{"id":970,"date":"2019-12-05T09:34:51","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T14:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/?p=970"},"modified":"2019-12-18T07:33:35","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T12:33:35","slug":"anti-semitism-today-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/2019\/12\/05\/anti-semitism-today-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Semitism Today: What it is and what it isn’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u00a0it was swastikas on\u00a0tombstones\u00a0on the Jewish\u00a0cemetery of Westhoffen (Alsace). On Yom Kippur, an attack on the synagogue in Halle, which left two people dead. (Zeit Onlin<\/a>e reported that police treat the attack as an isolated incident.)\u00a0Last year: Squirrel Hill.<\/a> In\u00a0May 2019, Reuters reported<\/a> a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, led by Western democracies, including the United States. The conclusion, drawn by the Tel Aviv University Kantor Center for Contemporary Jewry<\/a>, is that anti-Semitism is no longer the domain of the “triangle” of the far left, the far right, and radical Islam, but that it has gone “mainstream.”<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0emotionally difficult for me to think, let alone write, about anti-Semitism. It is not something I can do dispassionately, which is the reason why I rarely\u00a0touch on it in my academic work or\u00a0teach it. Call it trans-generational PTSD. The way I get upset when I see defaced Jewish\u00a0tombstones is different from the way I\u00a0get upset when I read about the US\u00a0Department of Agriculture\u00a0planning to deprive 750,000 needy Americans of access to food stamps, or hearing about Rohingya \u00a0children in Bangladeshi refugee campus without access to formal education. I feel we can do something about food stamps (elect more sensible\u00a0and\u00a0compassionate\u00a0representatives)\u00a0and Rohingya children (draw attention to their plight and\u00a0give to aid organizations). Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, seems to be intractable and beyond remedy.<\/p>\n

But that’s not quite true either. For our own peace of mind, and also for the sake of our relationship with our neighbors, fellow-citizens, and friends, let us pause and think\u00a0for a moment.\u00a0Part of what makes us feel helpless and depressed about the rise of anti-Semitism is exactly the impression, fed by\u00a0media and information centers, such as those cited above, that anti-Semitism is a natural phenomenon, something that comes and goes in “waves” that “rises” like\u00a0hurricans\u00a0or tsunamis. The\u00a0proper\u00a0response to\u00a0natural catastrophes is to brace oneself, to weather the storm, or to evacuate. The\u00a0rhetorical analogy with natural phenomena makes anti-Semitism seem inevitable.<\/p>\n

We need to\u00a0consider the sources of these statistics and their potential interest\u00a0in exaggerating the threat. Much like meteorological data used in the\u00a0mass\u00a0media, where unseasonal\u00a0snowfalls appear like the\u00a0advent of snowmaggedon, and much for the same reason, institutes and organizations\u00a0tracking anti-Semitic\u00a0incidents are understandably interested in having something to report. Anti-Semitism is “sexy” because it hurts emotionally; not only\u00a0Jews, but all\u00a0decent people\u00a0are\u00a0upset when they hear about such incidents. All members of civilized societies feel bad when\u00a0told of their failure to curb anti-Semitism. This is not to say it does not exist and that it is not entrenched.<\/p>\n

What is anti-Semitism? It is hard to say because it seems amorphous. Some see it as an outgrowth of\u00a0Christian\u00a0anti-Judaism, but ancient Greek and Roman sources show elements of anti-Jewish rhetoric that precede the rise of Christianity.\u00a0The intellectually most lazy blame it on the Jews. Why do they \u00a0insist on their difference? What makes them so special? The traditional answer to this type of resentment was Jewish humor. This no longer\u00a0works. The\u00a0mid-20th-century European\u00a0genocide of the Jews has made\u00a0it impossible to laugh it all off.<\/p>\n

There is also the well-known phenomenon of anti-Semitism without Jews. Anti-Jewish\u00a0resentment\u00a0may\u00a0be kept alive by a reaction to being\u00a0called on one’s anti-Jewish resentment. After all, anti-Semitic is the one thing decent people can agree on not\u00a0<\/em>wanting to be, which makes those\u00a0who express\u00a0anti-Jewish sentiments look\u00a0bad. Today, two generations after the destruction of European Jewry, people\u00a0who never\u00a0fully repressed their anti-Jewish sentiments are more willing\u00a0to voice their resentments openly. This is how we\u00a0arrive at the present moment.\u00a0Liberals are surprised at the resurgence of sentiments they thought no longer existed because they had been successfully tabooed.<\/p>\n

A further complexity. Many\u00a0statistics of\u00a0anti-Semitic incidents lump together anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist events. This equation is\u00a0justified to the extent that both types of events are traumatic for Jews. But\u00a0they are not therefore the same.\u00a0In fact, part of the trauma arises from the\u00a0confusion sown by well-meaning people upset about the “mainstreaming” of\u00a0anti-Semitism, esp. in democratic societies, who\u00a0don’t distinguish between these two phenomena. I admit that they are sometimes indistinguishable.\u00a0There\u00a0obtains\u00a0a certain anti-Israel hysteria among western liberals that can look a lot like anti-Semitism. Many liberals\u00a0feel that\u00a0Israel is \u2013 or should be \u2013 an extension\u00a0of western liberalism and should behave accordingly. When Israel misbehaves by those standards, many western liberals are disappointed. On one side, there is a\u00a0disappointed love. On the defensive side, there is the charge that the disenchanted\u00a0liberals measure Israel by unrealistic standards. Passionate criticism\u00a0does not make critics of\u00a0Israel or Israeli politics into anti-Semites or self-hating Jews. Those of us critical of Israel\u00a0must ask ourselves whether our\u00a0intense\u00a0attention to Israeli transgression does not play into the hands of genuine adversaries of Israel. But I don’t think that we do Israel and the defense of its right to exist a favor if we equate\u00a0every expression of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

Is BDS a form of anti-Semitism? The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is a form of political speech promoted by Palestinians and supported by their supporters abroad. BDS is a powerful weapon that can hit\u00a0Israel where it hurts, which is the Israeli economy. But is it anti-Semitic? Not necessarily. Many people, Jews and non-Jews,\u00a0support\u00a0BDS\u00a0as\u00a0a form of international pressure brought to bear on Israel to return to the negotiating table. It is a means\u00a0compatible with the political end of\u00a0the establishment of\u00a0a viable Palestinian state that can thrive\u00a0in peace and co-existence with Israel. Yes, all anti-Israel rhetoric hurts those of us who love Israel. But as long as it is political speech aimed at a just and equitable solution to the\u00a0Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is not the same as anti-Semitism. Advocacy on behalf of Palestinian rights is not always or inevitably anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n

There is\u00a0a lot of confusion everywhere, some of which is stoked by people who want us to be\u00a0confused. Emotions run high, which can be exploited by those who want us to act\u00a0emotionally rather than thoughtfully. And sometimes well-meaning influencers and thought leaders\u00a0make mistakes. Sometimes people say hurtful things. But there are\u00a0remedies. \u00a0Demonization, in either direction, is not one of them.<\/p>\n

Postscript: On Wednesday, December 10, 2019,\u00a0the White House\u00a0published an Executive Order on Combating Anti-Semitism<\/a><\/p>\n

There have been many comments on this in the media. If you are interested in my take, read this follow-up piece to the above blog post, published as a POV in BUToday<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u00a0it was swastikas on\u00a0tombstones\u00a0on the Jewish\u00a0cemetery of Westhoffen (Alsace). On Yom Kippur, an attack on the synagogue in Halle, which left two people dead. (Zeit Online reported that police treat the attack as an isolated incident.)\u00a0Last year: Squirrel Hill. In\u00a0May 2019, Reuters reported a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, led by Western democracies, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1355,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1355"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/mzank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}