About ten years ago, a group of students at Harvard became incensed that their Jewish campus Hillel canceled an anti-Israel event when it was revealed that a BDS group was sponsoring it, violating Hillel's guidelines.
Of course they could hold their event anywhere, but they decided to start a movement called Open Hillel to get other Hillels to drop their affiliation with Hillel. Like so many "progressive" organizations past and future, they are more interested in creating a split within the Jewish community than in building their own. Open Hillel had a conference at Harvard in 2014 and based on the media attention, it looked like it could rupture Hillel International.
It failed.
In the end, only four campuses nationwide defected to "Open Hillel" - Guilford College, Swarthmore College, Vassar College, and Wesleyan University.
By 2020, none of them were still associated with Open Hillel - and two of them are now affiliated with Hillel International again.
In short, Open Hillel made a lot of noise but in the end could not attract students who are both interested in Judaism and anti-Zionism. There is a strong negative correlation between the two positions, which pretty much dooms any attempt to fuse them, no matter how many anti-Israel Haggadahs are printed.
So Open Hillel is in a deep coma, and has been for a while, just as the American Council for Judaism - a prominent and equally tiny anti-Zionist group in the 1940s-1960s - also sunk into irrelevance. Both organizations have a couple of people still doing paperwork to maintain their tax exempt status but they have faded away after a lot of publicity early on.
But Open Hillel has one last gambit to stay alive: "Judaism On Our Own Terms," or JOOOT.
They wrote an introductory piece in Mondoweiss on Friday: "Judaism On Our Own Terms is creating a space where young Jews do not have to choose between their Judaism and their sense of justice."
JOOOT is an offshoot, and seemingly successor, of Open Hillel. Since 2020, Open Hillel's Form 990 has included a position for Rakhel Silverman as a "Judaism on our own Terms organizer." getting paid $4600 in 2020 and $2492 in 2021. Silverman describes themself as a "a proud fat trans Disabled Jew."
But JOOOT really doesn't know what to do next. On their website they say they are in the midst of a "restructuring process" where they are asking anyone and everyone to please give them some ideas of what they should be doing. To restructure means they had a structure to begin with, which is not at all clear.
This mirrors the self-destruction of IfNotNow, but at least IfNotNow managed to grab some headlines before its inevitable collapse.
In the end, even children know that "Judaism On Our Own Terms" is an oxymoron. People don't look at religion or community to do whatever they want - they want to be part of a whole where everyone shares basic beliefs and standards. If anyone can do whatever they want and call it Judaism, then Judaism has no meaning. The anti-Zionists only have one belief - hating Israel - and that is not enough to keep a core group of enthusiastic members nor is it enough to attract more.
There will still be plenty of anti-Zionist Jews. But their interest in identifying as Jews is ephemeral. Which is why these groups are all doomed, but also why there will always be new ones who think they came up with the idea.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Have you ever heard of the American Council for Judaism?
We've discussed it before. It was the IfNotNow of the 1940s and 1950s, holding an anti-Zionist position that it pretended was Jewish. The ACJ pretended to be loyal to "classical Reform Judaism," and insisted that Jews were a religion but not a people and that to be Zionist was to be anti-American. In 1957 the Union for Reform Judaism emphatically rejected the ACJ as having nothing to do with the Reform stance towards Zionism.
Because it had the name "Judaism" in its name, the media loved to quote it even though it represented only a fringe of a fringe of American Jewry. Just like "Jewish Voice for Peace" today, the early head of ACJ - Elmer Berger - managed to grab headlines and make it appear that ACJ was a major player in American Judaism.
So whatever happened to the ACJ?
It is still around, and even more irrelevant.
It has a website, and apparently it still has some assets, but not much income.
The website shows that there is a quarterly journal, "Issues of the American Council of Judaism." Nearly every article for the past twelve years is written by the same person, Allan C. Brownfeld.
IfNotNow tweeted on Sunday, "BREAKING: 13 Jewish IfNotNow activists were just attacked by security at the Israel Bonds Conference as they prayed Maariv to protest the visit by genocidal Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who called for a Palestinian town to be wiped out."
The video doesn't show them praying Ma'ariv. It shows them singing one of their favorite songs, "Lo Yisa Goy."
They love the song because the translated lyrics mean, "Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war. "
The verse is from Isaiah 2:4, where the prophecy describes Messianic times.
But what does it say before this part?
In the days to come, The Mount of the LORD’s House shall stand firm above the mountains and tower above the hills; and all the nations shall gaze on it with joy..And the many peoples shall go and say, "Come, Let us go up to the Mount of the LORD, to the House of the God of Jacob; that He may instruct us in His ways, and that we may walk in His paths. For the Torah shall come forth from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem."
Before there can be the peace described in the song, the world must recognize that the Lord of Israel is the true God and the Temple will have to be rebuilt - on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Zion.
I don't think that IfNotNow's Palestinian friends want them to sing that message.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
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.
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.
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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.
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
IfNotNow sent an email to its mailing list asking for money - by making up a lie about AIPAC.
This is a lie.
AIPAC was founded in two stages. The first was in 1951, as a lobbying arm of the American Zionist Council. It was essentially a one-man operation run by Isaiah (Si) Kenen to strengthen the Israel/American relationship. He immediately went to work on getting funding from Congress for resettling Jewish refugees in Israel. He had great relationships with many members of Congress - but the State Department was notably hostile to Israel.
In 1953, he had some heated battles, mostly over Israeli access to water - Israel and Syria strongly disagreed over allocating water from the north and Syria wanted to ensure that Israel wouldn't get enough. Israel in turn started a project to create a canal/hydroelectric station, which angered the Eisenhower administration and the State Department. Later in 1953, the Qibya incident occurred, and there was more pressure on Israel from the US.
But the AZC lobbying arm had nothing to do with that, and it wasn't "founded to justify this massacre." That is absurd. It is not a hasbara organization.
In 1954, it was decided to spin off the lobbying group as its own separate organization with its own funding, supported by a larger base of Zionist organizations, as the battles in 1953 were time consuming (Congress reduced its funding of Israel in 1953 by about 25%.) Kenan headed the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs, registered in March 1954.
That group was renamed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 1959.
Modern antisemitic groups like Electronic Intifada, IfNotNow and others like to claim that they aren't antisemitic - the real antisemites are the Jews (they say "Zionists.")
It turns out that even that argument was used by the classic antisemites of history.
This op-ed in The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, October 03, 1941 shows that this argument was used by the antisemitic "America First Committee."
This op-ed shows a methodology of antisemitism that remains popular today.
"That's the trick, the technique and the plan of the anti-Semite. Blame the Jews for everything bad, then deny that it is anti-Semitism, and then blame the Jews themselves for bringing up the subject at all."
Nothing has changed in 80 years.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Yesterday, IfNotNow published a "havdalah service" for people who were campaigning for Andy Levin in Michigan - "Jews for Andy."
Havdalah is meant to separate the Sabbath from the weekday, but for these people, it was done in broad daylight, which is something we have seen anti-Israel groups do before.
This was also done in a "Jews for Rashida" "Passover seder" held in 2020 where the entire idea of a seder was subverted and perverted for political ends.
In this case, though, IfNotNow tried to pre-empt any criticism with this tweet:
To all the trolls ready to dunk on a Havdalah ceremony while there’s still light out — you’re just telling on yourself when you police others’ Jewish practices.
There’s no right or wrong way to be Jewish.
It didn't work out for them. As of this writing, this tweet has been "ratioed" 3-1, one of the relatively rare cases where far more people comment negatively to a tweet than click on "Like." My comment was, "So I can light a Christmas tree and call it a Chanukah menorah? I can have a Yom Kippur feast and call it a fast? I can replace a shofar with a kazoo?"
Yet the tweet says a great deal about the Israel haters who claim Jewish legitimacy and their relationship with Judaism.
To these "progressives," anyone can declare themselves to be anything and this must be respected because it is "their truth." But that cheapens and ultimately makes worthless the religion they claim to respect. If there are no rules, then being Jewish means nothing. It is as absurd as saying that there is no right or wrong way to be a vegan, or no right or wrong way to play soccer, or no right or wrong color of a stoplight to decide to go.
But Judaism isn't completely worthless to these "progressives." To them, it is a prop - declare themselves Jewish, do something that vaguely resembles a Jewish tradition, tie it to a political cause and then discard it.
This isn't "pick and choose" Judaism. This is claiming that Judaism simply has no value or meaning except for selfish political reasons.
And if you proclaim that Judaism has no intrinsic value, then you are an antisemite.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
It is a predictable pattern: any time anything happens in the news, a group of anti-Israel Jews issue a "letter" from "Jewish leaders" that try to gaslight the world and pretend to represent Jews as a whole.
The Israel-hating Left is very frightened by the wave of antisemitic attacks that have gotten publicity worldwide - attacks that clearly aren't initiated by the far Right that they blame for all antisemitism. So, they wrote a letter to fool people into thinking that the attacks are an anomaly, and roundly condemned by pro-Palestinian activists.
As usual, they are lying.
This one has the absurd title "Jewish Leaders Say: We Won't Be Distracted, We Won't Be Divided." The gaslighting begins in the title: they represent only a tiny fringe of Jews (only some 3% of Jews are actively anti-Zionist.) The writers of this letter are the ones who are actively trying to divide the Jewish community, not the mainstream Zionists.
We are Jewish leaders who have a range of opinions, perspectives, and approaches to Israel-Palestine.
Yes, some of them (IfNotNow, JVP) want the Jewish state destroyed today, and some (J-Street) are willing to wait until tomorrow.
We are deeply concerned by recent reports and outcries from certain corners of our community which suggest a direct confluence between the growing movement for Palestinian freedom and violent incidents against Jews in our cities.
Their "concern" is that the attacks delegitimize their movement as being based on liberal principles. The letter is an attempt to deflect from that.
We unequivocally condemn attacks on members of our Jewish community. Jewish people deserve to walk safely in the streets of our cities without fear of attack or harassment — just like anyone else. Blaming all Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitic. We are shocked and disgusted by individuals who would use this moment of heightened support for Palestinian rights to advance antisemitic hatred and violence.
It does not take political courage to condemn random attacks on Jews. But after they do, then they go on to minimize and justify them.
We reject efforts to stoke fear and division. Supporters of the Israeli government — including some in the American Jewish establishment — are misrepresenting fringe and widely-condemned acts of individual antisemitism as characteristic of the broader Palestinian human rights movement.
The only people stoking division are these fringe Jews. The entire purpose of this letter is to give the impression that a significant number of Jews consider Israel to be beneath contempt.
Ooooh, look at all those hyperlinks! Most of them point to tweets, in English, from people no one heard of, that deny Palestinian antisemitism.
But if you spend time looking at Palestinian Arabic media, the story is very different.
MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch expose blatant antisemitism in Arabic media all the time, as do I, but that's not the entire story. I have not once seen Palestinian backlash against explicit antisemitism in their media. If one is going to represent antisemitism as a fringe opinion in Palestinian circles, then one would expect that Palestinians would condemn other Palestinians who spout Jew-hatred - and that never happens.
I have never seen a single Palestinian media outlet criticize their first political leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with the Nazis in the Final Solution, as antisemitic. I have never seen a Palestinian respond to the mainstream Palestinian belief, popularized by Yasir Arafat, that Jerusalem is not really holy to Jews and there was never a Temple there. The antisemitic theory that most Israeli Jews are really Khazars and not Jews at all is never even debated. When Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah organization published the blood libel in Arabic, after defending it, it issued an apology, but only in English. Mahmoud Abbas claimed that rabbis want to poison the water of Palestinians. He has blamed Jews for the Holocaust which he claims was vastly exaggerated. The official PLO position is that there is no such thing as a Jewish people.
This is not "fringe antisemitism." This is as mainstream as it gets.
I think that these examples outweigh a few tweets from nobodies. But that's how one does propaganda - highlight the few counterexamples and ignore the overwhelming evidence disproving the thesis. But the "leaders" deny the reality:
Linking the movement at large to antisemitism is baseless and harmful. Especially in this moment, we must condemn this thinly veiled attempt to delegitimize Palestinian leadership and distract from Palestinians experiencing state violence by Israel.
The Leftist Jews don't only deny the undeniable antisemitism that is at the very core of Palestinianism. They then say that it is the Jews who are really the racists!
We commit to standing up against anti-Palestinian racism, so often unreported and unacknowledged in our communities.
First they bend over backwards to deny the existence of Palestinian antisemitism, no matter how explicit and blatant. But you know who the real bigots are? Jews!
....We support our Palestinian siblings’ right to describe their lived experiences without being accused of antisemitism. {W]e refuse to be more outraged by the words Palestinians use than the actual violence they endure.
4300 rockets, decades of terror attacks, Palestinian leaders inciting violence against Jews - they all go unmentioned. No, these As-A-Jews pretend that the only problem with Palestinians is that they sometimes say some bad stuff - which are all completely justified, by the way, because of Israel - and Jews are racists for calling those out. And when Palestinians say that Jews are Nazis, well, that is their "lived experience" and cannot be considered antisemitic.
Similarly, we refuse to allow progressive leaders of color who speak out in support of Palestinian rights to be smeared for their principled stand.
Claiming that Jews are racist is antisemitic itself. Mainstream Jews refute the antisemitism and terror-support from Roger Waters and Betty McCollum as energetically as they refute the lies from Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. To claim that somehow Marc Lamont Hill should not be called out for his antisemitic conspiracy theories because he is Black is the actual racism.
Beyond that, was Kareem Abdul Jabbar being racist when he called out the antisemitism from among Black Lives Matter supporters last year? There is a serious problem with Black antisemitism, whether it is from celebrities or from people attacking random religious Jews in Brooklyn. These "Jewish leaders" deny it, meaning that they condone it.
We know safety comes through solidarity. Antisemitism — like anti-Asian, anti-Black, anti-Palestinian, and Islamophobic attacks and rhetoric — exists in every community, but it is fostered and exploited by rightwing movements in the US and around the world, which gain power by keeping us divided.
Yes, a letter that is supposedly against antisemitism ends up blaming only the Right, and dismisses all other Jew-hatred as "fringe." Which means that this letter ends up tacitly defending all antisemitism that is not rightwing - antisemitism from Arabs, from the Left, from people of color, from Louis Farrakhan - as justified or anomalous, and not something that needs to be specifically called out or fought.
Last August, there were protests after a white police officer shot Jacob
Blake, a 29-year-old black man. The protests turned angry, and the words “Free
Palestine” were spray‐painted on the driveway of the Beth Hillel Temple.
Of course, IfNotNow's mistake was not that the "phrasing" fell
short -- their condemnation enraged their left allies because it went
too far. And worse, they think their condemnation of the defacing of
a synagogue was a "distraction" by focusing on an attack on Jews and away
from police violence and Black Lives Matter.
By backtracking, IfNotNow gave legitimacy to the idea that a synagogue
showing an Israeli flag with a Star of David warrants a response, like
defacing the synagogue with "Free Palestine".
Which raises some questions about what Jews should be allowed to do, and
what protesters should be allowed to do in response:
It's an odd tweet: the Palestinian Arabs are no threat to Jews --
but the only way Jews will be safe is for the Palestinian Arabs to get
equal rights, i.e. dismantle Israel. Thanks, but those guys attacking Jews on the street beat you to that
message.
Put aside their apparent ignorance of the Hamas Charter (or IfNotNow's
dishonest attempt to avoid the hadith the charter quotes about killing Jews).
IfNotNow deliberately understates the danger facing Jews from those
'freedom-living' Palestinian Arabs and their allies as being merely
"isolated."
o London: Palestinian activists use a bullhorn to tell people
the rape the daughters of Jews o Russia: a man walks
up to a Jew who is minding his own business and casually kicks him just for
being Jewish...like assaulting a Jew is no big deal. o Winnipeg: a man walks up to some jews, spits on their flag, wipes his feet on it,
and then proceeds to push and threaten them when they try to get him to
stop. o Toronto: an "anti-zionism" protest turns
violent and a Jew is beaten with sticks...in broad daylight...in Canada o Los Angeles: Jews getting attacked o More Jews being attacked
in Los Angeles, where outdoor dining is totally safe unless you are a
Jew o If the beatings don't make the point, a caravan
of verbal abuse will make sure to make the point. o Germany: Rioters surround a synagogue and break the windows with rocks while
chanting "shitty Jews" in German\ o New York City:
Jews are attacked and have things thrown at them, in the middle of the city,
in broad daylight. o Jews get chased by cars trying
to run them over o a Jew are taunted and verbally
abused by "anti-zionists" while a Jew lays unconscious on the sidewalk o Toronto: a Jewish catering service has its windows smashed o Jews are attacked with some kind of small explosive projectile (maybe a
firework), in a busy city in broad daylight. o Dearborn, Michigan: yelling “intifada, intifada” - a call for rioting, violence and death
against Jews. o London: they chant in battle cry in
Arabic that translates as “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is
returning.” It refers to the Muslim massacre of Jews of the town in the 7th
century. o Model Bella Hadid chanting "from the river
to the sea Palestine will be free" a slogan Hamas uses to call for Genocide.
No, these attacks are not isolated, and they are still going on.
But to pursue it at the expense of the Jewish community, to deliberately play
down the increasing danger facing Jews around the world and in the US and to
turn their backs on Jews while claiming that other issues are more urgent?
Yes, Hillel did say "If not now, when?
But he also said "Do not separate from the community."
A bunch of progressive and anti-Zionist Jews wrote a letter to President Biden urging him to appoint an antisemitism envoy that will ignore most forms of antisemitism. Haaretz gave this piece of stupidity oxygen.
Let's take it apart:
Dear Mr. President and Secretary Blinken:
As Jewish leaders, we write to you at a moment of both fear and hope. We are deeply concerned about the antisemitic violence and rhetoric we have witnessed worldwide over the last few years. We are hopeful because your administration has an opportunity to choose a new approach in response to the urgency of contemporary antisemitism.
No, their statements have shown that they utterly ignore all antisemitism that comes from the Left, from Black people, from Palestinians and Muslims. Which is most of it.
At this pivotal moment, our society is reckoning with centuries of white supremacy and with new, globally networked right-wing extremist movements — problems we will only be able to face if we understand antisemitism’s role in white supremacist and ethnonationalist ideologies. We feel compelled to raise our voices because we see our fights at stake, too, in the question of how the U.S. government will define and pursue the fight against antisemitism in America and around the world.
No one - and I mean no one - minimizes the threat of right-wing antisemitism. No one supports Nazis or white supremacists. No one says that the US shouldn't do everything is can to dismantle violent far-right groups. Their emphasis on antisemitism from the right, and only the right, is their way of shielding and excusing most antisemites.
Antisemitism is a racial justice issue. We have seen antisemitic conspiracy theories used to undermine Black-led movements for justice: false and dehumanizing claims that posit Jewish responsibility for Black brilliance and in so doing endanger us all. Too often, the same people deploying those anti-Jewish conspiracy theories then wield accusations of antisemitism as a weapon against progressives, especially Black and Palestinian progressives who criticize the Israeli government. All the while, Jews of color and their experiences of antisemitism and racism at the intersections are ignored. We need an envoy who understands how antisemitism and white supremacy reinforce one another.
Everyone knows that far-right nutcases are also anti-Black. But antisemitism is not limited to them, as these people are saying.
Antisemitism is an economic justice issue. The U.S. economy is in crisis. Conspiracy theories that blame economic suffering on Jewish financial control are being used to obscure the structural inequities that plague our society. To tackle economic inequality head on, we need leadership that is clear-eyed about how antisemitism is used to scapegoat Jews for the failings of our financial systems, weaken trust in government-led solutions, and undermine movements to build an economically just future. We need an envoy who is prepared to counter antisemitism as part of the fight for a more just, inclusive economy.
Antisemitism is a climate issue and a migration issue. Antisemitic theories wrongly cast climate crisis-induced migration as a Jewish plot to replace the white race — an idea that the gunman who killed 11 Jews at prayer at Tree of Life in 2018 used to justify his violence. As we prepare for humane and just responses to climate migration, we need an envoy who understands the threat of eco-fascism and the role antisemitism often plays in eco-fascist ideology.
Antisemitism is a feminist issue. Antisemitic ideas are almost always intertwined with toxic, hateful ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality. Over and over, we have seen violence carried out by men who have been radicalized to hate both women and Jews — but the connections between antisemitism and misogyny are under-emphasized, to all of our detriment. We need an envoy who is committed to dismantling antisemitism and misogyny together.
This is beyond absurd. Now that they have badly defined what antisemitism is, they try to minimize the danger of even that, by placing Jew-hatred in "context." This means that the fight against antisemitism gets subsumed under general progressive issues which, we have seen over and over, always have a higher priority.
If you look at antisemitism as a feminist and economic and climate and migration issue, you no longer have any tools to fight actual Jew-hate. Antisemitism takes a backseat to every other issue. All you are left with are slogans that Nazis are bad, which is pretty much the depth of this entire argument.
For all of these reasons and many more, we demand that the Biden administration choose a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism who will commit to treating the fight against antisemitism as part of the fight for just, multiracial democracy. We need an envoy who is willing to confront antisemitism wherever it occurs, transcending the shallow framing of “left and right” and understanding both the disproportionate threat of organized, violent white nationalist antisemitism and the complexities of antisemitism across communities.
This letter mentions far-Right antisemitism six times and all the others are ignored. Who are the ones who put the issue in a shallow frame of "left and right"?
Antisemitism is found everywhere. Throughout history, antisemites of all creeds, colors and political identities associate Jews with what they despise most. This is why far-Right antisemites call Jews "communists" while far-Left antisemites call Jews racists, colonialists and child-killers; Black antisemites will say Jews try to control their lives by controlling their livelihoods; Muslim antisemites will say Jews are cowards and enemies of Mohammed; Christian antisemites will call Jews Christ-killers; Black Nation of Islam followers will call Jews slave owners. If there is one hatred that unites the world, it is Jew-hatred.
The more you know about antisemitism, the more you realize that the people who signed this letter don't know the first thing about antisemitism.
For too long, antisemitism has been used as a justification for Islamophobic policies and for the targeting of advocates for Palestinian rights, here in the U.S. and around the world. We need a new approach, carried out by an envoy who has the integrity to build bridges between communities and movements.
The utter inability of these Jews to even acknowledge the existence of Arab antisemitism - after Jews were ethnically cleansed from all Arab countries - shows you that they are not really against antisemitism.
Denying any form of antisemitism is condoning it.
One other point: While every other kind of bigotry is defined by the far-Left as expansively as possible, antisemitism is defined as narrowly as possible. People who want to throw the Jews into the sea, or who claim that Blacks are the real Jews and Jews are imposters, or that the Jewish state is the most racist state in the world, are not denigrated. Nazis are bad - but poets of color or Leftist rock stars or Palestinian leaders who echo Nazi literature are celebrated and their antisemitism, when called out, is excused.
The last thing that Jews need is an antisemitism envoy who so grossly misunderstands antisemitism as the signatories of this letter.
One of the more disingenuous parts of groups like IfNotNow demnding that Zionist organizations like Birthright include an anti-Zionist point of view is that no one - and I mean no one - ever even considers politely requesting so-called "pro-Palestinian" groups include the Zionist narrative in their discussions.
The reason this comes up is a small article in the PLO website. A delegation of students and professors from Glasgow University and from a university in California attended an "educational program on history, the Palestinian cause and Israeli violations against our people and their violation of international law" this summer.
Is anyone demanding that the PLO allow these students and professors to speak to Israelis, let alone Jewish settlers?
The very idea is absurd. Because absolutely no one expects Palestinians to be even-handed, or fair, or unbiased. No one demands that they consider Israeli positions as having any validity, or even that they have the right to be spoken out loud.
Birthright does give students an opportunity to ask about and learn about the Palestinian perspective. Do the anti-Israel tours - whether from the PLO or from Breaking the Silence or International Solidarity Movement - allow similar opportunities in their tours?
We all know the answer. According to these so-called progressives, Zionist groups must include an anti-Zionist narrative and anti-Zionist groups must also teach an anti-Zionist narrative. Pro-Zionist voices must be shut down or drowned out, because only one side has any legitimacy according to these people who congratulate themselves on how open-minded they are - in one direction.
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It seems there are various former members of J Street, some who served in leadership positions, who are now involved in If Not Now -- and some of them are apparently founding members.
For example:
Max Berger
o He is identified as a co-founder of If Not Now in his 'bio' on Haaretz o A JTA article notes that before If Not Now, Max Berger worked for J Street as a new media assistant
Yonah Lieberman
o Yonah Lieberman has a twitter account that identifies him as a co-founder of If Not Now o Lieberman was very heavily involved in J Street. According to his LinkedIn page, from January 2010 on he was a member of the National Student Board, the Midwest Regional Co-Chair, and Campus Chapter Chair.
Carinne Luck
o Times of Israel identifies Carinne Luck as a co-founder of If Not Now. o Luck's website notes she was a founding staff member and Vice President for Field and Campaigns at J Street.
Simone Zimmerman
o Simone Zimmerman identifies herself as a co-founder of If Not Now on her Twitter page. o In an article for The Forward, Josh Nathan-Kazis writes that Simone Zimmerman was the national president of J Street U’s student board in the 2012-2013 school year
o Emily Mayer identifies herself as an If Not Now organizer on her Twitter page o Daniel Greenfield notes that Emily Mayer was with J Street U at Haverford
Sarah Beth Alcabes
Canary Mission lists Sarah Beth Alcabes as leading an INN disruption, in partnership with Taher Herzallah of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and also being an activist with J Street U at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley) from 2012-2014.
Times of Israel mentions Elianna Fishman, who was "heavily involved with J Street U Dartmouth" and who confirms "I interned for J Street, and helped set up a chapter on campus” before graduating and joining IfNotNow -- to which the article adds
In fact, many of IfNotNow’s leaders are alumni of J Street U.
[If Not Now] remains small, attracting several dozen participants, some of whom are leaders of J Street U, the group’s student-organizing arm.
But the question remains: why have these, and other members of J Street, made the switch?
It sure appears as if J-Street is a gateway drug for Jewish students to learn to hate Israel and to be comfortable to criticize Israel "as a Jew." But it might be more than that.
According to a Haaretz article from 2014, Gaza War Pushes Some to the Left of J Street. The logic, according to Haaretz, is that over time, J Street, even back in 2014, was becoming larger and more moderate, with the result that there were the beginnings of a limited exodus that benefited smaller more radical groups. One of those groups was If Not Now, described in the article as "an ad hoc group."
Of course, what the Haaretz article claims is a sign of J Street's moderation can also be seen as the failure in the eyes of some of its members, to become increasingly radical.
A similar theme to Haaretz is taken by Nathan-Kazis in the Forward also in an article from 2014, that in contrast to the more "moderate" tone taken by J Street, some members felt J Street was not doing enough:
Former high-ranking J Street staff members were among the organizers of a July 28 protest in New York City against Israel’s invasion of Gaza. They acted under the name #ifnotnow and made no mention of their former J Street affiliations.
He writes about another protest just a few days earlier, launched by 4 activists that included high-ranking members Carinne Luck who had left J Street in 2012 and Daniel May, director of J Street U from 2010 to 2013 as well as Max Berger.
Other participants in one or both of those #ifnotnow protests included Isaac Luria, J Street’s vice president of communications and new media from 2008 until 2011 and Tamara Shapiro.
Some of that former J Street staff said they were not opposed to J Street’s long-term strategy -- but felt limited by its tactics. Others, like Luck, said they did not share J Street's "patience" with the "Jewish institutional community."
That is the narrative. Daniel Greenfield of FrontPageMag.org isn't buying it.
The official narrative is that If Not Now parted ways with J Street because the group was insufficiently opposed to the Jewish State and insufficiently supportive of Hamas. As a practical matter though this is how radical groups have always operated, with a front group that makes efforts to appear moderate while incubating radical organizations within itself that "split off" but still pursue the same agenda.
Despite claims of a split, If Not Now is just pursuing the exact same agenda as J Street U, protesting Jewish charities for supporting Israel, while claiming to be the voice of a new generation.
It's the same scam with a new brand and slightly less of a paper trail.
If Not Now is J Street...
...New organizations are constantly being created and destroyed. But they all share one agenda. The destruction of the Jewish State.
If there is indeed an element of dramatic effect at work here, then this alleged break would be no more authentic than the recent break of Jesse Steshenko, who claimed to have been "a very ardent Zionist" who as a result of his recent J Street trip to Israel became "disgusted" with Israel.
Elder of Ziyon revealed that in fact as recently as 2016 as a member of Junior States of America, a mock Congress, he introduced a resolution calling Israel an apartheid state and demanding the recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as defined by the 1949 Armistice -- effectively depriving Israel of the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.
Actually, J Street itself has a history of being less than straightforward.
Carinne Luck's involvement in If Not Now is another reason for apprehension.
Here is a 2012 video of Luck explaining J Street's job:
The main takeaway from what Luck says:
o A sizable percentage of J Street is not Jewish o J Street responds to the wishes "the Hill, the (Obama) Administration" which wants J Street to "move Jews" o The bulk of J Street resources are dedicated to this o There is an uneasiness about those in J Street leadership who are not Jewish who may present themselves as Jews
This idea of misrepresentation that Carinne Luck shares with the group -- without condemning -- is an issue that arises again with If Not Now, both in terms of questions about its connections with J Street but also in terms of its own claims to represent today's young American Jews.
We have seen there is a failure of J Street to live up to what it claims it does.
Should we be surprised that there are doubts about what If Not Now claims as well?
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