Trump’s tweets about ‘disloyal’ Jews are laced with centuries of antisemitism

2019/08/23 Leave a comment

Situates the broader and historical contexts:

It was January in Paris – cold, gray – when a ceremony held on the Champ-de-Mars roiled the city’s elite. Military officials and civilians gathered to watch as a young Jewish artillery officer was punished for his alleged treason. Days earlier Alfred Dreyfus had been convicted of passing secrets to the Germans in a rushed court-martial. A French army officer stripped his insignia medals, took his sword and broke it over his knee. Dreyfus was marched around the courtyard of the École Militaire as crowds jeered and spat. Cries of “Jew!” and “Judas!” drowned out his muffled professions of loyalty to the French state.

The scene was striking – in the shadow of the newly built Eiffel Tower, a symbol of modernity, an almost primal witch-hunt unfolded. A once decorated army servant pleaded for pity as his neighbors called out “death to the Jew”. Dreyfus was exonerated two years later. The message of his trial was clear: even in a cosmopolitan city, in a country whose revolutionary myth called for liberty and equality, leaders could baselessly point their people’s animus toward the other in their midst.

There’s a sordid history to charges of Jewish dual loyalty in the US In the early years of the second world war, isolationists opposed to American involvement dismissed the war as little more than a “Jewish cause”. Charles Lindbergh berated Jewish leaders for “agitating for war”. Decades later, when the US senator Joe Lieberman ran on the Democratic ticket for vice-president, pundits questioned whether he was more loyal to Israel than to the US. During the democratic primaries in 2015, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders was challenged on his “dual citizenship” with Israel.

Source: Trump’s tweets about ‘disloyal’ Jews are laced with centuries of antisemitism

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Imam banned from preaching at Edmonton community centre

2019/08/08 2 Comments

Of note, both the initial offence and the Muslim community response:

A community centre in Edmonton has banned a local imam from holding services there because he allegedly used anti-Semitic tropes in his services and online.

The Killarney Community League Hall banned Sheikh Shaban Sherif Mady from using their space to hold services after B’nai Brith alerted the community centre to Imam Mady’s rhetoric, including claims that international Zionism is behind all global terrorism, including ISIS and the New Zealand shooter, and that the Muslims will kill the Jews on Judgment Day.

Aidan Fishman of B’nai Brith said the police are “dutifully investigating” the matter. He also said B’nai Brith has been in contact with the Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council (AMPAC).

“They’re aware of this and they, like I’m sure the vast majority of Muslims in Alberta and in Edmonton, have communicated to us that they totally disagree with what this guy said and they condemn it as well,” he said.

Faisal Suri of AMPAC confirmed that AMPAC condemned Shekih Mady’s speeches and online posts. He said AMPAC recognizes both anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia, as they affect two of the biggest communities most harmed by hatred and discrimination.

“We definitely condemn the words of this one individual. One individual’s actions and words do not reflect upon the Muslim community,” Suri said.

He also added that AMPAC is investigating Sheikh Mady, and whether other individuals hold similar views. He said the counci is working to prevent the imam from having any public platforms to advance his views.

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Holocaust survivors have home ransacked as antisemitic incidents hit new record in UK

2019/08/02 Leave a comment

Of particular note “Where a perpetrator’s ethnic appearance was recorded, over two thirds were described as white, 12 per cent Asian, 11 per cent black and 8 per cent Arab or north African”:

Holocaust survivors had their home ransacked and sprayed with graffiti in one of a record number of antisemitic incidents reported in the UK.

The Community Security Trust (CST) said the elderly couple returned from holiday in April to find the house “ransacked and desecrated” with “c*** Jews” scrawled in large letters across their living room wall.

Other incidents saw Jewish victims punched, kicked or pelted with stones, bottles and eggs, while swastikas and slogans including “gas the Jews” were sprayed on buildings.

The CST, which monitors antisemitism and provides security for Jewish communities, recorded a total of 892 incidents in the first six months of this year – a 10 per cent increase on last year and a new record.

It named discussions around antisemitism in the Labour Party as one cause of spikes in reports, as well as wider divisions in British society.

CST chief executive David Delew said: “This is the third year in a row that CST has seen an increase in reports of antisemitic incidents.

“The problem is spreading across the country and online, it reflects deepening divisions in our society and it is causing increasing anxiety in the Jewish community.

“It will take people of all communities and backgrounds standing together to turn this tide of hate around.”

The highest monthly totals were February and March, when antisemitism was prominent in news and politics because of the continuing controversy over antisemitism in the Labour Party.

The period saw MPs including Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie and Chukka Umunna, leave the party as some cited antisemitism as a reason for their decision.

The CST recorded 25 antisemitic incidents in February and 30 in March that were related to arguments over the Labour Party, while the debate is also believed to have increased online abuse against Jewish organisations and public figures who commented on the issue.

“Many of these antisemitic reactions were in the wider context of ‘smear’ accusations, spoke of conspiracy and attempted to delegitimise clear evidence of antisemitism,” the report said.

“It is hard to precisely disaggregate the impact of the continuing Labour antisemitism controversy upon CST’s statistics: but it clearly has an important bearing.

“The trend for monthly totals above the 100 figure began in April 2016 following controversial comments by Ken Livingstone and it has only fallen below 100 twice since then.

“In this context, the dynamics of antisemitism are similar to other forms of racism or political violence: expressions of hatred worsen when perpetrators feel motivated or emboldened to act.”

The CST recorded 145 cases involving antisemitic conspiracy theories, 67 with a “far-right political motivation”, nine linked to Islamist extremism and 12 to other religions, and five related to Brexit.

The charity does not consider criticism of Israel or Zionism “inherently antisemitic” but 203 antisemitic incidents alluded to the Middle East, including those equating the Israeli government with Nazis.

More than a third of recorded incidents involved social media, which the CST called an “essential and convenient vessel” for antisemites to harass, abuse and threaten Jews.

The CST said it does not trawl for online incidents and only records those reported by the public and involving an offender or victim in the UK.

The report found the most common kind of offline incident was the “random, spontaneous, verbal abuse of strangers who are believed for whatever reason to be Jewish, as they go about their lives in public spaces”.

Antisemitic assaults rose by 37 per cent to 62 in the six-month period, while there were also 38 incidents of damage and desecration.

Jewish individuals in public, under half of whom were wearing religious symbols or clothing, were targeted in 225 incidents, many involving antisemitic abuse or threatening language.

Other incidents targetted Jewish organisations, communal events, commercial premises, synagogues and schools.

Almost two thirds were recorded in London and Manchester, the two largest Jewish communities in the UK, followed by Hertfordshire, Merseyside, Gateshead and Leeds.

Where a perpetrator’s ethnic appearance was recorded, over two thirds were described as white, 12 per cent Asian, 11 per cent black and 8 per cent Arab or north African.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council said it would analyse data to establish whether increases recorded by the CST “reflect a greater incidence of hate crime or further improvements in reporting levels”.

Assistant chief constable Mark Hamilton, the lead for hate crime, said: “It can never be acceptable to abuse someone because of their ethnicity or religion, but we see that there are still far too many in our society who are prepared to act illegally, fuelled by global events, divisions in our own society or by bigoted ideologies.

“The police will continue to improve our services to victims and to help bring offenders to justice.”

The European Jewish Congress said the trend of “spiralling antisemitism” was being mirrored in other countries around the world.

President Moshe Kantor said he was “deeply concerned” at the CST’s report, adding: “We once again note the correlation between incidents on the ground and escalating antisemitism in the Labour Party, which shows that the failure of political leaders to address antisemitic discourse from within has emboldened perpetrators to commit hateful acts.

“We call on our political leaders, teachers and community leaders alike to take a stand in calling out antisemitism and all forms of hatred.”

Andrew Gwynne MP, Labour’s shadow local government and communities secretary said: “It is deeply distressing to see antisemitism rising in our society and many other countries. Earlier this year it was revealed that as many as one in 20 people in the UK do not believe the Holocaust took place. That is a staggering statistic.

“This report, detailing the rise in antisemitic abuse, including the desecration of Jewish property, demonstrates how much further we have to go to root this ancient prejudice out of our society. We thank the Community Security Trust for the vital work it does highlighting and confronting antisemitism and in providing support and security for Jewish communities.

“The Labour Party is committed to challenging and campaigning against antisemitism in all its forms. Our Party has taken swift and decisive action in response to antisemitism complaints, with a more than four-fold increase in the rate at which antisemitism cases are dealt with, and we recently launched an education programme to deepen understanding about antisemitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories.”

Source: Holocaust survivors have home ransacked as antisemitic incidents hit new record in UK

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Frum: American Jews Are Being Tested By Trump

2019/07/26 Leave a comment

As are all groups:

It’s becoming almost a daily occurrence: President Donald Trump denouncing anti-Semitism and expressing solidarity with the state of Israel.

Gone are the days when Trump tweeted out a Star of David atop stacks of money. The Trump White House has purged itself of oddballs with troubling backgrounds and even more troubling friends.

The larger MAGA universe may still pulse with anti-Semitic animus. Pro-Trump trolls may traffic in grotesque online slurs and threats. Hate crimes against Jews seem on the rise. A deadly anti-Jewish mass killing occurred on Trump’s watch. Although the Pittsburgh killer is often described as despising Trump, that’s not quite accurate. It would be more correct to describe the Pittsburgh killer as disappointed in Trump, whom he viewed as a promising racist naively duped by Jews. In one of his postings, a word bubble is drawn over a photograph of Trump receiving a visitor dressed in Orthodox garb. “Your character will appear to the public as a white racist,” the visitor seems to say to Trump. “It’s how we control Whites.”

“Anti-Semitism has no place in our country or anywhere in our world.

The Trump Administration is working every day to oppose and eradicate anti-Semitic hate crimes and ideology.”

The Trump presidency seethes with hostility toward many different minority and subordinated groups. But Jews have been elevated to a special protected category, exempt from the lines of attack deployed against Muslims, non-Norwegian immigrants, women Trump deems unattractive, and so on and on.

This special exemption poses a moral quandary for communally concerned Jews quite unlike anything in our collective experience.Jewish collective life in America has been built on the assumption that people who espouse any form of bigotry—whether against African Americans, or gays, or the disabled—will, sooner or later (and probably sooner!), also turn upon Jews. The famous Martin Niemöller poem begins, “First, they came for the socialists”; only in the third line do they “come for the Jews.”

But what if a new generation of bigotry arose, attended by a strong, take-it-to-the-bank guarantee: This time, they are not coming for the Jews—not sooner, not later. That ancient obsession is laughably out of date. Today we have other concerns. Here’s a photograph of me posing alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He likes George Soros even less than we do!

What if American Jews found themselves facing people who practiced a politics of incitement, but not against Jews—indeed, who found it more useful to cast themselves as allies of Jews?

Trump usually has, at most, a perfunctory word for mass shootings and hate crimes. But Trump traveled in person to pay respects to the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. Vice President Mike Pence had led the way, personally helping to restore a desecrated Jewish cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, early in 2017.

When Trump attacked Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, he specifically cited her record of tweets and statements about Jewish money supposedly swaying Congress in favor of Israel. Among other pieces of classic anti-Semitic language, Omar had said, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

Statements like that goaded President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to write here in The Atlantic: “No one is questioning the right of members of Congress and others to criticize Israeli policies. But Omar is crossing a line that should not be crossed in political discourse. Her remarks are not anti-Israel; they are anti-Semitic.” Her words set in motion a resolution in the House of Representatives to condemn anti-Semitic and other bigoted speech.

By contrast, the Trump administration has more than fulfilled the wishes of many American Jews on issues from moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem to condemning Palestinian incitement to countering the Iranian nuclear program. At the Department of Justice’s conference last week, Barr said:

“Far too often, Jews and Jewish communities in America suffer outside the spotlight. New York City, this past year, has seen a sharp uptick in attacks on Orthodox Jews, particularly in the Crown Heights neighborhood. People are attacking Jews in the streets and vandalizing synagogues. In Massachusetts in March, vandals desecrated 59 gravestones in a Jewish cemetery, knocking over headstones and scrawling swastikas and hateful graffiti.

While the tragic attacks in Pittsburgh and Poway appropriately drew national attention, these attacks and others like them in communities across the country are, sadly, less well known outside the Jewish community. But they form the daily background of concerns about security and safety that many in the Jewish community feel.

As attorney general and a fellow citizen, I want to assure the Jewish community that the Department of Justice and the entire federal government stands with you and will not tolerate these attacks.”

As measured by polls, the large majority of American Jews recoil from Trump and his administration. Yet if you spend time in the organized Jewish world, you have probably noticed an early but unmistakable warming to the president. The warming is most pronounced among the older, more communally committed, and more Israel-focused part of the Jewish world.

In western Europe, Jews have been pushed away from their historic home on the secular left toward new alliances on the nationalist right. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour Party has been stained by anti-Semitism—to a point where past leaders such as Gordon Brown have taken a public stand against Corbyn.In the United States, mercifully, Omar remains a marginal figure within the Democratic Party. On July 23, all but 17 members of the House of Representatives voted to condemn Omar’s project of anti-Israel boycotts; the “squad” member Representative Ayanna Pressley voted with the House majority. But an important part of Trump’s plan for 2020 is elevating Omar’s profile, and prodding American Jews to compare him not with the actual Democratic nominee, but with the target he has singled out for attention.

It’s part stunt and scam, as James Kirchick recently argued. But it’s not all stunt and scam.

At a conference in Washington, D.C., last week, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri delivered a speech denouncing cosmopolitan elites. Some who listened to the speech thought they heard a slight against Jews. Yet the conference had been organized by an American-born Israeli, Yoram Hazony—and at every turn, the conference communicated Jewish inclusion in the new cross-border nationalist movement Hazony hopes to create. Hawley replied to his critics: “You’ll have to carry me out on a slab before I compromise my defense of the Jewish people, their greatness, their history, their safety, and the state of Israel.” That’s the language of committed friendship.

There is a message for American Jews in all this: These attacks on the other are not aimed at you. You can be part of us. We’d like you to be part of us. All you have to do is stop worrying about them. And after all, they don’t worry about you!

The comedian Chris Rock performed a classic comedy sketch about how bigotry always accelerates toward the Jews at the end. “That train,” he quipped, “is never late!” But what if that train is late? What if it’s been canceled altogether, at least insofar as it departs from Trump Station? What if the old community of interest between American Jews and other minorities is dissolving, leaving only the weaker tie of a community of values?

And not only American Jews! Many illiberal authoritarians around the world have tried to gain indulgence for other hatreds by friendship with Israel. Even the Viktor Orbán government in Hungary—which often theatrically glorifies violently anti-Semitic figures from the nation’s past—quietly assures that country’s still surviving Jewish community: None of this will translate into real-world actions against you. And indeed, thus far, that assurance has been honored.

Jews generally believe ourselves to be bound by an ethical code of tolerance and decency larger than our own parochial interests. Trump seems intent on putting that belief to the test. Will we meet it? Will we meet it as a united community? Or by tempting Jews with privileges denied to other, more marginal groups, will he split religious Jews from secular; more communally minded Jews from more universalist; more conservative from more liberal—embittering American Jews against one another, as he has sought more generally to embitter American against American?

Source: American Jews Are Being Tested By Trump

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We must talk about Palestine – without being antisemitic

2019/07/23 Leave a comment

Worth noting:

It’s hard to write or talk about antisemitism and the Labour party’s handling of it without descending into deep despair, and not just at the mirror the sorry tale is holding up to the whole of our society, which seems to be becoming less tolerant, more racist and less safe for minorities. This is having greater consequences than the Labour leadership can imagine. In particular, it is stifling the ability of commentators and decision-makers to talk sensibly about the real issues in Palestine.

My mother is Palestinian. These issues are deeply personal; we still have family in the West Bank. I am very worried that, at this critical juncture in the history of the region, activists, parliamentarians and journalists feel that they cannot speak out for fear of being branded as antisemitic. My plea is that we must speak more about Palestine, not less, and in this current climate it is something members of both houses of parliament have confided that they are more fearful than ever to do.

Source: We must talk about Palestine – without being antisemitic

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Top Trump officials headline conference focusing on the ‘new #antiSemitism’

2019/07/17 Leave a comment

Worth reading for the last pointed question posed to the three, which all deflected:

U.S. Attorney General William Barr called anti-Semitism a “cancer” at a Department of Justice summit on the topic notable for its focus on anti-Israel activity and for speeches by the top leaders of the departments of Education, the Treasury and the FBI.

Monday’s Summit on Combating Anti-Semitism, held at the DOJ headquarters here, featured panel discussions and an audience of about 150, mostly men representing various Jewish organizations and government agencies that deal with some aspect of hate crimes and civil rights.

The conference was bracketed by speeches by Barr and three other top officials of the Trump administration: Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Elan Carr, the State Department’s Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism, said the lineup was a sign of how seriously the administration is taking what he called a “time of striking growth in anti-Semitism around the globe.” He said that growth extends from Europe to the United States, “where vandalism in New York and other cities, according to the Anti-Defamation League, occurs on a fairly regular basis, and campuses have become hostile places for Jewish and pro-Israel students.”

Anti-Israel activity — at colleges and by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel — was perhaps the major theme of the summit, with two of the four panels largely devoted to aspects of the topic: “Anti-Semitism on Campus” and “Combating Anti-Semitism While Respecting the First Amendment.”

Carr noted at least three sources of present-day anti-Semitism: the “white supremacist far right,” the “anti-Zionist far left” and “radical Islam.”

But he drew particular attention to what he called “the new anti-Semitism,” which he said “attempts to disguise its Jew hatred as hatred for the state of Israel and the anti-Zionist endeavor.”

DeVos said that “BDS stands for anti-Semitism.” She described her department’s investigations into incidents of alleged discrimination aimed at pro-Israel students at Williams College in Massachusetts and at a pro-Palestinian event sponsored by departments at Duke University and University of North Carolina.

She also invoked President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as did Mnuchin, as a sign of U.S. support for Israel.

In his remarks, Barr referred to the wide landscape of anti-Semitism, including a rise in reported hate crimes, the deadly shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh and southern California, conspiracy theories and cemetery vandalism.

Describing anti-Semitism as a “cancer,” he said he wants to “assure the Jewish community that the Department of Justice and the entire federal government stands with you and will not tolerate these attacks.”

The conference, scheduled for weeks, was held following a news cycle dominated by accusations that President Donald Trump had himself courted bigotry, first in hosting a meeting at the White House for right-wing social media figures and then saying in a tweet that four Democratic members of Congress, all women of color, should “go back” to their countries of origin.

Josh Rogin, a columnist for the Washington Post who moderated a panel on “Prosecuting Hate Crimes,” referred to this tumult in a question to the three law enforcement officials on the panel. Asked to what they attributed the rise in hate crimes, and if they considered Trump’s often polarizing behavior as one of the causes, all three — representing the Attorney General’s civil rights division, the FBI’s criminal investigation division and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia — declined to offer any reasons.

All three focused their answers instead on their efforts to prosecute purveyors of hate crimes and their work with local communities on prevention.

Source: Top Trump officials headline conference focusing on the ‘new anti-Semitism’

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Berlin professor: Contemporary antisemitism is not racism or xenophobia

2019/07/15 Leave a comment

While I am not convinced by the arguments to consider antisemitism as a completely distinct form of racism and discrimination, her points on its history, incidence and the distinctions between antisemitism and criticism of Israel are thoughtful:
Statistics indicate a dramatic rise in antisemitism everywhere in the world. The brutal murder of Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll last year in Paris and the murder of 11 worshipers in the attack on the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh last October are only the devastating peaks of this development. Germany’s antisemitism czar recently warned that it is not safe for Jews to wear kippot in certain areas.
In February, French President Emanuel Macron said that antisemitism has reached its highest level since World War II.
“We have predicted this development for a long time, but our warnings were dismissed as alarmism,” says Monika Schwarz-Friesel, a professor of cognitive science at the Technical University of Berlin and one of the world’s leading antisemitism researchers. She blames Israel-related antisemitism and the failure of politicians, scholars, civil society and the media to address it. In an interview with The Jerusalem Report, Schwarz-Friesel also talks about the results of her recent research on online antisemitism and her new book, Jew-hatred on the Internet: Antisemitism as cultural constant and collective sentiment. (The title is translated from the German.)
Where is the current explosion of antisemitism coming from?
We are waking up to a reality that has developed over a long time. Antisemitism was never really gone. There was a period after World War II when its open communication was suppressed, but that doesn’t mean that it was erased from people’s minds. It only mutated into new forms, among which Israel-related antisemitism became the most pervasive and influential. The latter, very prominently promoted, e.g. by the BDS movement, has been instrumental in making Jew-hatred respectable again by whitewashing it as criticism of Israel. That whole process was never really challenged. On the contrary, everything has been tried to deny and marginalize it. Now we are facing the consequences.
Are you saying that the present situation was predictable?
Indeed so. I can read out for you the minutes of a symposium in which I participated 10 years ago in Jena, Germany, and you would think that they were written today. We made it very clear, back then, that Israel-related antisemitism is increasingly promoting the dissemination, radicalization and social acceptance of Jew-hatred. We explicitly warned that lest decisive counter-measures are taken, there will be an eruption and normalization of antisemitism. No one heeded our warnings. Instead, they were dismissed as alarmism. The fight against antisemitism remained focused on the activities of right-wing neo-Nazis, who in fact have very little influence on society as a whole. In contrast, Israel-related antisemitism and its massive popular impact were ignored. I clearly blame politicians, civil society and the media for ignoring, belittling and sometimes even participating in the dissemination of Israel-related Judeophobia.
Recently, however, the German parliament passed a resolution against BDS and anti-Israel antisemitism.
That resolution was a right and important decision. But I am afraid it is too little too late. It should have been passed 10 years ago.
There are many who think that measures against the BDS campaign infringe on free speech. How do you respond to people who say that charges of antisemitism are used to silence criticism of Israel?
Plainly, that they are wrong. Their accusation is void of any empirical merit. We actually did check this in various corpus-based studies. There is no noteworthy actor or discourse that has ever claimed that it is forbidden to criticize Israel, or that has used the charge of antisemitism to silence rational and fact-based criticism of the Jewish state’s policies. The opposite is true. Barely any other country is criticized as much as Israel in the European media. Those who emphatically claim that criticism of Israel must be allowed oppose a taboo that in reality does not exist. And they usually do so to whitewash Israel-related antisemitism.

So how do you distinguish between criticism of Israel and Israel-related antisemitism?
In fact, this is very simple. The line is crossed when statements about Israel reflect antisemitic stereotypes rather than the reality on the ground.
Can you give an example?
Let’s take the recent Israeli Nation-State Law. Criticizing this law as counterproductive, unnecessary or discriminatory is certainly not antisemitic. But when people, as we have seen, label it the “new Nuremberg race laws” or a “diabolic Zionist crime,” then they demonize Israel in a way that is antisemitic. Such statements are not based in reality. Instead they project stereotypical ideas of Jews as an absolute evil, by rendering the Jewish state a Nazi-like regime.

Outbursts of antisemitism often coincide with Israeli military operations, such as the 2014 Gaza War. What role does the Middle East conflict play in promoting Jew-hatred?
Crises in the Middle East often trigger antisemitic outbursts, but they are not their root cause. We can conclude that from our observation. Most antisemitic communications reproduce stereotypes that are much older than the Israeli-Arab conflict on which they are often projected. This also applies to antisemitism among Muslims. Mantras such as “child murderer Israel” target the Jewish state, but in fact replicate the classic antisemitic blood libel that has been around for centuries.

Your current book covers, among other things, the results of your much acclaimed new long-term study on antisemitism online.

What are your findings?Throughout the last decade, antisemitism on the Internet has been growing significantly. In some data sets we found an increase as high as 22 percent. In the online talkback sections of quality German newspapers, the number of antisemitic comments multiplied by four. This is accompanied by a radicalization in terms of semantics. In contrast to survey data, the Internet communications that we have reviewed are authentic, meaning they were not produced in response to the question of a researcher, but rather express the genuine impetus of their authors. So far, our study is the first of its kind in antisemitism research.

Is there any social group that stands out in particular among the producers of antisemitic speech online?
Our findings confirmed once more that antisemitism is not the exclusive problem of political extremists or of people with a low level of education. In fact, most antisemitic communications are authored by normal everyday users. That means that we encounter Jew-hatred everywhere on the web, and not only in confined spaces specifically dedicated to radical ideas.
A few weeks ago YouTube announced that it would ban videos that promote Holocaust denial. Shortly before that, Facebook said it would delete the profiles of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Islamist Louis Farrakhan. Did these measures make a difference?
According to our observations of the past five years, things only got worse. We regularly conducted spot checks to see whether certain contents have remained or disappeared. Also after Germany’s so-called Network-entrenchment law took effect in October 2017, imposing fines on social media providers who don’t comply with regulations for the restriction of hate speech, nothing substantial changed. The only thing that happens is that specific extreme cases of Holocaust denial get deleted. However, usually these contents just reappear later somewhere else. Eliminatory antisemitism expressed in mantras such as “Bomb Israel!” “Destroy Israel!” or “Jews are the biggest scum on earth” is still widespread all over cyberspace. The old anti-Jewish eliminatory hate is unbroken, as if Auschwitz never happened.
How is that possible?
There is a very simple explanation: 2,000 years of Jew-hatred are met by no more than 50 years of very ineffective education against it. In addition, large parts of society are in denial when it comes to facing the actual scope of antisemitism. Influential people, among them also scholars, continue to oppose measures against BDS. They falsely claim that criticism of BDS is an infringement of free speech and disseminate the fairytale that charges of antisemitism are used to silence criticism of Israel. Such arguments are void of any empirical corroboration. They not only sabotage the struggle against antisemitism, but actually promote the respectability of modern Jew-hatred.
So what can be done?
The political world has to face the facts and base the struggle against antisemitism on scholarly research rather than on empirically unsubstantiated fantasies. This will lead us automatically to the conclusion that Israeli-related Jew-hatred has to be targeted much more decisively.
By the same token, we have to dismiss the wrong but popular idea that contemporary antisemitism equals racism or xenophobia. Antisemitism is rooted in Christianity’s attempt to dismiss the Jewish basis it evolved from. As such, it has been an integral part of Western civilization for 2,000 years, deeply shaping the ways in which people think and feel. Comprehending this unique character of Jew-hatred as a cultural category sui generis rather than as one form of prejudice among others is a precondition to challenging it successfully.

Source: Berlin professor: Contemporary antisemitism is not racism or xenophobia

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UK’s Labour Party spars with BBC over charges of anti-Semitism

2019/07/12 Leave a comment

Ongoing train wreck (the Conservatives have the same problem with anti-Muslim attitudes):

British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn’s office interfered in independent party discipline processes aimed at rooting out anti-Semitism, the BBC said on Wednesday, a claim that the Labour Party sharply rejected.

A BBC investigation spoke to former Labour officials who said top party figures, including Corbyn’s communications director Seumas Milne and general secretary Jennie Formby, had minimized complaints of anti-Semitism against party members.

Labour said the accusations were “deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public”.

Labour has battled accusations of anti-Semitism since 2016 and Corbyn – a veteran campaigner for Palestinian rights – as well as other senior party officials have been criticized for failing to take decisive action to deal with it.

British Jewish groups have accused Labour of becoming institutionally anti-Semitic, and the issue has played a part in Labour’s failure to take electoral advantage of the Conservative government’s turmoil over Brexit.

The BBC quoted an email from Milne telling Labour’s internal complaints team that “something’s going wrong, and we’re muddling up political disputes with racism”.

Labour said this misrepresented Milne’s email, which referred to a dispute between Jewish Labour members with Zionist and anti-Zionist views. A fuller extract of the email read: “If we’re more than very occasionally using disciplinary action against Jewish members for anti-Semitism, something’s going wrong, and we’re muddling up political disputes with racism.”

The BBC investigation also quoted former party members who felt a hostile atmosphere toward Jews within the party in recent years, who were sometimes challenged over Israeli government actions by other party members.

Nine lawmakers quit the party this year, citing the leadership’s handling of anti-Semitism as well as its stance on Brexit as reasons for leaving.

British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said the BBC investigation showed that Corbyn was either “wilfully blind to anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic himself”.

Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, who is frequently critical of Corbyn, said he was “shocked, chilled and appalled” by the allegations in the BBC report.

Labour’s press office said the party was “implacably opposed to anti-Semitism,” and that some of the former officials quoted by the BBC had “personal and political axes to grind” against Corbyn.

Britain’s Conservatives face regular accusations of hostility toward Muslims. On Monday broadcaster Channel 4 published a survey of 892 Conservative Party members by pollsters YouGov which showed that 56% believed Islam was a general threat to Britain’s way of life.

Source: UK’s Labour Party spars with BBC over charges of anti-Semitism

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There’s a debate over Canada’s new definition of anti-Semitism, and it might sound strangely familiar

2019/07/02 Leave a comment

Needed raising of some parallels:

You could be forgiven for having missed the fact that Canada has adopted a formal definition of anti-Semitism. It was included as part of the government’s new anti-racism strategy, announced by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez earlier this week, in a list of terminology toward the end.

“Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews,” it reads. “Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

This is a relatively recent definition, adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental body with 31 member countries, including Canada. It’s since been adopted by a handful of countries, including the U.K. and Germany.

But controversy has bubbled up around the IHRA definition, fuelled by those who believe it’s over-broad and could chill legitimate criticism of the Israeli state. Though Canada isn’t passing any new laws to curtail debate about Israel, some believe the IHRA definition is a threat to free speech.

If this sounds strangely familiar, that’s because the debate bears a certain resemblance to the controversy that raged for months over M-103, the Liberals’ anti-Islamophobia motion that Conservatives claimed would threaten people’s right to criticize Islam. The arguments in both cases are oddly similar — they’re just coming from very different quarters.

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is brief, but includes a list of 11 contemporary examples, such as “the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy,” and the claim that Jews invented or exaggerated the Holocaust. It also lists as anti-Semitic “applying double standards by requiring of (Israel) a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.”

Aidan Fishman, former national director of B’nai Brith Canada’s league for human rights, said his organization pushed for Canada to adopt the IHRA definition because of a “really alarming rise” in anti-Semitic incidents in recent years.

“It’s a very comprehensive definition, which really encapsulates anti-Semitism in its modern form,” he said. Canada’s decision comes in the midst of an international effort by Jewish organizations to urge governments and political parties to formally adopt the IHRA definition.

Anthony Housefather, a Liberal MP from Montreal and chair of the House of Commons justice committee, said defining anti-Semitism is key to fighting it. “Most people just need to be educated and understand where something crosses the line,” he said.

Still, the IHRA definition has not been universally embraced. Last week, just days before the anti-racism strategy was released, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) released a statement saying the definition is “extremely vague,” “open to misinterpretation” and could undermine Charter rights to free speech. “We fear that if adopted, the IHRA definition will serve to severely chill political expressions of criticism of Israel as well as support for Palestinian rights,” the association said.

In a statement to the National Post on Thursday, the NDP said the party supports the anti-racism strategy, but likewise raised concerns about the IHRA definition, saying it “could be a threat for people who legitimately denounce grave human rights abuses by the government of Israel against Palestinians.”

Independent Jewish Voices, an organization that supports the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, is urging Ottawa to reconsider. “The full definition’s examples conflate fundamental criticisms of Israel and/or Zionism with anti-Semitism — a position IJV strongly rejects,” the organization said in a statement, adding its adoption “would pose a serious threat to freedom of expression and academic freedom in Canada.”

Fishman and Housefather both denied this, pointing out that the definition states that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.” But Fishman said support for the BDS movement does constitute anti-Semitism under the IHRA definition to the extent that supporters also, for example, call for the lifting of sanctions against Iran — a double standard, he argued.

“There are many parts of BDS which are indeed a new form of anti-Semitism when you single out Israel,” Housefather said.

Canada’s anti-racism strategy does not propose any new penalties for anti-Semitism, nor does it propose new legislation — it provides only a definition. But Meghan McDermott, staff counsel for the BCCLA, said she worries it could eventually be incorporated into the Criminal Code. “It’s kind of what we would call soft law for now,” she said. “We just worry about that whole floodgates argument.”

That “floodgates argument” is strikingly similar to the concerns raised by Conservatives and other critics of M-103, the 2017 motion that called on the government to condemn Islamophobia and all forms of racism and religious discrimination. Though M-103 was not a government bill and proposed no changes to legislation, critics claimed that because Islamophobia was not precisely defined, the motion could restrict legitimate criticism of Islam.

B’nai Brith was among those critics. At a 2017 meeting of a parliamentary Heritage committee conducting a study of systemic racism as required by M-103, Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith, called Islamophobia a “confusing” term with competing definitions. “We must ensure that no one can hide behind the idea that any criticism of Islam represents Islamophobia, or a vague definition to this effect,” he said.

Ultimately, the Heritage committee recommended Canada update its national action plan against racism, a commitment that’s now been fulfilled with the release of the new anti-racism strategy, which defines both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Its definition of Islamophobia “includes racism, stereotypes, prejudice, fear or acts of hostility directed towards individual Muslims or followers of Islam in general.”

The Conservatives did not respond to a request for comment about the new strategy and its definitions.

McDermott insisted the two debates — about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia — are not analogous, as the controversy over the IHRA definition centres around criticism of a foreign nation. The debate over M-103, she said, wasn’t “grounded in reality.”

“It seemed to me that it was… people who were Islamophobic who were making those arguments,” she said.

For his part, Fishman said criticism of the IHRA definition is ill-founded. “And I think some of it is actually motivated by a desire on the part of certain groups… to keep pushing anti-Semitism,” he said.

Cara Zwibel, director of the fundamental freedoms program of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said she’s concerned about any definition of racism that’s too broad, because of the importance of freedom of expression. Still, she pointed out, nothing in Canadian law has actually changed.

“There’s nothing in that strategy at the moment that seems to restrict rights in any way,” she said. “It’s more about empowering people to respond.”

Source: There’s a debate over Canada’s new definition of anti-Semitism, and it might sound strangely familiar

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Editorial: Estonia needs to tackle anti-Semitism before it’s too late

2019/06/27 Leave a comment

Generally, not much coverage of Estonia:

For the small Estonian Jewish community, times have been peaceful – but recent anti-Semitic acts are a reason for concern.

Over the weekend of 22-23 June, several headstones at the 110-year old Rahumäe Jewish cemetery in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, were knocked over. On 23 June, swastikas were spray-painted on large stones by the Lille bus stop in Tallinn’s Kristiine district.

“On 23 June, when all of Estonia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the victory of Estonian troops over the Baltic Landeswehr (Baltic German troops during the Estonian War of Independence – editor) near Võnnu, there were two extremely outrageous incidents in Tallinn,” the Jewish Community of Estonia wrote on its Facebook page on 24 June.

“This monstrous act of vandalism at a place where our ancestors rest in peace, where every human being thinks about spirituality, their connection to past generations and human values, is offensive, frightening and unacceptable in our society,” the Estonian Jewish Community and the Estonian Jewish Congregation said in a statement.

The community added that the act of vandalism was the first at the Jewish cemetery – it was not defiled even during the Nazi occupation of Estonia (from 1941-1944 – editor).

According to Alla Jakobson, the chairwoman of the Estonian Jewish Community, it is hard to believe that these malicious actions were organised specifically during the holidays in Estonia (when the country celebrates Victory Day, Midsummer Eve and Midsummer Day – or St John’s Day). “It is hoped that it was just a very unfortunate coincidence,” she said in a statement.

“We honour the memory of the deceased and would like society to show understanding and mutual respect for the memory of the people who lost their ancestors in that country. I am convinced the [police] investigation will identify those whose behaviour caused sorrow and pain,” Jakobson added.

The Jewish Community of Estonia added that “such acts of vandalism and the spray-painted swastikas in public places are a direct reference to the tragic [historical] events. We hope [these events] will never happen again. Not in Estonia, or in any other country.”

Several incidents in a row causing a concern

The latest anti-Semitic acts follow the incident in March, when a 27-year-old Estonian man aggressively shouted at the country’s Chief Rabbi, Shmuel Kot, on the street: “What are you staring at, Jew? You’re going into the oven.” The man also shouted “Sieg Heil” and “Heil Hitler” at Kot while the rabbi was walking to Tallinn’s synagogue with two of his children, aged seven and 12. The police later identified the abuser, arrested him – and he was sentenced to eight days in prison.

According to Kot, this kind of an incident was the first time two of his children had witnessed any such harassment.

In August 2018, unidentified individuals vandalised the Holocaust memorials at Kalevi-Liiva in Estonia’s Harju County. Thousands of Jews perished there during the Nazi occupation of Estonia, from 1941-1944. The memorials were spray-painted with swastikas, anti-Semitic and Nazi messages.

6, when Estonian World spoke to Rabbi Kot, he told us Estonia was a very peaceful, calm and good country for Jews. Therefore, the latest developments cause a serious concern – and in the light of far-right gains in the last parliamentary election in March, beg the question whether an anti-Semitic sentiment is on the rise in Estonia.

A troubled history, but mostly tolerant country for Jews

Like many European countries, Estonia may have had a fair bit of troubled history with anti-Semitism, but for the most part of its existence, it has been regarded as a tolerant country for Jews.

From the very first days of its existence as a state in 1918, Estonia showed tolerance towards all the peoples inhabiting her territories. In 1925, the Act of Cultural Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities was enacted in Estonia, giving minority groups consisting of at least 3,000 individuals the right of self-determination in cultural matters. Thus, in 1926, the Jewish cultural autonomy was declared – first of its kind in the world. For its tolerant policy towards Jews, even a page was dedicated to the Republic of Estonia in the Golden Book of the Jewish National Fund in 1927.

Sadly, the history took a wrong turn. With the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, Jewish cultural autonomy, in addition to the activities of Jewish organisations, was terminated. All Jewish schools were closed and 414 Estonian Jews (10 per cent of the Jewish community) were deported to Siberia in the course of the mass deportations of June 1941.

Worse was to come. During the German occupation, the Nazis murdered approximately 1,000 Jews who had failed to flee Estonia (most had escaped to the Soviet Union before the Nazi occupation). In addition, about 10,000 Jews were transported to Nazi concentration camps in Estonia from other parts of Europe. Only a handful of them survived.

During the second Soviet occupation (1944–1991), many Jews migrated to Estonia again to escape the anti-Semitism prevalent in many parts of the Soviet Union. After the restoration of Estonia’s independence in 1991, the local Jewish cultural life was reinvigorated again and the community of about 2,500 people has generally thrived since. In 2007, a new synagogue was opened in Tallinn – the first synagogue to open in Estonia since the Second World War.

Let’s keep Estonia an educated and tolerant country

This publication calls the Estonian society and institutions to take the anti-Semitic incidents seriously – it’s important to tackle the hatred and prejudice and cut it at its roots. More education is needed about the Holocaust – there is sadly still too much ignorance and denial about the genocide that also took place in Estonia, among many European countries.

The local media – and especially the country’s public broadcasting, ERR – could also highlight the positive contribution of thousands of Estonian Jews throughout the history, which has benefitted not just Estonia, but also the world. From Louis Kahn to Eri Klas, from Yuri Lotman to Eino Baskin, many Estonian Jews have made Estonia and the world a better place.

Until recently, Estonia stood out positively as a place where Jews could live in peace and thrive – let’s keep it that way.

Source: Editorial: Estonia needs to tackle anti-Semitism before it’s too late

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