When Collective Hate Organizes

“When collective hate organizes and gets industrialized, then genocide follows,” Steven Spielberg

So the question is, are the antisemites organized? I would say that at this point the army of Jew haters are still in disarray. A lot of the loudest voices have different agendas, so they are pulling people in different directions. The foot soldiers are actually already doing what is required of them which is scaring Jews, making them feel uncomfortable, and unwanted. Every act of antisemitic vandalism, every physical attack and bullying of a Jew , and the murder of Jews while praying in synagogue, whether in Pittsburg or Jerusalem is the work of these foot soldiers. In the meantime, the rag tag army marches on.

I can’t predict if the hate will organize. There are many outspoken “anti termites” that have platforms, in the US, Europe, the Middle East and the UN. Their voices sometimes speak in straight up antisemitic terms. Others disguise it in anti zionism. The hate doesn’t have a political allegiance since it is found across the political spectrum. Polls and data collectors show that it is clearly on the rise. It is not our imagination. You might ask yourself, what would Carol do?!

I won’t wait for anyone to come and save us. History has taught us that. My shortest paragraph ever.

I would disrupt the narrative. I like to use humor sometimes because more often than not hateful people don’t get it. As a rule I rarely answer hate with anger no matter how horrible the hate. I have been tempted. I prefer to answer with logic and not emotion. The push back will not change the antisemite. Only grace can do that. What I am saying to them is “I see you.” Not only that I see you, but I am showing you for who you are to the rest of the world. I am saying to them that I will stand in the way of their hate.

I have a special place in my heart for the intersectionals. People who think all tragedy, all oppression, all conflict, “intersects” as if they are all the same. They are not. People that love intersectionality love it because they can push their agenda no matter what the issue may be. That’s how we got Ferguson is Palestine. It’s how the woman’s march became about Palestine for Linda Sarsour. It’s also how how she interjected her anti zionism into her speech at a rally supporting Colin Kaepernick. So let me say this, to say the problems of people of color in the US is like the Israeli Palestinian conflict is like comparing a disease like gastric cancer and gastritis. They may share some symptoms but they are so different that if you treated them the same, someone is going to die. Intersectionality is slight of hand. It offers no solution.

Sitting in my home in Israel I understand two things. I cannot control how this wave of hate develops. What we must control is our response to it. As Jews, whether we live somewhere between the river and the sea or anywhere else in the world, we must have each others back.