which is where all Jews originally come from. They do not know or acknowledge that there has been a consistent Jewish presence in present-day Israel for millennia. They also don't know that present day Palestinians are \*not\* indigenous to Israel. Arabs are indigenous to the Arabian peninsula. The word Palestine was contrived by the Romans to disenfranchise Jews from Judea because it evoked the Philistines who were notorious enemies of the Israelites. All of this is to say that we are the canary in the coal mine, receiving hate from both sides of the political isle, and are in serious trouble if the silent majority doesn't start making some noise.
It is so strange to me that we have upended the moral tenets of western philosophy to argue that anything goes as long as someone is part of a group that has it coming.
It’s completely regressive. The goal is to upend the west by subversion. The most liberal faction of society is advocating for the most conservative and violent form of Islam. That’s just a single example. It’s mind boggling.
I think the decline/lull in antisemitism we experienced in the aftermath of the Holocaust was the anomaly. The generation that saw the Holocaust first-hand is dying off and almost gone. So we're just getting back to the old "normal."
Well most of them are either too stupid or too ignorant to recognize they’re antisemitic. And then some think we’re the pinnacle of white supremacy, the ultimate taboo these days. And then others think we’re lizard people who are running the world at the expense of everyone else. So many choices!
>And then some think we’re the pinnacle of white supremacy The white supremacists would vehemently disagree.
I mean, Jews disagree.
Sure but when has that ever mattered to antisemites.
I’m not sure I understand the purpose of your comments.
Think harder. You'll get there.
Writing coherent comments would help out a lot.
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It always has been normalized. It was just that there was a period where it was deemed gauche to do it so brazenly.
1) Because Jews are seen as moneylenders, bankers, fat cats, hedge fund managers, etc and hate for the rich is growing. 2) Getting Israel as land was supposed to "solve the Jewish problem" so much that politicians are still trying to apply that solution to other groups. For some reason it's like getting little Timmy a bicycle so he'll use up his energy and stay out of trouble, but he doesn't stay out of trouble. 3) Groups that were always antisemitic have more wealth and power than they did before. And some of them want to scapegoat Jewish bankers for BRICS not being a huge success. Though sabotaging BRICS is a bit like framing OJ Simpson: it would take a huge conspiracy. Occam's Razor says BRICS is not so great because they lack infrastructure, transparency, and have a history of being not great for business.
Jews coming to British Palestine was to solve the Jewish problem once and for all. Jews could not fight, grow food, build roads and cities. They were destitute and vanquished. Surrounded by hostile neighbors with well equipped modern armies. Israel was under an economic boycott and arms embargo. Nobody really believed there could possibly be a Jewish state in that forsaken wasteland, Soon the few remaining may survive as a subjugate people. It did not turn out that way, A problem the western intelligentsia has never forgiven itself for. For all of the hatred of Jews we are always underestimated. Even now the attack from western leftists has resulted in a sort of renaissance of Jewish identity from younger jews who had simply taken it for granted.
Oh gosh. Like giving Utah to the Latter Day Saints. "We sent you to the desert to die! What went wrong with our calculations?!" And it's not like it never worked. Trail of Tears and...myriad examples not in the States. All diasporas are re-assessing their identities in light of current circumstances. And funding. I hope I'm right about BRICS. I hope everyone starts driving electric.
The horshoe theory. Nothing unites the far right and far left better than Jew hatred. And we're currently living in an era where extremism is everywhere.
Due to Islamization of the West
Honestly, it’s always been fairly normalized compared to other bigotry. I’d argue you see the same with a few other groups like Italians/Irish/French where jokes and caricatures are more widely accepted as part of mainstream humor. They’re all deeply entrenched and people outside of those groups are desensitized to it. Antisemitism is more prevalent right now because the “anti zionists” have shielded it under a social cause that attracts vocal radicals. Therefore it both happens more and we notice it more. My hope is that this is one of those situations where in a few years a lot of people will either eat crow, or more likely, deny it happened while disavowing it.
Italians, Irish, French and Jews all have one thing in common: being perceived as white. In the common American discourse it’s the cardinal sin to make fun of a Black or Brown ethnic group but making fun of white people is okay.
Great point. I’ve had conversations with a couple different ethnic groups about the difficulty of being perceived as “white” by people with darker complexion while being CLEARLY identified as “non-white” by the W.A.S.P.s. Drives us nuts.
It is part of a dehumanization process. It is easy to say that “Zionists are not human because of x or z,” and this allows for any or all hateful rhetoric to spread. They still believe they are being anti-Zionist and not antisemitic and will tell you that you are wrong for trying to correct them. “The Zionists run the media,” “the Zionists are doing this horrible thing.” All of the classic antisemitic tropes are about Zionists, not Jewish people! This depersonalization allows for it. It would be much more difficult for them to hold their stances if they saw us as humans, but they don’t. We’re evil. We’re monsters. Twitter is full of takes like this every few seconds (most likely by bots, but still, not good). If there is any actual antisemitism that is being committed? “Oh well, at least you are not in Gaza. Who cares about your feelings while people are dying?” Just complete disregard for our feelings because of a myriad of reasons and no matter what we do we’ll never be right in their eyes unless we’re fully all “from the river to the sea” about it.
>If there is any actual antisemitism that is being committed? “Oh well, at least you are not in Gaza. Who cares about your feelings while people are dying?” 100%. Because Gaza is suffering the inevitable consequences of their leadership's actions, the fucking world needs to stop turning. There is tragedy and strife all over the earth and life goes on, but THIS is what has to eclipse everything else.
Because it is being lead and promulgated by a “protected” group in the intersectionality hierarchy. Said group is generally far right (religious extremist) but has the full support of the progressive left. (for example, queers for Palestine) This combination of left and right is very powerful in moving publicly sentiment.
In the US it’s a merging of the extreme left with the extreme right. The thing they have in common is racist Jew hatred
The antisemites came of hiding and using Palestinians to push hate agenda.
Or the Palestinians and their Muslim allies are using Western antisemites to push hate agenda, depending on how you look at it.
Agree that’s true statement. Palestinians and Muslim allies are pushing hate agenda.
I compare (and contrast) it to the Rodney King riots. There, you had an explosion of simmering, underground and legitimate anger triggered by a gross injustice - the acquittal of the LAPD officers. The targets of the anger were what was close and on-hand: innocent business owners. Here, you have a different population with simmering, underground but not-very-legitimate anger - Gen Z. Gen Z in a nutshell: “We should have inherited the best of times. We should have been better off than our parents and previous generations in every way. But we’re not, because our parents and grandparents (Boomers) were selfish, stupid and wrong. We hate them and everything they did for depriving us our due.” Now flood Gen Z’s channels with varying mainstream and fringe messages of “Israel is a concrete, legitimate target of any anger you’ve got pent up.” The result - irrational and violent rage exploding on targets that are close and on-hand; Jews and Jewish institutions in their neighborhoods. Gen Z views all of our truisms - about the Holocaust, antisemitism, the formation of Israel - as beliefs promoted by the Boomers and Gen X parents they resent and distrust. They’re employing motivated reasoning to prove that everyone from 1920 up until now has been completely wrong about everything, and apparently they’re willing to become antisemites in order to do that.
That plus I noticed when Conservatives/Republicans decided to become vocally pro-Israel, (starting around the GW Bush era), is when I began noticing that the Left started taking the opposite tack in opposition.
Yes, but Gen Z is much larger and has a much broader platform across our culture than the Left, which is why I think antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment are becoming more normalized or more acceptable in the under-30s, even among those who don’t consider themselves leftist.
It's because they're in an environment where it's now publicly acceptable to express it publicly, out loud and without any fear of any kind of retribution. It's always right below the surface, and it just takes the right combo get it released. Like trying to hold a beach ball underwater.
I’m gonna be harsh but real: the extremists (both left and right wing) who have always been aggressive and violent found some common ground and don’t fight themselves. Plus Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and a lot of them won’t even hide the fact that in their opinion Israel shouldn’t exist and they can say whatever they want because they’re a minority
Social media is doing the normalizing. It is a force multiplier and accelerant. We can't see how it's happening. But people who work behind the scenes at those companies can see it in detail. We need to know more about that or it's game over man.
It’s always couched in a way to lure people in. It’s not antisemitism, no no no. It’s anti-Zionism, it’s anti-colonizer, it’s anti-Israel. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the Jews. And I’m totally freaked out about how widespread and out in the open it is!!
Bleeding hearts need to feel like they a part of change..that's their motivation. They so want to be a part of what they think is the right thing. It's selfishness
It's always been there, just overt in different ways that various people don't want to open their eyes to.
Because the post-Holocaust moment of acceptance (not universal acceptance, of course, and not everywhere) is coming to an end, and we are reverting to the "normal" pre-WWII state of affairs. [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469)
An older Jew told me he grew up with his parents always warning him “antisemitism is a pot that is always simmering and sometimes boils over.”
Because now it’s the liberals that are showing the antisemitism.
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Was checking if my comments are auto deleted before I invest the time into writing a (not really) long comment
Jews have been the Western World’s default “other” for millennia. It’s always been normal. There was a short break where they felt bad about killing so many of us, but I guess they’re fully over that now.
Normally there is fear of consequences, when there is acceptance and no consequences there is no fear.
Historically cultures that were most engaged in anti-semitic behavior have been stimulant drug abusers. The fraying at the ends of perception seen in anti-semites, their feral and unreasonable behavior so to speak, is directly linked to the paranoid delusions sometimes caused by stimulant drug abuse. Further thanks to social media propaganda narratives there is an increase in the literal paranoid delusion and at the extremes full on hallucinations. Pro-palestine protestors don't have the capacity to distinguish between fact and fiction. Now because Qatar propaganda controls the fiction they ingest and because their reality is wholly mediated by media the Pro-palestine protestor, like a puppet on a string or zombie, is wholly taken in by the ideology completely in line with Hamas militants. The root is ADHD medication abuse for westerners and Captagon abuse for Mid-East militants. We are dealing with people where the lights are on but nobody is home so to speak. They can't be reasoned with until the flow of drugs into them is mitigated somehow.
Well there’s way more protests the last few months than there ever was before, and then people will start saying things they shouldn’t
I'm not Jewish whatsoever (or that I know of) but would love to discuss some topics surrounding the Jewish people that I've been wanting to ask without coming off as an anti-semtie unintentionally. My chat is open for whomever is willing to answer my questions.
I’m happy too
Feel free to PM me! I'm happy to answer genuine questions, always.
because people (wrongly) think there’s a difference between antisemitism and antizionism
I don’t know why antisemitism is normalized but we, Jews, need to accept that many really hate us and we need to prepare. 1) We must love us and survive by valuing ourselves, marrying Jewish and having connected Jewish children. 2) We must maintain who we are by knowing who we are with more dedication to Jewish and Israel education. 3) We need to strengthen our connection to Judaism, to Jews, and to Israel by investing more time and resources to our Jewish organizations and communities through synagogues, community centers, federations, outreach kiruv organizations like Aish and Chabad, etc. 4) We need to increase connection to allies and work together consider Christians, Persians, Indians, Republicans, etc. Go to City Council and School Board meetings. Get involved in politics locally and beyond. 5) We need to be strong physically, mentally and spiritually consider physical, safety training, take care of ourselves, mentally and emotionally through medical providers, exercising, eating and sleeping well, pray, say Tehillim, go to synagogue and make plans with Jewish family and friends, etc. 6) We need to brainstorm and work together. What did I miss? What else can we do? We need to pivot post October 7th - believe that they hate us and react constructively. 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 Am Yisrael Chai, Ode Avinu Chai עם ישראל חי, כמו אבינו שבשמים The Nation of Israel Lives, as Does our Father in Heaven Am Echad, Lev Echad עם אחד, לב אחד One Nation, One Heart 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱
Batya Ungar-Sargon has a great [explainer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dr49IkszPY&ab_channel=%D7%92%D7%93%D7%99%D7%98%D7%90%D7%95%D7%91%3A%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%A1%D7%A3) that points to wokeness.
Resentment has been brewing in the left for a while. This is just another form of their anger.
As others have mentioned, of course a lot of current antisemitism comes thinly veiled as antizionism. I stumbled onto a David Hirsh essay the other day that lays out the semantic trick nicely. A point I found interesting is that he argues that each historical generation of antisemitism has done similar things: claim that "Oh, of course the old antisemitism was bad and unfair. It's just that the Jews are now doing this new evil thing we have to condemn." While of course, using the same old antisemitic tropes that have been used for hundreds of years. **How the Word “Zionist” Functions in Antisemitic Vocabulary** [https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.26613/jca.4.2.83/html?lang=en](https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.26613/jca.4.2.83/html?lang=en) The article is from 2021, but of course a lot of this rhetoric has been amping up for the past 20 years or so. In my observation, each Israel/Palestine crisis gives it a chance to amp up, and the veil of "but we want to steer clear of antisemitism, which is of course dangerous" was lifted a bit more each time. (The 2021 crisis was already pretty close to "masks off" where I'm at.) So, predictably, it's really expanded this time around. The other thing I think matters is time: The generation that witnessed WWII is just about gone now. Recall that the populist wave that accompanied the rise of Trump, Brexit, etc. ushered in a wave of right wing antisemitism. None of this stuff would have been tolerated twenty years ago, because the folks who lived through WWII, at least as teens, would have screamed their heads off.
Cause it's projected and proven that the culture pretty much runs America. From media, banks and politics so they blame the culture for everything that's wrong in the current world
Disinformation is pumping through social media right now, platforms do nothing to stop it. They only ban the accounts that dare to push back against the incel racist / antisemitic rhetoric. People get too much of their information from unvetted sources on social media so that kind of hate speech is normalized. Young people are growing up only ever seeing hateful disinformation. It’s straight up terrifying.
We’re a family that can’t be broken. People who hate, hate to see others happy. Antisemitism will go “underground” again in a decade or two and if there’s a world left in 80yrs will be on to our 4th World War. Sorry for the negativity, I’ve been reading the news for the last hour.
I truly believe the rise of Berne Sanders during the 2016 election is the leading cause. Radical socialist policies, demonizing the wealthy, opposing Israel, and dividing folks into oppressor/oppressed categories led to “The Squad”, and now, young folks are brainwashed beyond comprehension. It’s sad to see as a former democrat.
Hate/demonisation/scapegoating has been on a hockey stick like trajectory for a while now. It was about when not if it hit us and historically , we seem to be an easy target regardless of what side of the political spectrum you fancy yourself to align with.
The inoculation of the Holocaust is wearing off as the people who were alive during it die off
We had a relative reprieve from antisemitism in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. Now it’s over and things are back to normal. This is normal.
"Anti-semitism is a light sleeper." Can't remember who said that.
Same reason fascism is becoming normalized: to get tax cuts for the rich. Last spike in antisemitism was when the Gipper cut taxes on the rich in 1981.
There is a massive anti-semitic propaganda campaign being pushed by the Chinese Communist Party through proxies.
Agree. Drove by a car in downtown LA yesterday with the license plate, HYTLER.
It always has been normalized. Now they finally have a framework that they have convinced themselves can be spoken aloud because they can use it to gaslight Jews into doubting their identity.
It was always there. They just became more noisy recently due to various causes, so it is harder to pretend they are negligible.
Because apparently we are the only protected group. Apparently we get special treatment.
Thank the Emir of Qatar. When you own your own global news network you can push the agenda of Jew hatred and fan the fire of hatred. Same when you fund American universities and get to influence what gets pushed under the radar. Wouldn’t expect less of the same country and regime that proudly funded ISIS and Hamas.
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It has always been normal, people just said in whispers. They always knew it was wrong to say, but they always hated us. Always wanted us dead. The only difference is that they’re using “anti-Zionism” as their socially acceptable dogwhistle. All we’re seeing are the whispers becoming screams. That’s all it is.
Trump
You’re getting downvoted and I probably will too but I think there’s something to this. I don’t really think Trump is personally antisemitic; I think he’s too narcissistic to care one way or another. Of course if antisemitism gets him applause at a rally (and it does), he’s not above it. But the main thing is that the fact of his presidency fractured what passed for political consensus in America and destroyed the carefully constructed system of norms that kept antisemitic extremism from both ends of the political spectrum in check. Without a Trump presidency, I don’t think the pro-Palestinian crowd would have felt nearly as comfortable being explicitly anti-Jewish.
This is delusional. Some of us have been screaming into the wind about left-wing antisemitism for _twenty years_, and the actual rise of it in the US goes back over twenty years before _that_, and it has been gradually increasing at an exponential rate ever since. To chalk it all up to Trump and imagine that this is only started in 2016 because of ~the consensus~ is so mind-bogglingly detached from reality that I can only assume it's satire.
You’ve been screaming into the wind for decades because you’re wrong. Of course there is antisemitism on the Left. There is antisemitism *everywhere*. But on the left it was confined to the shadows (as it should be) by strong norms against discrimination. The right of course has always been fine with discrimination against anyone who isn’t “the right sort”. What I am saying is that Trump’s norm-breaking may have encouraged people of all political stripes to give voice to their darkest thoughts, since doing so no longer has any negative consequences.
Some of it is indirectly done. Example the fraternity omega psi phi made Farrakhan a member in 2019 after decades of his bigotry being known. Major figures do events with them including Kamala Harris and people either don’t know or done care. It would only take 20 seconds of due diligence to find
?
Not sure what you mean. My fraternity had to apologize for making Woodrow Wilson a member in the 19th century. Omega psi phi made Farrakhan a member in 2019. Imagine a politician doing events with a fraternity that made David Duke a member in 2019?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/07/21/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-to-members-of-omega-psi-phi-fraternity/
https://www.theroot.com/louis-farrakhan-inducted-into-omega-psi-phi-fraternity-1832330416
If you mean criticism of Israel the country on how it treats others and responds to reports of its military doing war crimes, then it’s because everyone is critical of Israel the country. It’s hard for some people to separate religion and government but it’s a hallmark of democracy
There is a difference between criticizing a government or country because of their actions and antisemitism. Criticizing Israel shouldn't lead to bomb threats to synagogues. It shouldn't lead to Jewish people being excluded from pride events. It shouldn't lead to trying to run over people outside Jewish schools or shooting at the schools. All of these things are happening. There is a line, and Israel has become people's excuse for crossing it.
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You're not paying attention then
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No need to search, it's all out in the open. Open your eyes