Posted on 07/29/2021 6:00:40 AM PDT by SJackson
On July 11, the American Jewish establishment tried to prove that it could fight anti-Semitism and be progressive at the same time. It failed.
Outside of Congress that day, dozens of American Jewish groups co-sponsored a rally against the rising tide of Jew-hatred in America. The organizers had hoped that tens of thousands would show up for the event, and for good reason. In April 2002, a hundred thousand American Jews from all over the country congregated in Washington on short notice to rally in support of Israel during “Operation Defensive Shield.” And here they were supposed to rally not for Jews in Israel, but for themselves, as anti-Semitism rises from coast to coast.
But the multitudes were no-shows. The crowd numbered somewhere between a few hundred by most counts to 2,000 according to the organizers. What accounts for the failure?
The problems began with the name the organizers chose for the rally. They might have called the event: Zero Tolerance for Jew-haters. But they opted for “No Fear.”
“No Fear” as a banner for a rally against rising levels of anti-Jewish bigotry makes no sense. Of course Jews should fear anti-Semitism. They are being targeted for discrimination and violence nearly everywhere they look—in the classroom and boardroom; on the streets, in their synagogues. Calling the rally “No Fear” denigrates the very people the organizers claim they want to protect.
The content of the rally was equally problematic. First there was the rally’s credo. Titled the “Statement of Inclusion,” it read, “We stand against all hatred. We know that we cannot truly defeat anti-Semitism if we allow other forms of hatred within our midst … This coalition will not tolerate expressions of racism, Islamophobia, misogyny, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia or any other hate … Our tent is big, but those who espouse hate must stand outside it.”
Lauri Regan is a prominent community activist with a decades-long record of achievement in organizing mass demonstrations for communal causes and effectively fighting anti-Semitism. Regan penned a postmortem of the event in the Jewish Voice where she listed the many reasons it failed.
The organizers refused to permit Republican congressional leaders, former Trump administration officials, evangelical leaders or conservative media superstars to speak at the event. They would not permit Holocaust survivors or victims of Palestinian terror attacks to speak.
Instead, the rally featured one progressive activist after another, followed by Democrat spokesmen and administration representatives. A Reform leader attacked Israel and the “occupation.” The speakers raved over President Joe Biden, even though he has hired men and women to serve in senior positions in his administration who have records of anti-Semitic statements, support for BDS, Iran and Palestinian terrorism.
Speakers attacked right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis. They did not attack the anti-Semitic lawmakers in the Democrat congressional caucus or criticize the party leaders who promote rather than condemn them.
The speakers failed to condemn Black Lives Matter despite its open anti-Semitism and despite the fact that Jewish institutions and businesses were specifically targeted by BLM rioters.
Given the name of the rally and the speaker lineup, Jews committed to actually fighting anti-Semitism had no reason to make the effort to travel to Washington. And progressive Jews don’t care enough about anti-Semitism to bother.
As Regan summed it up in her devastating analysis, “This failed rally sent the message that Jewish votes and voices don’t matter. They don’t even come out to a rally to fight anti-Semitism so why would a politician stand with Israel and the Jews if Jews don’t stand with Israel and the Jews.”
The rally’s epic failure is even more striking when you compare it to British Jewry’s successful fight against the British Labour Party throughout Jeremy Corbyn’s 2015-2019 tenure as party leader.
Britain’s Jewish leadership is usually divided and not particularly powerful politically, certainly not in comparison to its counterpart in America. But when Corbyn was elected, the normally split community unified to oppose the man who referred to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists as “my good friends,” rejected Israel’s right to exist and compared the Jewish state to Nazi Germany. In an unprecedented show of unity and concern, in 2016 Britain’s three Jewish papers put their rivalry aside and published the same front-page editorial condemning Corbyn. They referred to the specter of a Corbyn-led government as “an existential threat to Jewish life,” in Britain.
On the eve of Britain’s parliamentary elections in 2019, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis wrote an article in The Times warning that due to Corbyn’s candidacy, “the soul of the nation is at stake.”
After Labour’s devastating defeat at the polls, many commentators attributed the loss to the Jewish community’s success in demonstrating the truth and implications of its accusations that Corbyn was anti-Semitic and that Labour under his leadership had become systemically bigoted against Jews.
Corbyn was ousted from party leadership after the elections specifically due to his refusal to fight anti-Semitism. His successor, Keir Starmer, takes the job of purging anti-Semites from party ranks so seriously that still today, nearly two years after the election, he continues the job. This week the party’s ruling National Executive Committee was scheduled to vote to oust some 1,000 members who have denied claims of anti-Semitism within the party.
The American Jewish establishment is far more homogenous than its British counterpart. It is composed of a minority progressive faction and a majority moderate faction. Like its counterpart in the Democrat Party, the progressive minority in the American Jewish establishment has managed to exploit the majority’s aversion to disunity to seize control over the tone and parameters of the American Jewish discourse, and through both to largely dictate the actions of the communal leadership.
We got a recent glimpse at how this works when GBAO, the progressive Jewish establishment’s in-house polling firm led by a J Street founder, published a poll regarding American Jewish perspectives on American politics and on Israel. From the way the survey questions were drafted and chosen, it was clear that the purpose of the poll was to promote an agenda, not measure public opinion.
Among the questions included in the survey were a handful focused on identifying anti-Semitism. Participants were asked if Israel has the right to exist and if it is anti-Semitic to question Israel’s right to exist. They were asked if Israel is an apartheid state and if it is anti-Semitic to call Israel an apartheid state. They were asked if Israel is carrying out genocide and if it is anti-Semitic to accuse Israel of carrying genocide. And they were asked if Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is like racism in America and whether it is anti-Semitic to draw the comparison.
The responses to the questions were hard to stomach. The Israeli public reeled at the news that a quarter of American Jews think that Israel is an apartheid state (and 24 percent say it isn’t anti-Semitic to say Israel is an apartheid state); 22 percent believe Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians (and 31 percent say it isn’t anti-Semitic to say that Israel is committing genocide); 9 percent think Israel has no right to exist (and 17 percent say it isn’t anti-Semitic to say Israel has no right exist); and 34 percent believe that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is like American racism (and another 30 percent say it isn’t anti-Semitic to say that the two are the same).
But even more distressing than the responses was the fact that the progressive Jewish establishment wanted to ask these questions. If a polling institute run by neo-Nazis asked Americans if it was right to beat Jews on the streets, no doubt a certain percentage of respondents would answer affirmatively. The Jewish communal response to the poll wouldn’t focus on the results. It would rightly focus on the neo-Nazis who asked the question, and the leadership would justifiably accuse the polling firm of inciting violence against Jews.
Thanks to the progressive Jews who ordered up the GBAO poll, Rep. Ilhan Omar and her fellow Jew-haters inside and outside the Democrat Congressional Caucus will use this poll to deflect criticism as they spew anti-Semitic blood libels against Israel and its “Benjamins” wielding American Jewish supporters.
This brings us to the moderates who comprise the majority of the American Jewish establishment. Like their counterparts in the Democrat leadership, these leaders know full well that Israel is not an apartheid state or committing genocide or guilty of systemic racism, and they know it is anti-Semitic to raise these obscene allegations. But like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, they won’t fight progressives to defend the truth.
They will remove Israeli flags from their synagogues, schools, JCCs and stages at rallies. They won’t talk about Israel. And they will endorse “Statements of Inclusion” that insist you cannot fight anti-Semitism without fighting all forms of hatred because there isn’t anything unique about Jew-hatred. And anyway, “the occupation” is divisive and stuff.
They will repeat these incantations without realizing that they have adopted Jeremy Corbyn’s lexicon. Corbyn after all defended himself from allegations of anti-Semitism by saying he couldn’t possibly be an anti-Semite because he was anti-racism.
The victims of the failed Jewish-American establishment are the American Jews. Last month, City University of New York’s faculty union overwhelmingly passed a resolution labeling Israel an “apartheid … settler-colonial state” that has perpetrated the “massacre” of Palestinians and demanded the Biden administration cease U.S. aid to Israel. The resolution also called for CUNY to join the BDS campaign against Israel.
Some Jewish professors quit the union in protest. In an interview with Algemeiner, professor Robert Shapiro of Brooklyn College said that for him, “It’s hard to figure out what to do.”
“It’s more complex than simply anti-Semitism,” he said.
“It’s the use of the concept of intersectionality and arguing that if you’re really in favor of justice for your particular group or certain groups you have to be in favor of justice for everybody discriminated against.”
The situation is even more complicated by the fact that many of the intersectionality crowd’s preferred victim groups—including the ones included in the “No Fear” rally’s “Statement of Inclusion”—are the chief instigators of anti-Semitic assaults on Jews on campuses throughout the United States. The credo of the American Jewish establishment requires Jews to side with groups that are victimizing and deliberately targeting them.
Anti-Semitism in Britain didn’t disappear with Corbyn’s defeat. It has continued to rise, just as it has in the United States. All the same, the difference between the two communities is clear. When push came to shove, the British Jewish establishment stood up for the Jews, even at the price of turning its back on progressive intersectional slogans.
Through its show of weakness July 11, as in its activities both before and since, the American Jewish establishment has demonstrated to friend and foe alike that in the United States, the situation is reversed. While the progressive faction of the Jewish establishment promotes and abets anti-Semitism, the moderate majority has opted to give up the fight for Jewish rights without a struggle.
Not sure I'd call this effort on the part of left wing Jewish groups representative of the Jewish community, just a radical political subgroup.
I never heard a call for this rally. Besides, marches in front of the Capitol building make our Legislators nervous, and they are seen to get irrationally oppressive when they’re nervous. Rational people would be inclined to stay away. Better to hold such rallies where the Jews already are, in numbers. And make sure your rally announcement is actually heard by those who you wish to attend.
Zero tolerance for Jew-hatred, unless they are black, progressive, or Muslim. Zero tolerance for right wingers, because they are all presumed Jew-haters even if they do right by Jews. These shmucks have no moral authority to even speak of Jew-hatred. They are in bed with Jew haters, and everyone knows it.
Could this explain why there was a holocaust?
Sure. The Judenrat is just waiting for the occasion to step forward.
I never heard of it, which is not surprising, I suppose.
I do wish I had been invited, so I could have had the pleasure of declining.
You’re on the wrong website.
Stormfront or the Democratic Underground is more your speed.
Well, I’m Israeli and never heard of any Americans traveling “for their Kibbutz”. It’s plausible some kibbutz’s suckered volunteer services from stupid liberals, though. To my knowledge, all but a handful of these socialist utopias failed, and the ones that survived became capitalist, albeit member-owned.
As for “regularly attending Temple,” well, there you go. There is but one Temple, and it currently has a neo-pagan mosque on top of it.
In any case, I have never understood their continued support for a party that works against the interests of Israel. No Country is perfect and its people often do not agree with what its political leaders do but Israel has every right to protect itself and the Democrats openly disagree with that stance. I cannot wrap my head around their acceptance of Omar and de facto support of her.
The organizers refused to permit Republican congressional leaders, former Trump administration officials, evangelical leaders or conservative media superstars to speak at the event. They would not permit Holocaust survivors or victims of Palestinian terror attacks to speak.
Instead, the rally featured one progressive activist after another, followed by Democrat spokesmen and administration representatives. A Reform leader attacked Israel and the “occupation.” The speakers raved over President Joe Biden, even though he has hired men and women to serve in senior positions in his administration who have records of anti-Semitic statements, support for BDS, Iran and Palestinian terrorism.
Speakers attacked right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis. They did not attack the anti-Semitic lawmakers in the Democrat congressional caucus or criticize the party leaders who promote rather than condemn them.
The speakers failed to condemn Black Lives Matter despite its open anti-Semitism and despite the fact that Jewish institutions and businesses were specifically targeted by BLM rioters.
‘Jewish votes and voices don’t matter’
My experience is that these rallies do nothing.. they only make the attendee feel good. I have gone to many,
Looks like every single position taken by these self-appointed activists is anathema to their intended following. Typical overreach. Try to include everything, and everybody is disappointed enough to stay away. To push for a goal, you have to focus. To do otherwise is to reveal yourself as nothing more than an opportunist.
You are blaming the Jews for the Holocaust?
*You are blaming the Jews for the Holocaust?*
I blame governments. The holocaust was not the first genocide but you would think it was the only one. There will be more to come. Pardon me for not answering your question.
That is VERY INCLUSIVE.
We can very well blame those Jews in America who were more afraid of anti-Semitism in America rising if there were an influx of Jews from Eastern Europe, so did nothing whatever to pressure FDR to loosen admission standards for refugees. We can very well blame Jews in the Mandate who went along with further restrictions of Jews immigrating there, and the British blockade of the coast. We can very well blame Jews who did the Nazis’ dirty work on the Judenrats, providing them with lists of names so they could begin deportations to ‘work camps’.
At the same time, the blame must also fall on FDR, Churchill and Stalin for their respective parts in tacitly allowing the atrocities to occur. Oh, well. Goys will be goys. They had a war to win and all that.
But what hurts the most is these so-called Jewish leaders’ selfishness and fecklessness in the face of genocidal horror. They were looking out for themselves.
And these establishment types are of exactly that mold, except they are also looking out for an agenda that is incompatible with their alleged role as “Jewish leaders.”
No surprises. This is how they roll. Jewish leaders without any Jewish following or interest in Jewish concerns, only big donors.
Black “leaders” of the same sort can doubtless be found.
60+ million
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