We Are Entering a New Phase of Discrimination Against Jews
We are seeing, in the West, the beginning of a new phase of discrimination against Jews. Many cannot openly identify as Jews without fear of being assaulted, which is happening all too often in Europe, the United States and now Canada.Tracy-Ann Oberman: I will not be silenced on antisemitism
Much of the animosity is related to the support of Jews for Israel and its historical/philosophical foundation, Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish People in their ancestral homeland.
The very word “Jew” comes from the membership in the tribe of Judah which, about 3,000 years ago, became a kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital, under David and Solomon.
Many Jews today grow up proudly learning about this astonishing history that uniquely binds the past to the present. However, Jews are now increasingly assailed by hostile, mania-driven campaigns, foremost at universities, bent on erasing this history altogether.
There are ever-mounting efforts underway, including by people who consider themselves part of a “progressive” movement asserting human rights for minorities — a noble aim in principle — to single out only one country, Israel, and its national movement, Zionism, for vilification. Delegitimizing rhetoric seeking to portray Israel as a “settler-colonialist” enterprise imbued with “white supremacy” is hurled with feverish abandon unhinged from fact and history.
We’re in the realm here not of reason, but of a quasi-religious cult of incantation.
Almost 100 years ago, writing at another moment of great danger in Jewish history, Albert Einstein saw the re-creation of a Jewish homeland as “the embodiment of the reawakening corporate spirit of the whole Jewish nation.” In his day, Einstein was a progressive who abhorred violence and cared deeply about the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs. Nonetheless, he recognized the great moral need for Zionism.
Einstein urged that “we Jews should once more become conscious of our existence as a nationality and regain the self-respect that is necessary to a healthy existence. We must learn once more to glory in our ancestors and in our history.” To that end he called for “reconstruction of our native land.”
One doesn’t “colonize” one’s native land. One returns home.
And their fears were justified when the actor and performers union Equity decided to use its membership base to condemn Israel. Its President and General Secretary called on members to demand sanctions and join the march in Hyde Park. A similar march a week earlier had seen multiple antisemitic placards, including one with Jesus nailed to a cross with the words: “Do not let them do the same thing today again”.The Tikvah Podcast: Matti Friedman on How Americans Project Their Own Problems onto Israel
Equity has a duty to look after its members at a time when most haven’t earned a penny in 18 months. It also doesn’t routinely make pronouncements on anything. Do you know how many times Equity, its President and General Secretary have issued statements, let alone called for sanctions, against China, Turkey or Syria? Or offered support to the Kurds, the Yazidis or the Russian LGBTQ community? Zero. Do you know how many times they’ve made a statement on Israel and Palestine? Twenty-eight times.
So much for promoting my work. I found myself pulling different factions together to push awareness of what was happening. I was invited onto Newsnight to talk about the many performers who had sent me their resignation letters from Equity, including the incomparable Dame Maureen Lipman, who said she was putting her subs toward helping victims on both sides of the conflict. Where the Dame walks, people follow.
Murray Hecht, a long-time Equity union leader and activist, joined me in the outrage and led a delegation of angry Jewish and non-Jewish members who ripped up their union cards.
Many Jewish performers feel they must pass a political loyalty test — a purity exam to weed out any Zionistic tendencies. I hope my fellow Chinese, Iranian, Turkish, Russian and Pakistani performers aren’t put under equal pressure about countries they do not live in and are not citizens of.
I have promoted Palestinian rights; I think Israel must be brave and lead talks to forward a two-state solution and coexistence.
I am overwhelmed by how much love and support I have received from so many fellow actors, directors, musicians, producers, casting directors, writers and others. It is heartening to think this message really impacted. But I won’t allow myself and my fellow performers to be lectured by people whose only understanding of the situation is what they’ve read on Instagram.
I won’t be told to tone it down by fellow actors who are unable to call out antisemitism for fear of looking “pro-Zionist”. And I won’t stay quiet when my industry’s union exacerbates this mindset.
In 1958, the American author Leon Uris published Exodus, the novel about Israel’s founding that became an international phenomenon. Its hero, though an Israeli kibbutznik, was portrayed as a blond, blue-eyed man of culture and elegance, a portrayal reinforced by the film version of the novel, which starred Paul Newman. Whether or not this was his point, by portraying Israelis as racially white and as Western in their sensibilities, Uris was making it easier for most Americans to identify with Israel and its cause. This week’s podcast guest, the frequent Mosaic contributor Matti Friedman, argues that Americans still see themselves in Israel-just not always in the way that Uris hoped. In a recent essay, Friedman finds in the American reaction to the Jewish state’s recent confrontation with Hamas the same mythology that once animated Uris’s writing—only in reverse. Where in Uris characters are portrayed with distinctly Western sensibilities so as to attract Americans to Israel, contemporary portrayals of Israelis are now advanced by those who wish to distance Americans-and the world-from Israel.Stop Comparing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict to the Black Lives Matter Movement
Assuming that global conflicts can be navigated and understood via American history and the present tensions in American society concerning race is total nonsense. The Jewish people have been victims of thousands of years of displacement, expulsion and discrimination, and in the last century, we have faced war and terrorism in backlash to our indigenous right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland.After outcry, Omar insists she wasn’t equating US, Israel with terror groups
As someone who grew up in South Africa, I can proudly report that Israel is definitely not an apartheid society. Israeli Arabs are an enmeshed part of Israeli society, including the myriad who serve in the Israel Defense Forces and work as doctors, lawyers, scholars, ambassadors, and politicians.
In the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, gender-based violence and discrimination against the LGBTQ community and minorities are prevalent. There is widespread detention without charge or trial by the Palestinian Authority, while in Gaza, military courts rule the day and capital punishment is prevalent. Hamas violently took over Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, murdering hundreds of Palestinians in their quest for power.
U.S. tax dollars given to Israel must be used to purchase goods from the U.S., keeping many Americans employed. The Palestinian Authority used U.S. tax dollars to make payments to the families of persons imprisoned for acts of terrorism against U.S. citizens, including to the families of suicide bombers.
The Palestinian people are not the enemy of Israel; Hamas is. Israel is not the barrier to peace; Hamas extremism and terrorism are. It is inappropriate and tone-deaf to use the Black Lives Matter movement to give credence to anti-Israel rhetoric. Israel is a democratic, multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-cultural society with every right to defend its sovereignty and civilians against Jihadi terrorists.
Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar on Thursday hit back against criticism from Jewish colleagues who accused her of equating the US and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban.
“It’s shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for ‘clarification’ and not just call,” Omar tweeted. “The Islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive. The constant harassment & silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable.”
Her post linked to a statement signed by 12 Jewish Democrats who said Ilhan’s grouping of the US and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas in remarks about pursuing war crimes prosecutions gave “cover to terrorist groups.”
In a subsequent statement on Thursday, Omar said: “On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations. To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those ICC cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the US and Israel.
“I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems,” she added. She did not tweet the statement.
A brief explainer on the repetitive drama of @IlhanMN: pic.twitter.com/UqQZpgGstq
— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) June 10, 2021