I am well schooled in Anti-Semitism. Growing up in the long shadow of the Holocaust, most Jews are.
I find it fascinating that someone I've never met, someone who knows nothing about my politics, my feelings, my love, life and work ethic, someone from the other side of the globe, would choose to hate me, or even do me bodily harm, simply because of my religious beliefs.
Even more fascinating since I, and the majority of us, don't even believe in those religious beliefs. Nevertheless, someone has a target on my back simply because I self identify as a Jew.
You non-Jewish readers have no idea what I'm talking about. You can say you're empathetic, you can say you understand, but the truth is you don't.
And you never will.
You see, you don't get emails from your church explaining the latest bomb-proofing measures and extra security being implemented in light of recent threats. You don't get skittish at weddings or Bar Mitzvahs, wondering if any of the "guests" are of the unwanted variety. And you don't read about the FBI intercepting jihadist plans against unspecified (your ethnicity here) targets.
The only people who could possibly understand this unwarranted hate are African Americans.
Perhaps this is why so many Jews were at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the early 1960's. Yesterday on a segment of the Daily Show, Jon Stewart displayed a picture of the three young men made famous in the film Mississippi Burning. Two of them were long haired landsman from Brooklyn.
That's what makes Black Anti-Semitism so puzzling, at least to me.
Last week I was on youtube looking for archived commercials. On the right hand side of the page there were 8 videos that the algorithms thought I might find interesting. And sure enough, there was one that was.
In 2010 African American leaders held a "We Count" conference in Chicago. It featured some of the most distinguished voices from the community including Cornell West, Tavis Smiley and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. These are men of letters, rational, intelligent, and open-minded.
In other words, everything Louis Farrakhan is not. And yet watch how they fawn and hang on every word from this uneducated, truth-twisting, Anti-Semite:
He even starts his rant with a canard about disproportionate Jewish power. As if there were something wrong with working hard and successfully adapting to the ins and out of the American political system.
I find it disturbing that Farrakhan has a seat at this table. I find it more disturbing that not one leader contests his ugly premise. His voice should be as welcome as former Ku Klux Klanner David Duke at an Obama Cabinet meeting. And oddly enough Farrakhan and Duke have so much in common.
Both are petty, hateful, over-achieving rabble rousers.
Both are convinced this country is being governed by the Illuminati, which puts them in agreement with this loon.
And both men blame the woes of their people, on the alleged actions of mine.
Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows.
Hate does.
Agree with everything you said Rich. But, wow. Wow. That man can speak. Starts off so calm. So slowly. So soothingly. And then at a certain point the jets come on and you can feel a shiver wash over the crowd.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't make what he's saying any more acceptable.
Can you even imagine a white politician or cultural leader saying the stuff he's said and still being embraced by so many people? (Interestingly, Jesse Jackon's face was a study in trying to not be there!)
But it does make it exciting to hear and watch. Thanks for sharing.
Rich, I agree with your point: Black anti-Semitism is puzzling when Jews were such a strong part of the civil rights movement of the early 1960s and beyond.
ReplyDeleteAnd I imagine you're making the case that if such men of letters—as you call them—as Cornell West, Tavis Smiley and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson nod their head in agreement with Farrakhan, then less educated blacks surely must have similar thoughts.
But I wish to bring up a different point. There have been and still are plenty of men of letters who are anti-Semites: Josef Mengele earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University. Joseph Goebbels got a doctorate of philosophy from Heidelberg U. Albert Speer studied architecture at the University of Karlsruhe as well as the Technical University of Munich and the Technical University of Berlin. And Hermann Goering attended Munich University.
To find out what’s happening today, go to www.campus-watch.org and do a search for “Anti-Semitism;” it’s quite fashionable on American campuses. This past weekend I was in a restaurant in Portland and overhead this young sponge from Reed College going on about his trip to Palestine; the ignorance taught at colleges and universities is frightening.