Is this anti-semitism?

I accept that “Jews should stop playing the victim for the Holocaust and the persecutions of 50 years ago” is anastily-worded statement and I'm not saying I would agree with it. And yeah, maybe it's not for gentiles to say any of these things anyway.

It is not true that Judaism is intolerant, but saying it is might have all manner of motives, not necessarily racist ones. Although not excluding racist ones, either. For instance, someone might believe that Judaism is intolerant because its rituals can comes across as dogmatic and strict, such as not allowing you to use the car on a Friday. But this is not actually intolerance. To say that Judaism is intolerant implies that the religion or the culture has no sympathy for outsiders or other cultures. This is not true. Judaism, like Islam, is a religion of love and charity, which is not confined to the community but extends as far as loving the enemy.

Of course, I'm not talking about any particular state or government here, just the teachings of the religions.

Sure it does, but the Holocaust was a major part of the ideological constellation that led to Israel being set up. As you know, the Balfour declaration was no road-map, and of course had its Nazi counterparts (ie setting up of Jewish homeland far away from Europe).

Judaism, like Islam, is a religion of love and charity, which is not confined to the community but extends as far as loving the enemy. But neither are interpreted like that, or at least they aren't so often. The problem is the conflation of race and religion -- I think Ed made me think on this. I don't think it's racist to take issue with faith -- no-one will call me racist for having a problem with Christianity's views on homosexuality, for example.

If you think that Judaism is about love and charity but Jews don't act as if it is, then that's already sounding like an attack on the race not the religion to me...

Again: all bigotry is a manifestation of the bigot's insecurity, usually unsubstantiated.

How has Christianity dealt with the Jesus as king of Jews thing?

Perhaps the main point of this thread was that I hate ambiguously worded questionnaires, esp. if they're deliberately so.

If you are a Jew, you do not drive etc on the Sabbath. This is a ritual by which you live a religious life. It is the code by which you get closer to god. That is not intolerant. Judaism would be intolerant if it forbid non-Jews to drive etc on the Sabbath.

Not tolerant, especially:
a. Unwilling to tolerate differences in opinions, practices, or beliefs, especially religious beliefs.
b. Opposed to the inclusion or participation of those different from oneself, especially those of a different racial, ethnic, or social background.
c. Unable or unwilling to endure or support: intolerant of interruptions; a community intolerant of crime.

I'd say a) is pretty different to b)

because people conflate judaism with the state of isreal?
-- Stringent Stepper (stringen...), January 27th, 2004 1:30 PM.

there you go mate

I don't know enough about the tenets of Judaism to go into it, but by analogy -- it *is* intolerant if it sanctions the law, surely?

Judaism != Jews, maybe, run it off? It's clumsy, but race and religion are not the same. So it isn't racist to criticize a faith? I doin't know.

Surely religious las IS intolerant of people who break it. I'm guessing there must be punishments for transgression, even if it's just an evil look during church - and that kind of emotional punishment can be extremely effective/painful, especially in close-knit communities and ones where the people have a God's good will yo lose.

Laws are not opinions, so flouting the law is not a differing opinion either.
If you are a Jew, you do not drive etc on the Sabbath. This is a ritual by which you live a religious life. It is the code by which you get closer to god. That is not intolerant. Judaism would be intolerant if it forbid non-Jews to drive etc on the Sabbath.

-- run it off (davebeec...), January 27th, 2004.

Laws are opinions, they're (usually(should be!)) the opinion of the majority as to how individuals should behave.

Also, not being allowed to drive on a Sunday (or Saturday) IS intolerant: intolerant toward Jews. I think most religions are least tolerant of their own.

That's a bit of a shallow view of jurisprudence.

The ideological screen idea is itself an ideological screen.

As such, juridprudence is not an ideological screen; it is ideological. That doesn't mean it is no different from other ideas or opinions. Opinions that are ratified and authorised are not opinions in the same way as opinions that are not.

-- Ricardo (boyofbadger...), January 27th, 2004.

Jurisprudence is the philosophy of law isn't it? Isn't what I've said what that all boils down too?

Where _is_ the depth?
It's simple isn't it?

See! Told you!

And more kvetchup please!

How humans should behave is a matter of opinion. Different religions, for example, havie differing opinions.

To clarify, laws themselves aren't exactly opinions, but what they attempt to enshrine as 'right' and 'wrong' ARE opinions.

If laws are backed by the state (and, after all, that's what makes them laws, rather than guidelines or codes or something else) then they are not just opinions, they are sanctified, ordered, institutionalied, backed up by the criminal justice system etc. I'm not saying power and hierarchy and stuff aren't involved -- of course they are -- but laws don't get to be laws without going through a socially sanctioned process.

The case of breaking the law because you have a different opinion (civil disobedience etc) does not mean that the law is treated as opinion it means that laws are seen as arbitrary and changeble, so that collective action can bring about social changes that force laws to change.

https://x.com/RachelJessWolff/status/1719901617305084373?s=20

Apologies for reposting a fed soccer, but is there any reason someone like this shouldn't be "canceled" (also a good callback to the discussion of the overlap between 'the z-word' and just outright antisemitism)

like is it unreasonable to say that this person should not be in a student-facing job in the school of foreign service at Georgetown?

It is sometimes astonishing to me what people who want to have academic careers feel comfortable posting publicly.

her tweets are from 2015....as I found out from this interesting database:

https://canarymission.org/individual/Aneesa_Johnson

here is seemingly every student in America who ever supported BDS:

https://canarymission.org/students

Anyway I'm not shedding any tears for that anti-semite getting fired, but am I wrong to find this campaign creepy as hell?

no

how do you respond to these things - you're asked to condemn something which is unambiguously bad (those tweets) or sometimes more ambiguous but in the former case it seems easy and necessary to condemn - but what agenda does your condemnation serve? or is that even relevant when it should be condemned regardless? but are you helping them pursue a sort of ethnic cleansing in the intellectual sphere by doing so, given that the will and resources to censure this stuff just aren't there for equivalently racist things about (eg) arabs or muslims?

From boycotts to firebombs, Israel-Gaza war brings wave of antisemitism

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/01/israel-gaza-jews-antisemitism/

It's so weird to me, time and time again, why there seems to be this need to compare hatred of Jewish people to hatred of Muslims. Both are real and both should be condemned.

Left, serious question- do you have a personal connection here? Is this something that is deeply conditioned where you are from?

And sorry, I should have said Muslim people. I was tracking Left's post.

given that the will and resources to censure this stuff just aren't there for equivalently racist things about (eg) arabs or muslims?

― Left, Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:05 (nine minutes ago) link

I mean frankly, why wouldn't there be? I would obviously support removing people from jobs who are openly islamophobic and work with muslim students. Why aren't there "resources" for this sort of thing? That seems like a weird assumption to make.

And why is that an excuse to allow antisemitic professors or college administrators to keep their jobs?

what do you think of this site? https://canarymission.org/students

"zionist jews" now trending on twitter, that's that shit i don't like

I think that phrase is always trending on twitter these days.

people who have publicly posted really disgusting stuff like that should not be surprised that they will face repurcusssions. those statements from A. Johnson are unacceptable and no she should not have that job. wtf I can't even believe that's a point of discussion. I'd say the same if someone said that about any group of people.

Left's post is incoherent to me.

OK

why wouldn't there be?

because there pretty obviously aren't but whatever this is the wrong thread

do you have a personal connection here? Is this something that is deeply conditioned where you are from?

no / sort of / it's complicated

but I take it for granted that my opinions and the ways I express them would be different if my background and experiences were different

if people want to extrapolate an argument in defence of this person from my post I guess they can but that's weird

what do you think of this site? https://canarymission.org/students

― symsymsym, Thursday, 2 November 2023 16:22 (one hour ago) link

Seems gross, but there's a difference between just random students vs people who work directly in a student-facing job, such as professors, instructors, etc.

I think she was a student when she posted that stuff.

man alive, are you saying that supporters of BDS shouldn’t have student-facing positions?

fuck off, you know that's not what I'm saying

i was honestly confused!

I think the problem is that these cancel campaigns are lumping together actual anti-semitism with any public opposition to the govt of Israel. It's good for people who express public anti-semitism to face consequences, but it's part of an active campaign to chill dissent.

it was clear to me that that's not what man alive was saying just ftr

Yeah agreed.

I think students who are calling for a ceasefire or who are opposed to Israeli policies with regards to the Palestinian people are far, far different from those who are actively anti-semitic. And I think the person who is cited upthread definitely falls into the latter category. I just think it's a distraction to gather up anyone and everyone and lump them into the same category, it's a false equivalency and a waste of time. And I'm guessing the vast majority of those people are not remotely anti-semitic.

It wasn’t to me, which is why I asked. I appreciate man alive’s perspectives, even if I sometimes disagree with them, fwiw, and am frankly a little shocked at the reaction.

tbf the conversation got on a bit of a weird tangent - man alive's original complaint was about blatant anti-semitism but then for some reason he was asked to clarify his position on that insane doxxing site

I interpreted it as the insane doxxing site is why this example of blatant antisemitism is being highlighted rn (?)

the doxxing site was the first google hit for that person's name, which I just thought was weird.

The follow up tweet by the Federalist Society president that man alive posted includes a slick graphic of the racist tweets(also created by the doxxing site) which to me seems excessive for 8-year-old racist tweets by someone nobody has ever heard of:

Shameful @georgetownsfs @Georgetown @georgetownmsfs @joelhellman_SFS pic.twitter.com/M7MZ6Z0SDf

— Rachel Jessica Wolff🇮🇱 (@RachelJessWolff) November 2, 2023

please nobody misconstrue my posts as a defence of the obviously horrible and anti-semitic tweets

I don't think anyone is viewing your posts as a defense of that tweet.

Bringing the discussion to the ethics of "doxxing" of people who make hateful posts and tweets on public social media platforms is sort of a topic in itself. In a context where people are already saying there is too much conflation of Israel with Jewish people in general, bringing attention back to this particular doxxing site is perhaps adding to the conflation. I don't know, just a thought.

As far as it being an old tweet or from 2015 or college student days, aren't these kind of social media posts being revived in other contexts for "reasons" other than to do with anti-semitism or chilling political discussion? I am thinking of the instance of the Teen Vogue editor who resigned and apologized because of posts made in high school. I think it's difficult to try to make bright line rules here.

Anyway, it's a hateful tweet, and there were consequences. Becoming ultra-focused on the "fairness" of such consequences and the methods - maybe that's a bigger discussion. Isn't it fairly easy to not to make these kinds of tweets? The problem is that the tweet existed at all, not that someone saw it.

I once saw a comedian joke that having to go back several years to find an offensive tweet or post is proof that the person in question clearly learned their lesson and should be praised for their good behavior.

anvil which conspiracy theories did Hasan Piker endorse?

and

Ok, I have a mate who's a big Hasan fan and if dude was spreading any misinformation I'd want to flag that up for him.

Probably not the thread for it, but I wanted to come back to this as I remembered that he referred to the Crimea referendum results as 'supposedly rigged', and also pushed the story that Boris Johnson (as mouthpiece of US) ordered Ukraine not to negotiate.

I realize this is nothing to do with anti-semitism or Palestine but remembered these and thought I should answer anyway. There were a couple of other dubious things but wouldn't necessarily classify them as coming under the above umbrella

"supposedly" as in disputing the disputedness of the 2014 referendum (there's a weird double negative thing here)

Having reflected on it, I’m not even sure that person should lose their job based on those tweets alone, if they regret them. But maybe it would be good to have them get some kind of training about historical antisemitism, the kinds of imagery and slurs and theories used, etc?

They already seem well versed in it

Someone apparently spraypainted a jewish star on the bakery in my town, which is Jewish-owned and kosher. It's one of only two businesses in town that would really read as Jewish. I'm not at the point where I feel concerned for safety or anything but it is surprising to have it happen here. Town has a significant Jewish population - mostly liberal and reform or unaffiliated.

that's really messed up

Having reflected on it, I’m not even sure that person should lose their job based on those tweets alone, if they regret them. But maybe it would be good to have them get some kind of training about historical antisemitism, the kinds of imagery and slurs and theories used, etc?

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, November 3, 2023 5:49 AM (two hours ago)

don't think there's any public evidence of her disavowing or apologizing for those tweets, but I agree that sincere regret would make a big difference. Ilhan Omar is someone who used anti-semitic tropes in tweets before she was in congress, and did the work of understanding and explaining the problem with the language she used.

absent any regret from A. Johnson, I am OK with her losing her job. My concern is that she'll be the victim of a campaign of harassment and death threats because of her old tweets being un-earthed in this current climate.

As with most cases, I would rather that if she lost her job it was because the students she had dealings with were upset about the tweets, rather than some outside group directing a campaign to get her fired.

I think it was both.

There's an article where she recaps the incident, apparently without remorse.

https://dailynorthwestern.com/2023/03/02/featured-stories/in-focus/community-members-say-northwestern-is-neither-a-safe-nor-free-space-for-conversations-about-palestine-and-israel/

Agree, an apology and acknowledgement can lead to moving on. Don't think she needs to be banned from all jobs. But when the job is some sort of role model for college students, hard to see how to stop perpetuating cycles of hatred otherwise.

Aneesa Johnson (Communication ʼ18), said the University’s reactions to individual students expressing their views has hindered open conversation.

Johnson, who is Palestinian, said that while at NU, she was reported to the University for bias and hate after she posted tweets criticizing Zionism.

kinda buries the actual anti-semitism doesn't it

Yes

my wife's uncle (recently retired) was a Northwestern professor who survived the holocaust and i'm glad he probably never had her as a student.

that's an interesting article, thanks for sharing it.

Johnson, who is Palestinian, said that while at NU, she was reported to the University for bias and hate after she posted tweets criticizing Zionism.

lol come on now

The article happens to go into detail about the effects of the doxxing site:

Several students who are critical of Israel also consistently identified Canary Mission as making it more difficult for them to speak out. Canary Mission is an anonymous online blacklist that compiles public dossiers of student activists and organizations it deems to be anti-Israel or antisemitic.

According to reports from media outlets The Forward and The Times of Israel, the Israeli government has used Canary Mission’s blacklist to deny visitors entry at its borders.

“Canary Mission is literally the thing that stops me the most when speaking up,” Ava said.

Ava is stateless — her family grew up in Palestinian refugee camps — and she hopes to someday attain U.S. citizenship. She said she worries being blacklisted on Canary Mission would make it more difficult for her to get a job and, eventually, U.S. citizenship.

As a result of this fear, Ava said she never joined SJP during her time at NU. George said many Palestinian students he knows have avoided becoming involved with SJP for this same reason.

Charles*, a Palestinian American student, said he’s been having conversations with his family for at least 10 years about precautions to avoid being blacklisted on Canary Mission.

“If it’s out there and attached to my name that I’m critical of the Israeli government,” he said, “that can be preventative to me being able to go back to where my people are from, and where I have family and connecting (with) what I consider my homeland.”

I really hate this persecution taking place in the name of fighting anti-semitism

xps!

Yes antisemitism and other hate amd microaggressions wrapped up in the First Amendment is a blurry line that many lawyers spent their whole careers trying to delineate. Usually it's passive aggressive subtle dogwhistling but these overt examples are on the rise.

More consequences:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/business/law-firms-antisemitism-universities/index.html

The law firms' letter's definition of antisemitism includes

Over the last several weeks, we have been alarmed at reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assaults on college campuses, including rallies calling for the death of Jews and the elimination of the State of Israel.

I saw the video of the two people eating bagels in Montclair NJ that had just removed one of the posters from a wall, and were being asked why they had taken it down. Its unfortunate that the person asking them is basically harassing them so its not a surprise they don't want to answer.

I feel like this kind of thing would be better approached in the way the 1420 guy does in Russia when asking about the SMO and related topics.

I did feel these two maybe weren't really able to explain their rationale, but I think there's something else going on underneath that isn't anti-semitism, but it could become so. I think sometimes we think of these things as inherent, when often its something that can develop

At the same time, as with the above two it may also be a form of group dynamics and not necessarily something thought out or explainable, and that these dynamics can continue even when not in the group situation

New thread:

Anti-semitism thread: onwards from 2023