Wednesday, July 14, 2021
From Ian:
Ruthie Blum: The ADL head's disingenuous epiphany about left-wing antisemitism
‘Junk Science’: Ashkenazi Jews Are Not Descendants of Khazar Converts
Ruthie Blum: The ADL head's disingenuous epiphany about left-wing antisemitism
He went on to say, "Demonizing Zionism as a concept represents a kind of anti-Jewish racism. Delegitimizing the Jewish state with exaggerated claims and unhinged charges, then dismissing the connection between that level of inflammatory rhetoric and the violence perpetrated against Jewish people, is willfully ignorant at best, intentionally malign at worst. Excluding Jews from political coalitions or public activities is discrimination, plain and simple."Remembering Bayard Rustin
All well and good, of course, though why this manifestation of antisemitism is only just dawning on the ADL chief is as curious as his referring to the demonization of Zionism as a "kind of" anti-Jewish racism, rather than part and parcel of its very essence. After all, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism includes singling out the Jewish state for condemnation.
Lest one was tempted by Greenblatt's words to give him credit for doing his job, however, he made sure to let his leanings come out in the conclusion.
"It has been heartening to see that some prominent progressive voices have spoken out against anti-Semitism or apologized for using overheated rhetoric," he wrote. Judging by the hyperlink under the sentence, he was referring to movie star Mark Ruffalo, who tweeted remorse for having suggested that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. How touching.
Greenblatt also gave a nod to members of Congress (i.e., Democrat Brad Schneider of Illinois) "who have made their problems with their colleagues' statements crystal clear."
Interesting that he's impressed with a Jew for bemoaning the blatant antisemitism of his fellow Democrat representatives. Pathetic that neither Greenblatt nor Schneider holds the party to which they belong accountable.
Instead, Greenblatt ends his piece with a generalized message about needing "all our allies to listen and others to engage authentically" – whatever that means.
"This might not be easy," he stated. "It may require some serious self-reflection on the part of some partisans in order to admit their biases and acknowledge their insensitivity. But it's imperative that leaders from all corners of society clearly, forcefully, unequivocally condemn antisemitism full stop. And it's even more important and meaningful to do so when the hate happens to come from their own camp."
Good luck if he thinks that platitudes are going to budge the Israel-bashers in his own camp whose intersectional endeavors he always rushes to defend. With self-described "proud Jews" like Greenblatt, who needs antisemites?
Bayard was a resolute supporter of Israel, a position that put him at odds with both his own pacifist principles and left-wing activists who regarded the Palestine Liberation Organization a legitimate liberation movement. Even before the Six-Day War, some outspoken Black Americans, most notably Malcolm X, gave vocal support to armed Palestinian groups. But Bayard laid the problems of the Middle East squarely at the feet of the monarchs and dictators who brutalized the Arab people—he referred to some of them as “proto-fascist”—and who resented Israel as the region’s lone democracy and, thus, a living rebuke to their own despotic regimes. After the UN General Assembly adopted the notorious “Zionism Is Racism” resolution in 1975, Bayard organized a committee of Black leaders to support the Jewish state.
Tribalism: Because of his extensive international experience, Bayard was sensitive to divisions over race, tribe, and caste everywhere. He understood that race consciousness here was inevitable as part of the Black struggle for full citizenship but was skeptical that race consciousness would contribute to material progress.
More, he was mistrustful of policies meant to divide goods along group lines; he preferred old-fashioned social democratic strategies based on the premise that economic growth lifting all boats could be accompanied by policies meant to direct benefits to those most in need.
Bayard was struck by the way that identity-based laws and policies in Asian societies like India, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia were either explicitly meant to benefit majority groups or, if designed to benefit lower castes, invariably failed to eliminate caste consciousness. He was not enthusiastic about the United States embarking on a similar course. Bayard did not use the term “racism” indiscriminately. When he applied terms of opprobrium like prejudice, bigotry, and, in the worst case, racism, he was a traditionalist: He tried to be precise.
‘Junk Science’: Ashkenazi Jews Are Not Descendants of Khazar Converts
Indeed, the Khazarian hypothesis has been debunked by virtually every field of science. For instance, historians stress that the kingdom most likely never converted to Judaism. Archaeologists excavating in the former Khazar lands have found almost no artifacts displaying Jewish symbols. Moreover, linguists point out that Yiddish — for centuries the language spoken by Eastern European Jews — is in no way similar to the vernacular used in Khazaria, nor do Jewish surnames from the last 600 years contain any link to the kingdom.
Experts in Jewish genetics have lambasted Elhaik’s “findings,” arguing that he “appears to be applying the statistics in a way that gives him different results from what everybody else has obtained from essentially similar data.” In fact, most DNA research proves precisely the opposite: namely, that European Jews are closely related to Middle Eastern populations.
Most of this research has long been readily available, with leading scholars having refuted Elhaik’s paper within a year of its publication. Nevertheless, Jew-haters and anti-Zionists alike continue to use the Khazarian myth to deny the Jewish people’s millennia-old connection to the Land of Israel.
Interestingly, Elhaik — who served in the Israeli army for seven years — has said that it bothers him that individuals utilize his research for nefarious purposes. For his part, Koestler stated that the “problem of the Khazar infusion a thousand years ago… is irrelevant to modern Israel,” as the Jewish state’s existence is, in his view, predicated on decisions made by the international community.
The anti-Zionist argument is flawed for another major reason: that is, most Jewish Israelis are not of European descent. According to Tel Aviv University research, in 2018 only 31.8 percent of Israeli Jews self-identified as Ashkenazi (Eastern European). A significantly larger share, about 45 percent, identified as Mizrahi – an umbrella term for those Jews that fled Arab countries to nascent Israel. Israelis of Yemeni origin, for example, trace their roots in the region back to biblical times.
The fact that millions of Israeli Mizrahim are indigenous to the Middle East is indisputable.
