Nathan Bernfield
Jul 25, 2017 · 1 min read

Firstly, I’ll say that I thought this was a fairly honest attempt at a nuanced discussion on the matter.

Two criticisms, however:
(1) re “There is a kind of casual antisemitism on the left; the patriarchal activist refers to Jewish men only by their last name. The radical feminist uses the cringe-inducing term “ZioNazi” with suspicious frequency. But this isn’t a force on the left; it’s mostly ignorance and micro-aggression from young urbanites.
I don’t mean that anti-Semitism is not a current threat. I have faced it personally.”

I have a lot of lefty friends who have a lot of ignorance about Jewish history, Israeli history and about what zionism actually means… but i think unintentional casual antisemitism is still problematic and should be called out as antisemitism.

(2) re “ I see this space as narrowed a bit, but navigable, and certainly a better shake than being Palestinian. Nor is waving an Israeli Pride flag in the US an act of resistance. In fact, the leftist mantra that “if it is inaccessible to the poor, it is neither radical nor revolutionary,” rings especially true here.”

I think that’s a tall order to place on Jews to reclaim/re-appropriate the Star of David… You don’t see people arguing that Budhists should be extra careful with the Swastika because possibly, inadvertently, invoking Nazi connotations… (pls note I do NOT intend on creating a Nazi=Israel connotation)).