From @schraubd, who I strongly recommend following.Â
On another level, however, the claimed befuddlement as to why Jews care about leftists – out-of-power, comparatively marginal – praising Farrakhan is sadly revealing regarding how some on the left conceptualize Jews. For there is an obvious reason why Jews might take it extra hard when persons on the left endorse the rank bigotry of Louis Farrakhan.
It’s because most of us are of the left too. And there’s nothing strange about feeling extra hurt when members of your own community are the one’s causing the wound.
This reason is so obvious that it’s worth dwelling on why it is so often overlooked. And here we begin to see the real stakes of the controversy: whether Jews are indeed recognized as members of this left-liberal community.
While both left- and right-wing anti-Semitism matter to Jews, they affect us along very different vectors.
Put bluntly, in the United States the anti-Semitism that is most likely to put a bullet in my brain emanates from the right. That matters, and nobody should be in denial about that raw and sobering fact.
But on a day-to-day basis, left-wing anti-Semitism is far more likely to obstruct Jews from joining movements we want to join, or force us out of communities and spaces which are very much ours.
Deeply embedded in the puzzlement over Jewish concern in cases like this is the assumption that the left is not our home; that Jews come to this controversy as strangers. The Jewish presence on the left is always at best probationary, and so any time Jews criticize the left we prove we are unworthy of membership. Those who would self-identify as left are denied that label. We are infiltrators, rabble-rousers, coming in under false pretenses.
…
The only reason it’s hard to understand why Jews care about left-wing anti-Semitism is if one implicitly doesn’t believe Jews should care about the goings on of the left, because one does not see Jews as fundamentally part of the left.
But many – most – of us are. So when I watch conservatives play footsie with Holocaust deniers and alt-right neo-Nazis it is simultaneously more worrisome, because conservatives currently control the levers of American power, and less worrisome because I’m not a conservative. I have no ties to them. I have no expectations from them. And I certainly have no desire to become one.
When the left partakes in anti-Semitism, by contrast, it is infecting the political community and project that embody my hopes for the future. I have every right to care about that. I have every right to stake my claim to this space, to participate in the development of this project as an equal member. I do not come to this cause as a stranger.
Which should I care more about: that the powerful people I consider my adversaries hate me, or that the people who are alongside me organizing the resistance to that power don’t care about me?
It is a question that only makes sense if one thinks Jews don’t already come with political attachments that matter to us. It is a question that, upon being asked, answers why even Jews on the left know they will never be acknowledged to be at home on the left.
As a rule, I only post excerpts of articles to protect writers who depend upon clicks for their livelihoods, so please read the entire article on Ha’aretz.
Now is not a time to mince words: The left’s silence in this instance signals their complicity in anti-Semitism. They are allowing naked, open bigotry to grow in front of them without a word of protest.
In fact, when Jake Tapper tweeted criticism of Mallory’s attendance, he was himself criticized on the grounds that Mallory is not important enough to castigate.
This is both false and insidious. It’s false because Mallory is the head of one of the most mainstream activist organizations in America. The original Women’s March broke records for attendance for single-day demonstration in the US. It has taken on an even bigger role thanks to the #MeToo movement. It is one of the strongest, most important voices in left wing activism (as it should be).
Mallory’s role, then, is not a fringe leader of some small movement but the leader of a cultural powerhouse. And it is tribalism that has silenced the left on her behalf. Morality should be guiding our positions, not the relative power of others or what “side” they are on. To accept hatred among our own because it is convenient or because it is less dangerous in our minds than the other side’s hatred is an amoral, tribal, strategic decision rather than a moral one.
Ultimately, anti-Semitism is evil, as is racism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, and every other hate that takes groups of people and turns them from individuals into massive globs of enemies to be destroyed. It is infuriating that anti-Semitism is not taken as seriously as these other forms of bigotry. But it also exposes a serious moral failing on the left that threatens the very integrity of its collective soul.
Tamika Mallory has not just gone to see a man oozing of such hatred speak. She has publicly endorsed him. She has refused to back down for her attendance. She has refused to denounce his words. She has composed her own anti-Semitic dog-whistling comment. And she has thanked others for supporting her attendance.
It is our job to speak up, not because she is powerful (which she is), and not because she is influential (which she is) and not because if we don’t speak up, the hatred will spread (which it will). We – and everyone else on the left — must speak up because it is the right thing to do.
This isn’t just a “Jewish issue” either because the speech was also transphobic as well. The leaders of the Women’s March can’t be allies to the trans community while they condone this.
A Women’s March leader, Tamika Mallory, attended a speech by Louis Farrakhan, notorious for antisemitic bigotry (which manifested itself in the speech). When called out on it, Mallory doubled-down with a remark (“If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader!”) that was less of a antisemitic dogwhistle than a bullhorn.
For the most part, the response of the other Women’s March leaders has been to defiantly have her back (here’s a particularly terrible intercession from Linda Sarsour). At the same time, there’s been virtually no public justification as to why the rather obvious antisemitism of Farrakhan should be excused. There’s been no effort to defend the things he says about Jews, no attempt to argue that his perspective on Jews is in fact in bounds.
This oddity – defiant refusal to concede any ground on the antisemitism count, coupled with no attempt to actually rationalize the antisemitic content – demands explanation. My hypothesis is this:
Leftists don’t like thinking about antisemitism in their own ranks. At the same time, they’d never admit this is so. Fortunately, most antisemitism controversies that implicate the left relate to Israel in some fashion, and so they can respond with their favorite chestnut: “criticism of Israel isn’t antisemitic.” On face, this response assures the audience that they do care about antisemitism (the “real” antisemitism), but that the case at hand doesn’t count as such (that it never seems to count as such is suspicious in its own right. But leave that aside.).
But Farrakhan’s antisemitism isn’t really tied to Israel. Which means that the stand-by response won’t work. And these leftists are left flummoxed, because they don’t really have another thought on antisemitism beyond “criticism of Israel isn’t.” Forced into a situation where it seems necessary to say something else, they find themselves at a loss. Suddenly, they can’t play their get-out-of-talking-about-antisemitism-free card.
And this is revealing. If the problem really was Israel, the Farrakhan case shouldn’t present any difficult. But if the problem is that these leftists just don’t want to have to reckon with antisemitism in their community (and Israel is a convenient but ultimately epiphenomenal factor), then Farrakhan presents a huge problem.
We’re getting an excellent peek into who falls into which category here.
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