The Monsey Attack, and The Dialectical Nature of Anti-Semitism
How the Jewish ”intellectual” right uses anti-semitic attacks to provoke migrant and minority fear — which in turn fuels the greatest source of anti-Semitism, white nationalism. The Jewish and multicultural left must take a stand against their arguments.
2015 feels like an almost foreign time. In the United States, the year stood on the eve of the election of Donald Trump, while in the United Kingdom, the political avalanche caused by Brexit had not yet begun to tumble. It appeared that the “populist” trembling was decades to come, and that for the meantime, the West would continue to sit comfortably in the already worn armchair of neoliberalism. However, 2015 was the year in which four were murdered, and 9 injured at the Hyper Cacher kosher grocery store in Paris. With this event, (and the earlier attack in Toulouse against a Jewish school, in which three children, and one parent were killed), the “intellectual” Jewish-right, mainly represented by Commentary, made an argument against migration and refugees, which with amazing speed and penetration became a main-stream talking point of the liberal media. In short, Muslim refugees are a danger to Jews. In this fashion, the bloodshed perpetrated against Jews, was used as a political talking point, which dulled liberal’s defense of refugees (which was already wavering to begin with), and in part, inspired the right-to take a more anti-refugee stance, leading (although not exclusively) to the rise of Trump (along with his right-wing European counterparts), and the occurrence of Brexit. It is without doubt that this rhetoric fueled the rise of white-supremacy, which finds its main source to be anti-Semitism, especially in regards to the conspiracy that Jews are stimulating refugee migration. This form of white-supremacy found its greatest expression, in terms of its outward anti-Semitism, in the horror that was the Tree of Life shooting, in which in 2018, 12 were killed at a Pittsburgh Synagogue. In light of the recent attacks against Jews celebrating the festival of Hanukkah in Monsey, New York, on December 28th, the same arguments against minorities and people of color are being deployed. A new and invigorated Jewish, and multicultural left must fight against these arguments, not only for the sake of those who are wrongfully being blamed, but for the sake of the Jewish people itself.
In an article, which would be better called a poorly-researched, conspiratorial rant, titled, “Victimhood Culture Leads to Anti-Semitism”, Abe Greenwald, a senior editor at Commentary, asserts that there has been an uptick in Black against Jewish crime, due to the left’s promotion of “victim-culture”, and the “fetishization” of the victim-status of certain minorities. In the logic of Greenwald “indulged victims” are predisposed to hating Jews (who are a historical scapegoat), and are provoked to further their hatred of Jews by the left, who portray Jews as part of the oppressive, white, capitalist minority. Like with most of these articles, a bone is thrown in recognition of the fact that anti-Semitism is historically, and to this day significantly associated with the right, although this is glazed over, as greater emphasis is placed on blaming the likes of Jeremy Corbyn, Ilhan Omar, lefty college-students, and the Women’s March activists who embraced Loius Farrakan. The article even references Marx, saying that the left sees Jews as part of the “power structure that keeps minorities down”. The only description of the perpetrator is in plainly stating his race — that Grafton Thomas is a Black man. No reference is given to the perpetrator’s ideology, or whether he held any previous opinions against Jewish people. Instead, the article implies that the perpetrator is merely a part of this horde of “indulged victims” who have a chip on their shoulders against Jews.
If Greenwald had ventured to include any research in his article, he would have discovered, that Thomas had indeed harbored anti-Semitic sentiments, and that he was also severely mentally ill, but had lived in the Crown Heights Neighborhood of Brooklyn (which is mainly populated by the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Jews) in peace, before he stopped taking his medication, and disappeared. After an FBI investigation of Thomas’ house, the perpetrator’s phone history revealed search queries such as, “Why did Hitler hate the Jews?”. Astute students political history will recognize that Hitler was an extreme right-wing leader, and therefore not in-line with the perpetrators leftists tendencies, at least according to Greenwald. There is also reference in the perpetrators journal to “eboninoid Israelites”, which has been interpreted as a reference to Black Hebrew Israelites, a group which has been associated with (as Greenwald references), a shooting at a Kosher market in Jersey City early in December. Despite Greenwald’s underlying assumption, that anything having to do with the very concept of “blackness” must be associated with the political left, Black Hebrew Israelites is not a left-political organization, but rather a religious organization which has been decried by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, for its belief that white Jews are “devilish imposters” of the “real Jewish people”, who are in fact, according to the organization, Black, Hispanic, and Native American people. The left does not accept this group into its tent, anymore than anti-water-fluoridation activists. Conspiracy, even when it supposedly uplifts minorities, is not on the fringe of the left, but rather inhabits its own universe, reserved for those who think that the world is run by a group of lizard people.
Compare this response, to the response which Commentary (as written by John Podhoretz), had after the Tree of Life shooting, in which the openly white-supremacist Robert Bowers perpetrated the attack: “Because we are obliged by the sickness of our political culture to analyze every despicable event in a manner designed to confirm our political priors, we have already, mere hours after the barbarity, sunk into a nauseating discussion about how much blame to assign to the president for this unspeakable act.” If only this refrain from “confirming our political priors” was applied, when a Black man is suspected of the crime. The article goes on to downplay anti-Semitism in the United States, comparing it to the horrors of Europe, in which Jews are fleeing France, and in which (wait for it), in the United Kingdom, the Labour party is headed by an actual “Jew-hater”. In addition, the article makes every attempt to dissociate the murderer from Donald Trump, saying that Trump bears no responsibility because he did not physically commit the shooting, and because, at least according to some evidence, the murderer thought the president to be a “Jew-agent” and “Jew-lover”. Of course, no reference is given to Trump’s passive acceptance of white-nationalists, and the fact that the murderer was enraged by the fact that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society was giving assistance to refugees, a group that Trump is also not terribly fond of. The double standard when applying the standard of evidence, when connecting an anti-Semitic crime committed by a Black man to the left, and that committed by a white-supremacist to the right (as represented by Donald Trump), is immediately apparent.
It is amazing how deftly the liberal media is able to incorporate this anti-minority, anti-left narrative, all the while wrapping it in moderating tones of “reasonability”. In an Atlantic article titled, “Jews are Going Underground”, by Deborah Lipstadt, written in response to the Monsey attack, after listing a battery of anti-Semitic events, such as the desecration of Jewish tombstones in Slovakia, anti-Semitism in Europe and the United States is ascribed to three main causes: the extreme-right, the progressive-left, and persecuted minorities. Notice how the dichotomy is not between the extreme-right, and extreme-left, but rather between the extreme-right, and the progressive-left, implying that while only the fringe of the right causes anti-Semitism, the entire left movement that is left-of-center is a source of anti-Semitism. The author’s listing of “persecuted minorities” is not evidenced in the article, as it only relates to the most recent cases of anti-Semitism (mainly those in New York and New Jersey). The main point of the article is to show how Jews are having to hide their Jewishness in public, in order to avoid anti-Semitic attacks. The article does not for a moment, directly ascribe any anti-Semitic attacks to white-supremacy, or to the right exclusively. The only time in the article, in which examples of anti-semitism are directly correlated to a segment of the political spectrum, is with the left. Namely, Lipstadt refreshes the right-wing preoccupation with the horrors of college. Jewish students have to hide themselves when trying to participate in progressive causes such as the LGBTQ movement, the fight against sexual assault, and the environmental movement. As a Jewish college student, I personally feel a greater need to hide my Jewishness when high school students make Nazi salutes, and sing Nazi songs openly in cities such as San Diego, than in colligate progressive circles.
This tactic, of the right using anti-Semitic attacks to inspire fear of minorities and refugees, which is a sentiment echoed by the liberal press, is nothing new. In A Commentary article by Jonothan Tobin, written in response to the Toulouse shootings, there is reference to the “importation of Jew-hatred from the Middle East.” This sentiment is almost perfectly copied in a Washington Post article by James McAuley, who in response to the Tree of Life mass-killing, attempts to make the argument that this incident is not an example of European anti-Semitism coming to the United States, since European anti-Semitism takes on a more left leaning direction. Specifically, most acts of violent anti-Semitism in France come from people with immigrant backgrounds, and connections with Islamist terrorist networks.
There is no denying that acts of anti-semitism have been committed by immigrants, and Islamist-extremists, and there is no denying that there are some sections of the “conspiratorial left” who entertain anti-Semitic theories regarding Jewish domination of the world. But the media’s equivalency of right-wing and left-wing anti-Semitism, which unfortunately, is often supported by Jewish, right wing “intellectuals”, does nothing but obfuscate the current issue, and the fact, that using a historical perspective, European anti-Semitism is a homegrown phenomenon. The blaming of anti-Semitism on an “imported other”, or on “indulged victims” does nothing but hide the fact, that the source of anti-Semitism, like so many other forms of bigotry is white-supremacy, the same white-supremacy which was brought about in part, due to the demonization of migrants. Wheres in 2015, before the geyser of right-wing populism burst, the goal of depicting anti-Semitism in this manner may have been to demonize migrants, now, the goal is less clear. Possibly, the goal has been the increased policing of Black and Brown neighborhoods where Jews also live (as has been the response of Mayor Bill de Blasio) in the name of “protecting Jews”. Meanwhile, it is well known that increased policing is no long term solution to this problem.
We do not live in 2015. In the United States, the left has risen. We now have a voice to raise in response to this fear mongering by the right. Fortunately, the greatest leader of that left, Bernie Sanders, is himself a Jew, and just as he did at a Menorah lighting in Des Moines, reminds us that, in his words: “We must confront this surge of anti-Semitic violence, prioritize the fight against bigotry, and bring people together — instead of dividing people up.”
