Whoopi Goldberg's perverted mindset is a manifestation of the larger phenomenon of Black antisemitism

Over the weekend, the Times of London reported that actress, producer and TV commentator Whoopi Goldberg doubled down on her statements earlier this year that the Holocaust was not about race (and, incidentally, showing that her apology at the time was meaningless:)

Whoopi Goldberg doubled down on her comments that the Holocaust was "not about race," which she made before temporarily being suspended from cohosting the TV talk show "The View" in February.

In a new interview with The Times of London, Goldberg said the Holocaust was not "originally" about race.

"Remember who they were killing first. They were not killing racial; they were killing physical. They were killing people they considered to be mentally defective," she said.

She also questioned whether Jewish people were a "race" compared to herself as a Black person.

"It doesn't change the fact that you could not tell a Jew on a street," Goldberg said. "You could find me. You couldn't find them. That was the point I was making. But you would have thought that I'd taken a big old stinky dump on the table, butt naked."

When Goldberg was asked about the fact that the Nazis classified Jewish people as a race, she responded: "The oppressor is telling you what you are. Why are you believing them? They're Nazis. Why believe what they're saying?"

This is so ignorant that one does not know where to begin.

The two important facts that The View pundit gets completely wrong are:

1. For Nazis, everything was about race.

It is true that the Nazis started their extermination program with the disabled (not only mentally but physically.) But the reason for that was purely racial: to weed out what Nazis believed were undesirable genetic traits in order to breed a Master Race. It was a trial run for their genocide against Jews, targeted also because of their supposedly inferior genetic traits. (Indeed, the Jewish disabled were wiped out first.) 

2. Race is a social construct that has no bearing on biological reality.

Whoopi Goldberg's question, "Why believe what they are saying?' also applies to her. She believes that race is critically important because it is often visible, but in reality there is no "Black" gene. There are no significant genetic differences between people whose ancestors come from Europe, Asia or Africa, and the genetic variation within each group is larger than between groups. 

Goldberg says that Nazi misconceptions about race are meaningless, but anti-Black racist opinions are of the highest importance. 

It gets worse. She seems to be saying that Jews in Europe could have blended into the larger population and not have been persecuted. For religious Jews, this would mean cutting off their beards and payos, changing their clothing, language and accents, and abandoning their religion. 

That is as offensive as saying that Black people could simply bleach their skin to defeat racism. And in both cases, it wouldn't work.

In fact, Goldberg is being more offensive, because her theory appears to be that the Holocaust was partially the Jews' fault - it was white people fighting with white people, both sides responsible, and if only the Jews would have acted differently, they would still be alive today.

There is a deeper issue here, though. How does someone as intelligent and accomplished as Whoopi Goldberg believe such stupidity?

And the reason is because she is an antisemitic bigot herself. 

When you ask Caryn Elaine Johnson why she chose the stage name "Goldberg," she says, "The true story is that my family is Jewish, Buddhist, Baptist and Catholic  . . So I took the last name from a Jewish ancestor."

This is a lie. She has no Jewish ancestors that anyone could find.  But according to one account, her mother thought that her last name Johnson was "not Jewish enough" to make her a star. 

Taking a Jewish name was a career move because Jews control Hollywood.

But there is something deeper here, and it relates to the current flavor of Black antisemitism. 

As we have seen in recent years, it has become fashionable in even mainstream Black circles to claim that Blacks are the real Jews, making Jews imposters. The logic is not based on facts, but on the idea that victimhood is the coin of the realm and since Jews have been history's most prominent victims, Blacks must be the real Jews. 

When being a victim is considered desirable, and anti-Black racism is defined as the ultimate evil,  then the Holocaust becomes an ideological roadblock. The Nazi genocide, which dwarfs the evils of slavery by orders of magnitude, is a problem that must be minimized and explained away to maintain the idea that (anti-Black) racism is the alpha and omega of inhumanity. 

Goldberg needs the Holocaust to not be about racism, because that means that Jews have been much bigger, much more recent victims of racism than Blacks have been - and that waters down the effectiveness of claiming that everything is about anti-Black racism. 

Saying that Jews aren't really Jews and are just other white people also becomes a way for some Blacks to rationalize why Jews went from being a despised minority to a successful group in only one or two generations while most Black people are still at a great disadvantage. It couldn't be that Jews worked hard to transcend anti-Jewish bigotry: that implies that anti-Black racism can be overcome just as anti-Jewish racism was.  That is not an acceptable message in a society that values victimhood over accomplishments. Easier to push the lie that white people always accepted Jews as fellow whites. 

The irony is that the main purveyors of the new Black antisemitism are some of the richest, most powerful and most famous Black celebrities - the very people who managed to become successful despite racism. The Whoopi Goldbergs, Professor Griffs and Ice Cubes prefer to cut Jews down than to bring their fellow Blacks up. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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12/02 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: Diaspora Jews keep making the same mistake; Trivializing antisemitism based on politics; Not just Kanye – it’s an online coalition of hate

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Diaspora Jews keep making the same mistake

A perverse feature of the Jewish people is that they make one particular mistake over and over again. They are persecuted. They frantically try to assimilate into their host community in the belief that this will avert future persecution. They are persecuted again. They frantically assimilate again.

This week saw the publication of the first collected works of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of modern Zionism. The set initiated the Library of the Jewish People, a new series of works by classic Jewish writers issued by the Koren publishing house.

Publishing this now is particularly fitting because of striking similarities between Herzl's time and today.

Gil Troy's masterful introduction to the collection draws attention to the complexities of Herzl's tortured life. This rings a loud contemporary bell, not just about the persistence of antisemitism but about the current attitudes of Diaspora Jews.

Assimilated and sophisticated, Herzl had an ambivalent attitude towards his Jewishness. Infatuated with the German high culture that was dominant in Europe, he refused to circumcise his son and lit Christmas tree candles for his children.

Jews had risen to the highest levels of German and Austrian political, professional and cultural society. Yet at the same time, Germany and Austria were becoming more and more pathologically hostile to the Jews.

Herzl was caught in a permanent identity crisis – a conflict between his "enlightened" Europeanized self and the Jewish culture whose fundamental importance he only gradually came to understand.

As he reeled from one antisemitic shock after another, he repeatedly tried to reconcile the high degree of assimilation achieved by European Jews with the fact that, for non-Jewish Europeans, the Jews were unassimilable.

Not just Kanye – it’s an online coalition of hate

Some dismiss TikTok as an innocuous forum for children who want to be creative. Yet TikTok’s pattern of catering to young, impressionable, naïve audiences, combined with the impact of bad-faith actors who post hateful content, must be taken more seriously. Despite claims that TikTok and other platforms are monitoring content, a new variety of antisemitism has emerged in which hatred is articulated through “dog whistles” or coded language used for a specific audience. Jews, for example, are referred to as Skypes (to rhyme with kikes). Black people are “Googles,” Latinos are “Yahoos,” and Muslims are “Skittles.”

Current concerns also extend to more mainstream platforms like Twitter, whose acquisition by Elon Musk casts doubts on whether the social media giant will engage in any form of content moderation – even when it comes to hate speech. Advertisement

But it is on the Dark Web where antisemitic content truly thrives and festers. Inaccessible via what’s known as the “Surface Web,” where you and I search for restaurants, order books and play Wordle, the Dark Web operates in the vast walled-off realm of the Deep Web. It’s a lawless and faceless environment where hateful groups find a comfortable home not only on their own but more concerningly together, as a coalition that amplifies their individual and collective impact.

While it may be tempting to shrug off Ye’s defenders as a hateful nuisance, it is crucial to remember that violent terrorist groups spew similar rhetoric and also have access to the Deep Web. ISIS had to use cloud storage when navigating mainstream platforms became impossible. Thousands of films from Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah are floating in internet archives.

In an ideal world, Ye’s words should not matter. However, they reflect the cesspool of online hate that translates to violence on the streets. The Anti-Defamation League has documented a rise in antisemitic incidents in the US from 927 in 2012 to a record-high 2,717 in 2021. That is no coincidence.

We are missing a vital opportunity to call out not just Ye the individual, but the chronic trend of Jew-hatred itself. And what starts with Jews never ends with them. It spreads to other groups and reflects a decay in the moral fiber of society.

Let’s not talk about Ye. Let’s redirect the conversation toward forming a new coalition that counters the fusion and coalition of hate. While the Dark Net presents a tough challenge and there is no way to regulate it, however, it can be studied. Because words — whether they are uttered by an anonymous source or a celebrity — can and do kill.

Trivializing antisemitism based on politics

After news broke that former President Donald Trump carelessly dined with both Ye and avowed holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-A-Lago, Ben Shapiro, who has been outspoken about his support for Ron DeSantis should the Florida governor run for president in 2024, was quick to voice his disgust. "A good way not to accidentally dine with a vile racist and antisemite you don't know is not to dine with a vile racist and antisemite you do know," Shapiro posted, setting off a back-and-forth Twitter squabble between the defamed rapper and Daily Wire executives that had me reaching for the popcorn.

No doubt, Trump's meeting deserves public condemnation. But it's unfortunate that Shapiro can see the splinter in Trump's eye and not the log in his own. Shapiro coming down on Trump for associating with antisemites rings hypocritical in the face of his absence to do just that as his colleague, Candace Owens, continues to prattle on regularly about Ye being her "friend." Waving Owen's defense of an antisemite, presumably because of a shared, mutual interest says much more about Shapiro's character than Trump's dinner says about him.

According to a recent article by Dennis Prager, Owen's former boss, Owens is wrongly being smeared as an antisemite. Prager provides a laundry list of evidence that points to her allegiance with the Jewish people and her support of the Jewish state. But that woman who Prager stands behind has been nowhere to be found this past month. And after Ye's embrace of Fuentes, Dennis should ask himself some tough questions about her. That Shapiro and Prager refuse to publicly identify the brute that she has become on this issue not only has former supporters wondering if they are suffering from a mercenary conflict of interest but if they, like the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt and other establishment Jewish leaders, have become so comfortable in their untouchable elite status, that they are now detached from the harsh realities of hatred their fellow Jews face every day on the streets of New York and Los Angeles.

If Shapiro and Prager honestly respected Ms. Owens, they would hold her to a higher standard, the standard that both the Daily Wire and Prager U profess to hold all people to. And certainly, the standard that Shapiro is currently holding Trump to. And no, this does not mean firing her, but it does mean straightening out their priorities by taking her to task for her concrete thinking and moral failings. What a fantastic exercise in free speech that would be, would it not?

Israel Advocacy Movement: Ben Shapiro is wrong about Kanye

In this video we examine the Ye effect

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12/01 Links Pt2: Cultural appropriation and the Jews; UN envoy to Hamas: ‘You have the right to fight Israel’; Kanye praises Hitler, says every human has value, 'especially Hitler'

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Cultural appropriation and the Jews

The notable aspect of West’s behavior is that whereas Irving issued a groveling apology for his antisemitic outburst, West doubled down. In every public appearance since he openly defended Irving’s anti-Semitism, West has not only restated his antisemitic positions, he has expanded on them, and escalated his attacks on Jews as a people, a community in America, and as individuals. In redefining himself as an antisemite first and a rapper and public figure second, West has chosen to associate himself most closely with other antisemites, particularly white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

West’s decision to act as a bridge between black antisemitism, which is generally associated with the progressive political camp, and white supremacist antisemitism, which is generally associated with the political far right, exposes a much-ignored but fundamental fact about antisemitism: it isn’t a political position. It is a cultural outlook; a way of understanding the world. Antisemites hail from the political left, center and right. They come from all religions. Their antisemitism directs their politics. Consequently, antisemitic policies have advocates in all political camps.

This brings us back to the Israeli reporters in Doha.

Black Israelites and the Nation of Islam, which base their identity on the appropriation of Jewish identity, comprise a small but powerful minority of the black community in America. They impact the Congressional Black Caucus and other key black power centers, which in turn impact the Democratic Party. And while their cultural and political power are growing, they are still limited.

In contrast, embrace of the Palestinian narrative is all but universal across the Arab world, across the wider Muslim world and across large sections of the Western world. It is nearly universally accepted in Europe and by progressives in America. All of the people who accept and champion the Palestinian narrative accept the validity of a political cause that is entirely based on the appropriation of Jewish peoplehood.

Shechnik and his fellow reporters were stunned to discover the truth about the war against them as Jews, and against their state. The antisemitism that animates their antagonists in Doha has nothing to do with who leads Israel’s government or what the Israeli military does in any given war or operation. Support of the Palestinians, and their goal of wiping Israel off the map, is rooted in Jew hatred, shared by billions of people across the world.

The Palestinians are popular because they provide a vehicle for expressing and advancing that hatred, including in the halls of power across the world. Israel’s endurance is unacceptable, because simply by surviving, simply by having reporters to send to cover the World Cup in Doha, the Jewish state proves that the Palestinian narrative is untrue, and based on a rejection of observable reality and the historical record, not on justice or truth.

Likewise, American Jews are stunned to discover that black antisemitism, like Palestinian-predicated assaults on Jews from Peoria to Miami, has nothing to do with who is in power in Israel or whether American Jews identify with progressive or conservative politicians and causes. It has nothing to do with whether or not American Jews are willing to accept “white guilt.”

Irving, West, the Black Israelites, the Nation of Islam and their ilk don’t hate Jews because of anything any particular Jew may or may not think, say or do. They hate the Jews because they have stolen Jewish history, heritage, nationhood and culture and appropriated all of them to themselves. Having done so, they have no choice but to demonize the Jews, because Jewish endurance and legitimacy expose the fraud at the heart of their invented identity.

From New York City to the Negev Desert: Who Are the Black Hebrew Israelites?

From Jews to Israelites: The Third Wave
The third wave of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement began in the 1960s and 1970s as a response to the civil rights movement and the subsequent Black Power movement.

The third wave is defined as a period when BHI denominations emerged that were more patriarchal, more militant and more extreme.

The third wave is also when the movement began to self-identify as “Black Israelites” instead of “Black Jews.”

Initially, the third wave continued in the footsteps of the second wave by adopting Jewish traditions and learning Jewish texts.

However, as the third wave continued, new BHI denominations began to emerge that were influenced by Black separatism and the militancy that colored 1960s America.

One of the most prominent Black Hebrew Israelite denominations that emerged during this period was the Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge (commonly known as “One West”).

Founded in the late 1960s by Eber Ben Yomin (also known as Abba Bivens), a former member of the Commandment Keepers, One West espouses the belief that white Jews stole the identity of Black, Latin and Native Americans (who are the true Jews) and that the mainstream Jewish community is responsible for all the challenges that face these communities.

One West also adopted the tactics of confrontational street preaching and wearing colorful garments, emulating the clothing that they believe that the original Israelites wore thousands of years ago.

Some of the most radical, militant and bigoted Black Hebrew Israelite sects to emerge in the past 40 years are offshoots of One West.

These groups include Israel United in Christ, the Israelite school of Universal Practical Knowledge, the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, the Sicarii, House of Israel, True Nation Israelite Congregation and Israelite Saints of Christ.

Of all these groups, Israel United in Christ (IUIC) is one of the most vocal and public. They are also one of the most militant and bigoted. They are known for street-preaching, rallying (including on behalf of Kyrie Irving) and marching.

In its writings and speeches, IUIC has made a wide variety of antisemitic statements, including that Jews are demons, that “everything they [Jewish people] do is about lying” and that Jewish people are responsible for a “Holocaust” that Black people have been experiencing since the 1400s.

The Black Hebrew Israelites in the State of Israel
One of the sects that emerged during the third wave was the Original African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem.

This sect was founded by Ben Ammi Ben Israel, a Chicago-born man who claimed that he had received a vision in 1966 that he was to return the African-American descendants of the ancient Israelites to the Promised Land.

By 1967, Ben Israel had persuaded 400 people to leave the United States with him for the Promised Land. After a brief sojourn in Liberia, that was seen as a means of purging the negative influence of captivity, this group arrived in Israel in 1969.

When they arrived in Israel, the group was given temporary visas and housing in the southern Israeli development town of Dimona.

Soon after the initial group’s arrival in the country, the Israeli government noticed that more members were arriving and illegally staying in the country (since it was determined that they were not Jewish, they were not eligible to become citizens under the Law of Return).

The State of Israel’s attempt to bar more members of the African Hebrew Israelite Nation from moving to the country led to a protracted conflict between the state and the sect.

During this nasty fight, which lasted 13 years, members of the sect took part in a public campaign against the State of Israel, which included calls for a halt to American aid to Israel and a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.

In 1990, the Israeli government and the African Hebrew Israelites came to an agreement whereby members of the sect would be granted permanent residency.

In 2004, the first member of the African Hebrew Israelites enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces and by 2006, 100 members were serving in the Israeli military. In 2009, the first member of the sect gained Israeli citizenship.

There are currently between 3,000 to 5,000 members of the African Hebrew Israelites living in Israel, the majority of whom are in the southern towns of Dimona, Arad and Mitzpe Ramon.

The African Hebrew Israelites place a strong emphasis on healthy living. They follow a vegan diet and highly limit their intake of sugar and salt. In addition, members are forbidden from smoking, taking drugs or drinking alcohol (aside from naturally fermented wines). The African Hebrew Israelites also follow a strict exercise schedule.

Until 1990, members of the African Hebrew Israelite community practiced polygamy due to its existence in the Biblical tradition and because there were many more women than men in the first years of the community.

Aside from the Biblical holidays, the African Hebrew Israelite community also holds a special festive celebration every May: New World Passover, which commemorates their exodus from the United States in 1967.

UN envoy to Hamas: ‘You have the right to fight Israel’

Italian lawyer Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for the Palestinians, spoke at a Hamas-organized conference in Gaza on Monday.

She plans to continue on to Israel, which is considering refusing her entry.

Senior members of the U.S.- and E.U.-designated terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were among those in attendance, including Hamas’s Basem Naim, Ghazi Hamad, Isam al-Da’alis and Abdul Latif al-Qanu, and PIJ’s Ahmad al-Mudallal and Khadr Habib.

In her speech, translated in real-time to Arabic, Albanese told the crowd: “You have a right to resist this occupation.”

The UN official recently said, “If they [Israel] don’t let me in….I’ll be able to claim that I’ve been denied access.”

Albanese has a history of supporting violence against Israelis. In June, she said, “Israel says ‘resistance equals terrorism,’ but an occupation requires violence and generates violence.”

Can you please ask the government to extradite Ahlam Tamimi?
She is wanted by the FBI for terrorism and is very vocal and very proud of having slaughtered Jewish civilians.https://t.co/iw3hEj2dtP

— NoamTLV (@Noam_NYC) November 29, 2022

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Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma’ada: Killed Not for the Color of His Skin but for His Jewish Faith (Judean Rose)

Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma’ada died of his wounds three days after an Arab terrorist set off a bomb at the bus stop where Ben Ma’ada stood, awaiting his bus. Ben Ma’ada was murdered because he was a Jew, and he was buried as a Jew. But you might not have read about him in your newspaper. That’s because Ben Ma’ada doesn’t fit the CRT narrative of the Jew as white and privileged.  Privileged he was, as a Jew who “came home” to Israel from Ethiopia 21 years ago, but white he was, of a certainty, not. 

wtf is this wording? https://t.co/k80cWKFSjx

— Noam Blum (@neontaster) November 27, 2022

Not that it matters even one little bit. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew. It’s not that we “don’t see color.” It’s that we don’t care. Ben Ma’ada died al Kiddush Hashem, in sanctification of God’s name, because he was murdered precisely for belonging to the Jewish nation. That makes him holy. In Hebrew, in fact, martyrs are referred to as kedoshim, holy ones.

Ben Ma’ada wasn’t one of those “we are the real Jews” like Kyrie Irving, Ye West, or the Black Hebrew Israelites, but an actual real Jew who had zero interest in a trinity, or even Malcolm X.

Black Hebrew Israelites out in force today, chanting “we are the real Jews” and “time to wake up,” as they marched towards the Barclay’s Center in support of Kyrie Irving’s return. pic.twitter.com/hUPbbHlsBg

— Ari Ingel (@OGAride) November 21, 2022

Kyrie Irving has a lot of support outside of Barclays Center today

(Via @PlainJaneDee_) pic.twitter.com/DQpSAJ0ool

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) November 20, 2022

Ben Ma’ada, after undergoing the Jewish purification ceremony, was buried in his tallit, his Jewish prayer shawl, like every other Israeli Jew. Those who paid their final respects, wore kippot, yarmulkes. 

The Black Hebrew Israelites, on the other hand, during their recent march on New York in support of Kyrie Irving distributed leaflets that left no doubt as to their religious affiliations, reading in part:

“The biblical Israelites are targeted and accused of hate day and night without rest. Our knowledge of our heritage and laws has been systematically removed from us through the monstrous holocaust known as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. They may lie to the world and deny us of our birthright, yet Jesus the Christ, our Black Messiah, confirms the truth of who we are. We are not antisemitic, we are Semitic.”

To the Black Hebrew Israelites, it is Black Christians who are the real Jews, a nonsensical idea. Because the Jewish belief in one God, a belief certainly shared by the Jewish martyr Ben Ma’ada, is the diametric opposite of a belief in a trinity. For a Jew, it’s simple: God cannot be both dead and alive, nor is he a son of himself, while somehow a father, all at one and the same time. These ideas are not consonant with Jewish thought and practice, and would not have resonated with Ben Ma’ada, because he was a Jew like any other Jew.

Ben Ma’ada’s belief system blows a gargantuan hole into the theory of African American/Arab intersectionality. From Eunice G. Pollack, a retired U. of North Texas professor of history and Jewish studies:

Decades before the current embrace of “intersectionality,” Black political and cultural militants promoted the narrative of the commonality of the oppression of African Americans and Arabs—both colonized by White/racist Jews. Convinced by the Arab League and the Organization of Arab Students, its army on the campus, that in contrast to Israel, which discriminated against people of color, the Arab states were racially egalitarian and that supporters of Israel were “accomplices of colonialism and imperialism,” they sought to forge an alliance with their brown brothers.

The Black Hebrew Israelites are not alone in speaking of Jews as “white” and “racist,” and Arabs as people of color. A foundational belief of the Nation of Islam, founded in the 1930s and associated today with Louis Farrakhan, is according to Pollack, “the delegitimization of Judaism—and the denigration of ‘white Jews.’” Meanwhile, the Black Lives Matter Movement speaks of the “racist” Jewish State, and the “struggle for freedom” of the “Palestinian” people of color.

Several Women’s March co-chairs were not only tied to Farrakhan but endorsed and amplified his antisemitic views. In 2016 and again in 2017, the co-chairs informed Jewish organizers that “You people hold all the wealth,” and that “Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people” (McSweeney & Siegel, 2018; Pollack, 2019). It must be said that Tamika Mallory later clarified that they only meant “white Jews.”

Would Mallory have given Ben Ma’ada a pass as the “right kind” of Jew being that he was the “right kind” of color? Or would she have seen him as an accomplice “of colonialism and imperialism?” It certainly is confusing. You can see why it was just easier for the mainstream media not to say all that much about the murder of Tadasa Ben Ma’ada, who was not white, and could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be seen as oppressing people of color, being that he was, himself, a person of color AND a Jew. Not the fake kind of “Jew as Christian” Jew, but the real deal, born into the Mosaic faith.

But of course, these things are all in the eyes of the beholder. White supremacists hate Jews just as much, if not more than any BLM or NOI activist. Pamela Paresky notes this fact with some irony: “In the critical social justice paradigm, Jews, who have never been seen as white by those for whom being white is a moral good, are now seen as white by those for whom whiteness is an unmitigated evil.”

Paresky continues:

The subtlety is that, instead of targeting Jews directly, the target of critical social justice is “whiteness.” But this does nothing to protect Jews. In 2018, when Hasidic Jews were victims of a wave of violent attacks — a precursor to another cluster of bloody attacks to come a year later — Mark Winston Griffith, the executive director of the Black Movement Center in Crown Heights, told The Forward that some black Americans see Judaism as “a form of almost hyper-whiteness.”

You could have fooled the white nationalists who gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park. “Jews will not replace us,” they chanted, looking like nothing so much as gleeful, blood-lusting Nazis at a Hitler rally. Here the word “replace” refers to the Great Replacement, known also as the white replacement or white genocide theory. In this conspiracy theory, in which white supremacist ideology is rooted, Jews promote mass immigration, intermarriage, and other phenomena that could lead to the “extinction of whites.”

And of course, Caryn Elaine Johnson, who adopted the insulting stage name “Whoopi Goldberg” called Jews and Nazis, “two white groups of people.” “If you’re going to do this, then let’s be truthful about it . . . these [Jews and Nazis] are two white groups of people.”

This clip of Whoopi Goldberg saying that the Holocaust was not about race is a great reminder that there have only been two Jewish co-hosts in the 25-year history of @TheView, and none since 2016. pic.twitter.com/ZlHBetzTfI

— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) January 31, 2022

Would Goldberg Johnson have referred to the bombing that took Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma’ada’s life as two brown groups of people fighting it out? Likely not. In fact, it is more than likely that Goldberg Johnson has never had the chance to meet a “real Jew” like Israeli Jew Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma’ada, may Hashem avenge his blood. Which may be the real lesson in all of this, which is that, as Paresky says, “Jews should never again accede to being defined and divided in racial terms.”

Nor should we ever again be driven off our land by people who pretend to inherit what God gave to the Jews—real Jews like Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma’ada, killed not for the color of his skin, but for his Jewish faith.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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11/22 Links Pt2: Bari Weiss: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Kanye, Kyrie, and Antisemitism; The Black Hebrew Israelites are a real problem for the left; Why Is Jon Stewart Ignoring and Excusing Antisemitism?

From Ian:

Bari Weiss: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Kanye, Kyrie, and Antisemitism

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar retired from the NBA in 1989, but he remains one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Many argue he is simply the greatest.

He is still—even with Michael Jordan and Steph Curry and Lebron and Shaq and Kobe—the NBA’s all-time leading scorer (38,387 points) and the league’s only six-time MVP. In March, the basketball news site HoopsHype included Abdul-Jabbar in its list of the top ten most influential players of all time. ESPN called him the greatest center in NBA history.

As Jews say every Passover: It would have been enough.

But there’s so much more that makes the 7-foot-2-inch Abdul-Jabbar a true giant. His religious conviction, his integrity, his wide-ranging intellectual proclivities, his outstanding performance in the 1981 movie Airplane!—and the unusual fact that this black, Muslim basketball star has been a consistent and outspoken voice against antisemitism.

For all those reasons, I wanted to speak with Abdul-Jabbar about the various firestorms of late: Kanye and his antisemitic rants; Kyrie Irving’s promotion of an antisemitic movie that denies the Holocaust; and the alarming rash of anti-Jewish hate crimes seemingly inspired by their worldview. A few weeks ago, a banner declaring “Kanye was right” hung over the 405 in Los Angeles as people gave Nazi salutes. On Halloween, the side of a townhouse in an Atlanta neighborhood was sprayed with graffiti: “Jews kill Blacks.” On the stop sign around the corner: “Jews enslave Black lives.” Last week, headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Chicago were vandalized with swastikas and the phrase “Kanye was rite.” And in Brooklyn, physical attacks against Orthodox Jews have become routine.

I asked Abdul-Jabbar about all of that and more in the Q and A below. And if you’re looking for more from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, check out his Substack, where he writes and talks about everything from basketball to pop culture to politics. — BW

BW: I want to focus on Farrakhan’s influence. He believes that Jews are parasitic, that Jews are behind a plot to exploit black Americans, and that blacks are the real Jews from the Bible. We’re hearing these ideas come out of the mouths of musicians like Kanye West (“Jewish people have owned the black voice”) and athletes like Kyrie Irving (“I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from”). For many Jews, hearing this kind of rhetoric is shocking, but many black Americans have noted that these views are more commonplace than we’d like to admit. So what I think a lot of people are afraid to ask is: How mainstream are these beliefs among black Americans? Are Kanye and Kyrie unique? Or has the influence of people like Farrakhan made this strain of antisemitism somehow more normal than many want to believe?

KAJ: Certain black leaders do exactly what certain white leaders do who want to gather followers, money, and power: They find a scapegoat they can blame. They can’t blame others who are marginalized because of the color of their skin, like Latinx or Asian-Americans, so they go for the default villain of fascists and racists: Jews.

What astounds me is not just the irrationality of it, but how self-destructive it is. Black people have to know that when they mouth antisemitism, they are using the exact same kind of reasoning that white supremacists use against blacks. They are enabling racism. Now they’ve aligned themselves with the very people who would choke out black people, drag them behind a truck, keep them from voting, and maintain systemic racism for another hundred years. They are literally making not only their lives worse, but their children’s lives. The fact that they can’t see that means the racists have won.

British Comedian David Baddiel Takes His ‘Jews Don’t Count’ Argument to TV

David Baddiel, a comedian-turned-activist against antisemitism who calls himself “one of the U.K.’s very few famous Jews,” was holding court in the basement of one of Britain’s best-known TV studios.

As a reporter headed hurriedly for the exit, Baddiel slouched into his chair, seemingly exhausted by the interview he had just completed about the forthcoming documentary based on his 2021 bestseller, “Jews Don’t Count.”

“I am speaking to many people like the last journalist who had not thought about any of this in their life,” he said.

The “this” Baddiel was referring to was to the idea, outlined in his book, that progressive anti-racists are guilty of hypocrisy towards Jews by not viewing them as worthy of similar protection or championing as other minorities because they are seen as white, privileged and wealthy.

When the book came out last year, it received rave reviews, and Baddiel has since become seen by some as a “voice for Britain’s Jews.” He often litigates the finer points of contemporary antisemitism as a guest on radio and television, and he has been quick to square off with trolls and critics on Twitter.

Now, with the premiere of an hour-long documentary also called “Jews Don’t Count” on Britain’s public Channel 4 network, Baddiel gets a primetime slot to make his case to a bigger audience. Featuring Baddiel’s interviews with Jewish stars of pop culture in both Britain and the United States — ranging from comedian Sarah Silverman to novelist Jonathan Safran Foer to actor Stephen Fry — the film argues that “in a culture where all forms of racism are being monitored, called out and held accountable, one form is apparently invisible.”

Can we fight antisemitism without losing our sense of humor?

If a comic with a huge following like Dave Chappelle goes over the line, he will immediately be put under a societal microscope that will analyze and respond from every possible angle, as I’m doing now.

If you run an organization that fights antisemitism, or simply cares for the welfare of the Jewish community, it’s almost certain that you will feel obligated to respond. Many of those responses follow the usual dance of “expose, condemn and ask for an apology.”

Chappelle himself poked fun at that dance at the start of his monologue: “Before I start tonight, I just wanted to read a brief statement that I prepared. I denounce antisemitism in all its forms and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community. And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”

Chappelle exposed the uneasy truth of celebrities getting caught saying something offensive and then releasing a statement that everyone knows was written by a PR handler. By revealing the goal of “buying yourself some time,” he captured the phoniness of the whole exercise.

That was cutting and funny. It’s when he played up antisemitic tropes around the “all powerful” Jew that he entered dicey territory.

“I’ve been to Hollywood,” he said. “And I don’t want y’all to get mad at me, I’m just telling you this is just what I saw. It’s a lot of Jews. Like a lot.”

Perhaps realizing he was on sensitive ground, he called the idea that Jews run show business a “delusion,” but then added: “It’s not a crazy thing to think. But it’s a crazy thing to say out loud in a climate like this.”

In other words, it’s not crazy to think that Jews run the show; just don’t say it out loud.

Whether he intended it or not, that “hush hush” vibe suggests mystery and conspiracy, precisely the ancient trope that fuels Jew-hatred and makes so many Jews nervous.

Which brings us back to the “Chappelle trap.” It’s one thing to fight antisemitism when it comes from places like a neo-Nazi march or a BDS group or even celebrity musicians or athletes. None of those people make a living by making us laugh.

Chappelle does.

Because Chappelle plays in the very Jewish playground of comedy, it makes it that much harder to calibrate our response. How do we fight a comic without losing our sense of humor, without losing what made America love us in the first place? At what point do we say, “We can’t take this joke because it goes too far?”

If the ritual of “expose, condemn and ask for an apology” is phony anyhow, is it worth losing our sense of humor? And does complaining so loudly, as much as it makes us feel good, make things better or worse?

In the classic Jewish tradition, I have more questions than answers.

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What Jon Stewart gets right - and wrong - in how to respond to antisemitism

Jon Stewart spoke about the recent antisemitism scandals from Black celebrities on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He was funny and perceptive, but not entirely right.

Stewart said, "Penalizing somebody for having a thought, I don't think is the way to change their minds or gain understanding. [Kyrie Irving] is a grown ass man and the idea that we say to him that we're going to put you in a time-out - 'you have to sit in the corner and stare at the wall until you no longer believe that Jews control the international banking system' " is not effective. 

He's right. It will not change the minds of the antisemites. In fact, it strengthens them, as they just take penalties as proof that the all-powerful Jews really do control the world.

Instead, Stewart said, we have to deal with it in a straightforward manner to gain understanding. Colbert asked exactly what that means. Stewart replies, "I think reflexively naming this antisemitism is as reductive as some of the things they might be saying. It immediately shuts down a conversation."

He then quoted Kanye West saying that "hurt people hurt people," that Jews must realize that Black antisemitism comes from a place of pain even if their facts are incorrect, and that it is more effective to directly deal with and counter the tropes than to shut down the conversation.

I agree that antisemitic tropes must be countered with facts. That's what I do, every day. 

When Black celebrities began publicly saying that they are the real Hebrews and Jews are imposters, I did not see a single media outlet actually look at the source of their claims and debunk them. I did. When modern antisemites obsessively attack Israel and claim that they are merely "criticizing" it, I show, from many angles, how anti-Zionism is rooted in antisemitism and how it remains so today. 

Contrary to what Stewart claims, however, he wants to pull punches with some kinds of antisemitism. He says that using the word shuts down the conversation, but it doesn't have to. When someone says something that is antisemitic, we shouldn't shy away from calling it out. Not to necessarily call the person an antisemite - one needs more evidence over time that someone is not just mindlessly repeating lies. However, we must point out that statements from Kanye West and his defenders or Ilhan Omar or Nick Cannon or Marjorie Taylor-Greene or Mahmoud Abbas or Roger Waters or David Miller or Joseph Massad are in fact antisemitic, and explain why. 

Which is what I do.

Part of being straightforward is to show how "progressives" and Blacks and Muslims sometimes are just as guilty of spreading antisemitism as white supremacists. 

Now, Stewart is partially right in saying that there should be a dialogue. Kyrie Irving is probably far more guilty of being ignorant than of being an antisemite, and it is possible that education might help. Unfortunately, that is usually not the case. Someone like Irving is not mentally equipped to watch the "Hebrews to Negroes" movie, to read a debunking, and to figure out which one is correct. The entire reason people are attracted to antisemitism to begin with is not based on facts but on prejudices - it is easier to blame Jews for one's misfortunes than to take responsibility for them. All of the "facts" in the Hebrews to Negroes book and movie are easily disproven, but people believe them because they want to, and no amount of facts will dislodge that desire.

Exposing antisemitic lies is more important for the masses who have not yet been exposed to them than for the people who are already spreading them. And we must not soft-pedal that.

Beyond that, the most effective way to fight antisemitism is not with endless arguments (even though that is what this website is about.) It is for Jews to act as proud Jews. For Jews not to allow ourselves to be put on the defensive. To not apologize for anything other Jews do, whether in Brooklyn or Jerusalem.  To not ingratiate ourselves with modern Jew-haters by dividing us up into "good Jews" and "bad Jews." 

To fight antisemitism, Jews need to learn and keep learning about our history and heritage. We need to be knowledgeable about, and proud of, the miracle that is Israel. We need to stop acting apologetic and start acting proud, to love the Hasidim as much as Seinfeld, to study the Torah and Jewish philosophy as much as we obsess over the New York Times. 

When Jews are apologetic about their Judaism or about Israel, and when we prioritize being progressive over being Jewish, non-Jews will pick up on the idea that we are uncomfortable with ourselves and our place in the world. 

When we are proud to be Jews, people will like us and want to be like us.

That is the most effective way to fight antisemitism.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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11/10 Links Pt2: How not to fight Antisemitism; Pro-Palestinian organizations plan another flotilla to Gaza; Why Ivy League Schools Get an “F” on Campus Antisemitism

From Ian:

The One Week of World War II That Gave Rise to the Modern Middle East

This week marks the 80th anniversary of three seismic events in North Africa that would change the shape of the entire Middle East. On November 8, 1942, Britain and the U.S. launched Operation Torch—the invasion of French North Africa (today Morocco and Algeria). Germany responded the next day by sending its forces to Tunisia, which until then had remained under Vichy control. Then, on November 11, Britain defeated the Nazis at El Alamein in Egypt—winning their first major victory of the war. Robert Satloff reflects on the long-term consequences of these events:
[T]he most lasting impact of the Nazi presence in Tunisia was to give Arabs an up-close look at a model of all-powerful government infused with supremacist ideology. Along with the 1941 arrival in Berlin of the Jerusalem mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini and Iraqi putschist Rashid Ali, both forced to flee from Baghdad, the Tunisia experience would play a role in building two movements that competed for power in the Middle East for decades to follow—the radical Arab nationalism of Gamal Abdul Nasser and Saddam Hussein and the Islamist extremism of Osama bin Ladin and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Whether both of these movements have been flushed from the Arab political system—or are just passing through a period of reassessment, retrenchment and rebirth—is one of the region’s most profound uncertainties.

As recent scholarship shows, the Germans had designs on Egypt and the Levant that went beyond the purely strategic objectives of controlling the Suez Canal, the eastern Mediterranean, and the oil fields of Arabia. In fact, there is convincing evidence that the Nazis planned to follow on Rommel’s expected sweep into Cairo and then onto Jerusalem with the extermination of the Jewish communities of Egypt, Palestine, and beyond. If the Panzers were not defeated in the Western Desert, this would likely have added more than 600,000 additional Jews to the Holocaust death toll.

This would have aborted any hope of the Zionist dream for a “Jewish national home” in the historic homeland of the Jewish people. The near annihilation of the Jews of Europe fed the desire for Jewish sovereignty; the annihilation of the Jews of the Levant would have killed it. Israel would never have been.

The Schlesinger Diaries - new and troubling revelations

Fourteen years after the passing of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., his diaries continue to provide historians with important new information. The latest beneficiary is John A. Farrell, whose biography of Ted Kennedy contains disturbing new details concerning the Chappaquiddick cover-up, which Farell obtained by gaining access to unpublished sections of Schlesinger’s diaries.

My own experiences with Schlesinger and his diaries concerned a different American political leader, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The information that emerged was deeply troubling, to say the least.

“We Have No Jewish Blood”

My first encounter with Schlesinger was related to a meeting that President Roosevelt held on August 4, 1939, with a political ally, Sen. Burton Wheeler (D-Montana). They discussed possible Democratic candidates for president and vice president in the event FDR did not seek re-election in 1940; Wheeler composed a memo for his private files recounting their conversation.

According to the memo, FDR dismissed the idea of vice president Jack Garner as the party’s presidential nominee on the grounds that he was too conservative: “[Roosevelt] said ‘I do not want to see a reactionary democrat nominated.’ The President said, ‘I love Jack Garner personally. He is a lovable man,’ but he said, ‘he could not get the n—- vote, and he could not get the labor vote’.” (Wheeler did not use the dashes.)

The president also expressed doubt about the viability of a ticket composed of Secretary of State Cordell Hull for president and Democratic National Committee chairman Jim Farley for vice president. Sen. Wheeler wrote:

I said to the President someone told me that Mrs. Hull was a Jewess, and I said that the Jewish-Catholic issue would be raised [if Hull was nominated for president, and Farley, a Catholic, was his running mate]. He [FDR] said, “Mrs. Hull is about one quarter Jewish.” He said, “You and I, Burt, are old English and Dutch stock. We know who our ancestors are. We know there is no Jewish blood in our veins, but a lot of these people do not know whether there is Jewish blood in their veins or not.”

The memo is located in Wheeler’s papers at Montana State University. The file also contains two letters sent to Wheeler from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. in 1959. At the time, Schlesinger was working on The Politics of Upheaval, the final installment of his three-volume history of the New Deal. According to the letters, Sen. Wheeler sent Schlesinger a copy of his 1939 memorandum on the “Jewish blood” conversation with FDR. Schlesinger, after reviewing the memo, wrote to Wheeler that the document “offer[s] valuable sidelights on history.”

Nevertheless, Schlesinger never quoted FDR’s remarks about “Jewish blood” in any of the many books and articles he subsequently wrote about Roosevelt and his era. Ironically, in one of those articles (published in Newsweek in 1994), Schlesinger specifically defended FDR against any suspicion that he was unsympathetic to Jews; and he approvingly quoted Trude Lash, a friend of the Roosevelts, as saying, “FDR did not have an anti-Semitic bone in his body.”

Imagining a Jewish Atom Bomb

The early interest in a nuclear reactor, which originated with Weizmann’s appeals to Oppenheimer, passed from Weizmann to Ben-Gurion via Bergmann. It seems that at some point during 1948, Weizmann’s views on nuclear technology began to change: he moved away from ideas of practical science to “pure science.” The existing sources do not directly outline how Weizmann’s thinking evolved, leaving room for some speculation. It is possible that Weizmann felt compelled to join the community of scientists, like Einstein, who by now publicly rejected the development of an atomic arsenal and its handling by the US government, which in their view was not making the required progress toward nuclear disarmament. Another explanation relates to Weizmann’s political decline and his sense of betrayal by his former close confidante, Bergmann.

During 1947, Bergmann drew closer to Ben-Gurion, both personally and professionally. According to his biographers, as of the fall of 1947 Bergmann became “completely absorbed in the task of meeting the immediate wartime needs of Israel, and any plans which he might have been formulating with regard to nuclear energy had to be put on the back burner.” As the academic director of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Bergmann championed the institute’s participation in the Yishuv’s war effort. During the War of Independence, in 1948, Bergman and other scientists persuaded Ben-Gurion that “a national nuclear project was within Israel’s scientific abilities.” Weizmann’s declining interest in atomic energy took place in parallel with Ben-Gurion’s increasing interest in the matter and the close cooperation between Ben-Gurion and Bergmann. It is possible that growing resentment toward Bergmann, who crossed the line into Ben-Gurion’s camp, in some part motivated Weizmann’s rejection of Bergmann’s nuclear activism. In 1951, Bergmann would become Ben-Gurion’s personal scientific adviser and later the chair of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (1952-1966).

Ben-Gurion first publicly mentioned his fascination with the atom on Sept. 11, 1948, citing the “miraculous make-up” of the atom and the “enormous capacity hidden in its dismantlement.” In March 1949, Ben-Gurion held a meeting with Moshe Moris Sordin, a French nuclear scientist raised in the Yishuv. Sordin, who in 1945 took part in the establishment of the French Atomic Energy Commission, was secretly brought to Israel to meet with Ben-Gurion and discuss “the future of nuclear reactors.” In a 1986 interview, Sordin recalled that at their meeting Ben-Gurion demonstrated deep understanding of and interest in nuclear technology. Around that time, Bergmann also convinced Ben-Gurion to send six promising Israeli graduate students to study nuclear physics abroad.

It was Ben-Gurion, together with Bergmann and the young Shimon Peres, who pushed forward the Israeli nuclear program during the 1950s, bringing about the establishment of two research reactors in Soreq and Dimona. Of the three, it was Peres, the political operator, who cemented the nuclear relationship between France and Israel, paving the way for the French agreement to build the Dimona reactor in the days leading up to the 1956 Suez crisis.

On Feb. 14, 1949, a fragile and almost blind Weizmann inaugurated the opening session of the Constituent Assembly of the new State of Israel. No longer enthusiastic about the role of the Jewish scientists in the Manhattan Project, a more cautious, weary Weizmann took the stand. Though his speech was short and concise, he included in it, remarkably, a warning against the dangers of the atomic bomb. He framed this as the result of scientific development lacking any moral vision:


Yet, for all the decisive importance of science, it is not by science alone that we shall win through. Let us build a new bridge between science and the spirit of man. Where there is no vision the people perish. We have seen what scientific progress leads to when it is not inspired by moral vision—the atomic bomb threatening to destroy the entire planet.

Unpublished memoir passages shed light on Weizmann’s views regarding nuclear technology and its benefits, and how these relate to its so-called Jewish heritage:


“If human folly reaches such a stage that atomic energy will be used extensively in the next war about which one hears so much talk, it will be said that the Jews have conspired to destroy the world. If, however, as I hope and believe is the case, atomic energy will be guided into constructive channels, and humanity will enjoy the benefits of unlimited sources of energy ... I doubt whether people will remember the great number of Jews who will have helped to bring these results about.”

Unpacked: Operation Opera: How Israel Destroyed Iraq's Nuclear Power | History of Israel Explained

On the night before the holiday of Shavuot 1981, Prime Minister Menachem Begin shocked his cabinet by announcing they would be launching a surprise attack called “Operation Opera” on a nuclear reactor in Iraq, known as Osirak.

Should the operation fail, the lives of four million Israelis would be at risk, however Begin chose to go ahead with the plan. Despite the large criticism Israel faced in the aftermath, Operation Opera was successful in protecting Israel and preventing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from building nuclear weapons.

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