Is this anti-semitism?

i really hope this is just temporary hysteria and by this time next year i'll be chiding myself for getting worked up about fears that never materialized. i don't want to leave. i love my country and my state and my town. it's just all v scary atm.

It's a very good question, and I find it troubling that I even have to ask: what would it take? What would it take to make me leave this country? My kids asked me last night and I had no real answer. I would be happy to leave, or at least would have no problem doing it, beyond practicalities. I have a sister in England and a SIL and family in Australia. There are places to go. I just wonder what it would take.

I can't even imagine what it's like to be Mexican right now, or gay, or anyone of color. Or even a woman. Anything is possible.

a few minutes ago i could not stop crying because i feel like in one day we've given away so much and for nothing. and i know this is in the anti-semitism thread but any one who is going through this now no matter what minority group they belong to my heart goes out to you bc in you've borne the brunt of most of this but it looks like no one is getting out alive.

― Mordy, Wednesday, November 9, 2016 2:24 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mordy i feel you. thank you for your presence, wisdom and humor in all these related threads lately, they have been a personal bright spot for me. im not jewish but i am latino and i feel deeply sad and scared today. i hope this is temporary hysteria too. i felt it during GWB in 2000 and 2004 but this just seems way way more unpredictable and worse

thinking of you as another dad of little kids, too.

this is super hard.

yes I was looking at the photo I took of my wife me and my 5yo daughter grinning and wearing our I voted stickers and thinking how much I wanted this for my girls to grow up in a world where a woman was president and not just any woman but one who I thought would do a good job and my heart was just breaking. and I just don't have the heart to talk to her about it. She hasn't asked about it and I'm not going to bring it up - they're still so young why bring them into this but I feel such a tremendous sense of loss. I feel like I have this luxury almost bc they're so young still I can't imagine what I would tell them if they were a little older.

My girls, 9 and 12, are doing just fine. They are still familiar mostly with a world of such positivity and progress in their short lives already that they have no reaction other than generic disappointment and a reassuring ability to look forward with strength and optimism, which in turn gives strength to me.

I kickstarted a book not long ago called Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls and they are just starting to send them out- their announcement of delivery was predictably bittersweet- they were hoping to be releasing it under more auspicious circumstances.

x-post

josh, that;s very heartening. thank you.

Weirdly, my wife has practically exploded into a mania of activism. She says it has been helping, and I believe her. And we'll follow her lead.

I should note in the name of full disclosure that my kids have grown up in a diverse community of progressive values, where tolerance and inclusivity have been stressed at school as much as the three Rs. It has paid off to such an extent that it scares me to think of all the communities throughout the country where the opposite may be true. Which in turn makes me think of Sting's "Russians," which may be the real tragedy here.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/trumps-favorite-senator-hates-global-intellectual-types.html

Not that I'm not empathetic but ffs going after Golda Meir?

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/11/kent_state_students_demand_rem.html

KENT, Ohio - Several student groups have asked administrators to remove a quote by Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel, on the wall of a classroom building.

A photo of Meir is next to the quote:"Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement."

The students don't oppose what she said but object to Meir. They want the quote and photo replaced.

"While she might be a model for some students, her legacy is more complicated for many of us," wrote Yousof Mousa, president of Students for Justice in Palestine, in a Nov. 1 opinion piece for kentwired.com.

Mousa wrote that Meir had policies and statements that were expressly racist against Africans and once said that Palestinians don't even exist as a people.

"The fact that Meir's picture and quote decorate our hallways where we take classes saddens us," Mousa wrote. "Kent State should be as much our home as it should be for all students. Yet, this is not what home feels like, and this contributes to a climate that makes us feel like we do not belong here."

Her views were supported by the Spanish and Latino Student Association, Ohio Student Association and the Muslim Students Association.

"It's from a person connected to the death of many Palestinians," Mousa told a kentwired reporter this week. "That's where the problem is."

. . .

Mousa told kentwired he first noticed the quote last year.

The groups suggested that the quote could be replaced with a quote by another Jewish or Israeli leader.

"Our campus deserves role models that believe in justice, equality and rights for everyone that want to call Kent State home," Mousa wrote Nov. 1. Please make the walls in our halls of learning reflect this climate of diversity and equity."

Sounds like they have their attention on the important issues.

dersh says bannon isn't an anti-semite (or i guess that there's no evidence that he is) and i'm inclined to agree w/ him. a lot of the bannon = antisemite stuff seems like overreach.

can you discuss that w/o reference to the dersh

court documents not good enough for ya eh

none of the "evidence" is slam dunk - the testimony from his wife during an acrimonious divorce is hearsay at best and the Breibart sins were mostly committed by Horowitz in, acc to DH, defense of worldwide Jewry who were being threatened by Kristol. which isn't to say that a Jew can't be antisemitic obviously but i find his comments re "renegade Jew" to be pretty believably coming from a not anti-semitic place. i think possibly some of the nuance being lost is that there are major faultlines between right-wing and left-wing jewry and that some of the tensions there (particularly re the Republican party, certain Israel issues like settlements, etc) are being interpreted instead as anti-semitic when they should be viewed more ideological. i know the trump campaign emboldened antisemites (bc i read them excitedly discussing it) and i think that last ad in particular had a v sinister tone, but i think we should probably be careful about calling Bannon or Trump an antisemite if - for no other reason - that it is unsubstantiated and will be dismissed on those grounds. nb if you're going to say that there are left-wingers that the right has called anti-semitic for far less - acknowledged.

also i think that going after bannon for being antisemitic might be a savvy political move (if dems can force him out that'll demonstrate some potency in opposing the trump administration and could set a good example going forward) but personally speaking i've looked through the stuff and i'm not particularly convinced.

A friend of mine (Jewish, wanted to become a rabbi when we were at school) wrote today that several of her colleagues at an LA private school had personal experience of the guy and that yes indeed, his prejudices were on show including the anti-Semitism everyone's talking about.

Kind of disturbed that guys here are dismissing his ex-wife as angry. News flash: most divorcing women's anger is totally justified.

I'm not dismissing anything, I'm simply saying that outside of hearsay evidence (which you have only added to) I don't see a strong argument that he has demonstrated an antisemitic disposition. It could very well be that he does hate Jews. I don't think the "renegade Jew" headline is evidence of it, though.

He's dangerous in a more generalized way as well but it's harder to make that case to people in a succinct way.

friends on fb are comparing his views on Zionism/Israel to those of Eichmann

afaik bannon has never sought to export all american jews to israel, tho that is a not unknown opinion on the far white supremacist right. i think anyway the comparison belies a categorical confusion bc i'm assuming it comes from the rabidly pro-Likud (and Israeli right) line of Briebart. but i see that as being more about Israel as a religious outpost of Western culture on the front lines of the war against Islam - not as a pragmatic solution to how to get rid of your Jews.

i'm just assuming that was the comparison and not that bannon is in the middle of designing an industrial genocide state

Bannon is definitely designing a state to destroy its "internal enemies" whoever he may perceive them to be. You can count on that.

if you're going to go for nazi comparisons doesn't goebbels make a lot more sense?

goebbels didn't get a chance to testify to expand on his views on Zionism

https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/798639101410824192

Alan Dershowitz on MSNBC right now says evidence bannon is antisemite is not there, then says Hamas would cheer if Ellison made DNC chief

i don't know if it's encouraging or depressing that a circumstantial charge antisemitism might bring bannon down but plenty of evidence he's a total pig to everyone else has no valence at all

Like Trump, he courts antisemitism to boost his power, so it almost doesn't matter if he is one.

otm. it doesn't matter what he "truly" believes when he runs a white suprematist website.

shitbag cunning prizes plausible deniability

fwiw i don't think this is how an anti-semite talks or conceptualizes Judaism or Jewishness:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.jjb1ZYaGW#.jfEKjVbQl

There's been an exchange of articles and letters in the morning star (yeah, yeah, I know) about anti semitism in the Soviet Union. Wasn't sure if anyone saw it - I'm at the pub so I can't check if it's in their site. I have today's if anyone is interested. I was happy that the letter I read was saying that it's absurd to insist anti-semitism didn't exist in the ussr - but then I notice the letter above it claiming that Stalin never entertained an anti-Semitic thought, and neither did any official soviet actions.

obv an insane claim even if jews weren't his target early on they become one later, esp in the immediate post-trotsky era when he was cleaning house. from the kotkin:

Orjonikidize engaged in negotiations over the disposition of the highest-profile Trotskyites who sought to continue working in some capacity, but Stalin soon scattered them into internal exile.303 Whereas in the politburo back in mid-1924, Great Russians accounted for 46 percent, with a third having been Jews and the remaining three a Pole, Latvian, and Georgian, now the politburo became two-thirds Russian (and would retain a Russian majority thereafter).304 The talk around the congress was that “Moses had taken the Jews out of Egypt, and Stalin took them out of the Central Committee.”305

and then infamously right before his death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors'_plot

of note - my great aunt for whom my youngest daughter is named used to smuggle siddurim and jewish ritual items into the USSR for Chabad since those items were otherwise banned. and of course religion of any kind was heavily cracked down upon, but particularly among chassidim whose practice didn't allow for much hiding. the previous rebbe of lubavitch in particular was targeted hard by the Yevsektsiya (this was primarily communist jews oppressing religious jews) and he wrote about it in a really amazing work that has been translated into english and can be read - it looks like in full - here: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2994/jewish/The-Rebbes-Prison-Diary.htm

Nachmanson laughed sardonically, with a mixture of pleasure and vengeance. I saw then that I was dealing with a totally different person. This was not the Nachmanson who was in my apartment, nor the man in the courtyard. This was a G.P.U. official, whose primary task was to frighten the prisoners, to confuse them and render them submissive -- ultimately to extract confessions and admissions about imaginary events.

At that moment I recollected the text in Reishit Chachmah at the beginning of the Tractate Geihinom: "It is written, 'Who can stand before His anger? And who can be upright before the fierceness of His wrath?' Rav Zeira commented, citing the verse from Proverbs, 'The leech has two daughters who cry out, Give, give.' Rabbi Elazar commented further, 'Two groups of angels stand at the gates of Geihinom and cry, Give, give, bring, bring.'"

We advanced a few more steps. Nachmanson opened the door to the corridor of the administrative division. He whistled, signalling to one of the guards, "Take this citizen," he ordered, handed him a paper, and said, "Here are his documents. Escort him to the administrative office and give this to official X."

He turned to me laughing, "Now you will begin to understand where you are." Even before he had finished the sentence, he hastened to descend and run after Lulav, who had already gone down. They were obviously in haste to accomplish important tasks. Apparently their night's work was still incomplete.

The guard lead me and indicated with his finger that I should walk the length of the corridor to the wide open door. He told me that I would then be given a questionnaire by one of the secretaries and that I should answer all the questions in writing.

This corridor was a long room, more than 150 feet long and twelve feet wide. On both sides there were many closed office doors, and at every 30 feet was a small burning candle suspended from the ceiling. Along the length of the room stood ten or twelve armed guards, each armed with a Cossack pike at his back, a polished sword in his left hand, and a rifle in his right. They stood like marble pillars, unmoving, yet their eyes attentively surveyed the entire area.

The dreadful, bizarre scene would inevitably frighten any normal person, who could not begin to comprehend the reason for the elaborate display of weaponry and the intended targets of these instruments of destruction. Indeed, where could people be found so callous and corrupt as to be capable of wielding such weapons? Could a person be such a wild animal that such things must be used to tame him?

The enveloping silence, the darkness, the blackness of the walls, the small candles, the malevolent statue-like soldiers with massive powerful figures, their height, the broadness of their shoulders, the harsh outline of their features, their uniforms of stark red and black, the excessive display of weaponry-pike, sword, rifle -- all merged into one composite image that terrified the eye of the beholder and made the heart shudder.

Through the two rows of soldiers in the frightening dimness and in death-like stillness, I walked to the end of the corridor. In my mind the question arose, "Where am I going and for what purpose? What is required of me and how will this all end?" As if in internal dialogue with my soul, I responded clearly, excluding all doubt: "I shall shortly arrive at the open door, exactly as the guard told me. Did he not give me clear instructions that I must write out the answers to the questionnaire?

"And what then? Later, surely Nachmanson's promise will be fulfilled, that I will be brought to the place where one speaks willingly or unwillingly."

lots of anti-Zionism came out of the USSR as well - moishe postone who i've linked to a number of times in this thread discusses that facet at length.

@ggreenwald
Bipartisan Senate bill to formally define unfair & excessive criticism of Israel -whatever that is - as AntiSemitism

https://www.casey.senate.gov/newsroom/releases/with-attacks-on-the-rise-sens-casey-and-scott-introduce-bipartisan-anti-semitism-awareness-act

The State Department’s definition, shared by the European Union, states, “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, towards Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Examples include, among other things:

Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews
Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust
Demonizing Israel by blaming it for all inter-religious or political tensions
Judge Israel by a double standard that one would not apply to any other democratic nation

Greenwald is too smart to not know that this comes originally from the State Dept: http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm - and imo is entirely reasonable especially since it concludes with "This act is not meant to infringe on any individual right protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution."

Greenwald is a bad person and you need to start subjecting his comments to far more rigor than you're used to, Dr Morbius.

I don't like the fourth one because it's so vague and open and applies solely to a state in its formal capacity as a state -- aren't we judging nations by "double standards" p much all the time?

this is very clearly a Don't Criticize Our Apartheid Ally bill, and I don't need GG to tell me that.

Well, it's repeating itself - a double standard is any standard that you wouldn't apply (without relevant reason) to comparable thing.

it's vague, I agree, but when unpacked:

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation
Multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations

this seems fairly reasonable. if you condemned Israel for bombing Gaza in 2014 but don't have a word to say about Syria then it's probably not the war crimes that bother you but the [Jewish] people committing them.

Is Syria a democratic nation now?

this is very clearly a Don't Criticize Our Apartheid Ally bill, and I don't need GG to tell me that.

If you have a critique to make and you don't need GG to tell you it, then make it yourself. There are actual anti-BDS bills in various States (the first one in the country coming from our new liaison to the UN). This is a restatement of policy that has already existed from the State Department for years now and has no actual legal consequences.

So it's okay to commit war crimes as long as you're not a democracy? xp

Well obviously

No I was just saying that criticizing Israel and not Syria is not a good example of the behaviour this terrible definition of anti-semtism is trying to decry

A recent FBI crime report notes that 58.2 percent of religiously-motivated hate crimes were due to the offender’s anti-Jewish leanings, and the Anti-Defamation League found that the number of anti-Semitic attacks at colleges and universities doubled in 2015. Currently, the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights has stated they will not tolerate incidents such as these, but has not issued firm guidance on what constitutes anti-Semitism. The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act would codify the definition as one adopted by the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.

this is really the key. in addition to the [controversial] Israel stuff that GG and Dr Morbius choose (for some strange reason) decide to focus on, this is really about codifying the State guidelines for the DOE. The State guidelines included guidance regarding Israel, but primarily is regarding domestic hate crimes committed against Jews like the ones mentioned in this press release over the last few weeks which were predominately (entirely?) directed at American Jews qua Jews and had nothing to do with Zionism or Israel. Glenn Greenwald is a literal piece of shit that he looked at this and decided it was good fodder to just attack Israel again, despite it being secondary and despite it coming directly from a pre-existing State definition.

(for some strange reason)

say what you mean

i've said it many times in the past and feel no compunction about saying it again. in addition to explicitly prejudiced comments that you've made about jews among other marginalized groups your continued fixation on israel as one of your predominant areas of interest (despite your constant demonstration of superficial knowledge regarding it) provides more evidence that you're a bigot.