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Ideal_Rock
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George Eliot was at the peak of her renown in 1874 when John Blackwood, her publisher, learned that she was at work on “Daniel Deronda, ” a new novel. As a literary man, he was in thrall to her genius. As a businessman with an instinct for the market, he valued her passionately dedicated readership. But an early look at portions of her manuscript astonished and appalled him: Too much of it was steeped in sympathetic evocations of Jews, Judaism and what was beginning to be known as Zionism.
All this off-putting alien erudition struck him as certain to be more than merely unpopular. It was personally tasteless, it went against the grain of English sensibility, it was an offense to the reigning political temperament. It was, in our notorious idiom, politically incorrect. Blackwood was unquestionably a member of England’s gentlemanly intellectual elite. In recoiling from Eliot’s theme, he showed himself to be that historically commonplace figure: an intellectual anti-Semite.
Anti-Semitism is generally thought of as brutish, the mentality of mobs, the work of the ignorant, the poorly schooled, the gutter roughnecks, the torch carriers. But these are only the servants, not the savants, of anti-Semitism. Mobs execute, intellectuals promulgate. Thugs have furies, intellectuals have causes.
The Inquisition was the brainchild not of illiterates, but of the most lettered and lofty prelates. Goebbels had a degree in philology. Hitler fancied himself a painter and doubtless knew something of Dürer and da Vinci. Pogroms aroused the murderous rampage of peasants, but they were instigated by the cream of Russian officialdom. The hounding and ultimate expulsion of Jewish students from German universities was abetted by the violence of their Aryan classmates, but it was the rectors who decreed that only full-blooded Germans could occupy the front seats. Martin Heidegger, the celebrated philosopher of being and non-being, was quick to join the Nazi Party, and as himself a rector promptly oversaw the summary ejection of Jewish colleagues.
Stupid mobs are spurred by clever goaders: The book burners were inspired by the temperamentally bookish—who else could know which books to burn? Even invidious folk myths have intellectual roots, as when early biblical linguists mistranslated as horns the rays of light emanating from Moses’ brow.
In the medieval era of successive plagues, the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells. In city after city across Europe between 1348 and 1351, whole communities of Jews were massacred. In this hour of world-wide panic, the purposeful devisings of coronavirus are said to have been hatched, with malice aforethought, by a cabal of Jews and Zionists. The medieval cutthroats are out again, brandishing their updated social media.
The fanatical shooters who assault synagogues and kosher food markets are the product of committed teachers, articulate authors of the books and pamphlets that litter their gun-filled rooms. A venerable university press publishes an academic volume reviving an ancient blood libel in its claim that Israeli Jews deliberately maim innocent Palestinians—all in properly credentialed, theorized prose. An international literary festival invites a participant who touts similar venom: Israeli Jews harvest Palestinian body parts for organ transplant.
Sophisticated terms such as boycott, divestment and sanctions, designed to weaken and dismantle the Jewish state, are touted by the superior pronouncements of university professors, members of Congress, aspiring politicians, respected journalists who have forsworn impartiality for advocacy, and other pinnacles of societal influence.
Nor are the poets immune to incitement. Eliot and Pound, those Jew-scorning midcentury literary monarchs, are easily exceeded by contemporary versifiers such as Amiri Baraka, who suggested Israelis “knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed,” and Tom Paulin, who has called Israeli soldiers “the Zionist SS.” Black lives matter, as mayors, governors and newspaper editorial boards daily affirm, in effect taking the lead. Yet human-rights causes can be shackled by usurpers under virtuous slogans: In 2016 an alliance called the Movement for Black Lives issued a nefarious 40,000-word manifesto defining Israel as an apartheid state bent on genocide against Palestinian Arabs.
The campus zealotry of Students for Justice in Palestine is hardly a spontaneous youthful expression of outrage funded by pocket money. Their activities include costly defamatory installations of so-called apartheid walls, checkpoints, die-ins, chants and hostile invasions of classrooms and meetings, and thuggish disruptions of visiting speakers. Its founder, Hatem Bazian, is a lecturer in ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Omar Barghouti, emperor of the BDS movement, holds a master’s in the philosophy of ethics from Tel Aviv University.
Although the exigencies of pandemic have stilled the muscle-men of the campuses, they have opened new opportunities for their cyber-skilled handlers. While the rioters’ shrieks of “Intifada” and “From the river to the sea” are the spew of bottom-feeders, the kingfish intellectuals intend the same.
Anti-Semitism dressed in the sheep’s clothing of social justice is the province of elevated pitchmen—cultivated elites, learned professors, scholarly theorists. Intersectionality, a muddled and half-mystical credo that turns disparities into parities and distinctions into connections, is the coinage of Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading professor of law at UCLA and Columbia. Its faithful adherents populate academic organizations such as the American Studies Association, the National Women’s Studies Association, the Critical Ethnic Studies Association. By surrendering to the doctrine of identity politics—the birth mother of intersectionality—these groups have allowed themselves to become venues of anti-Semitic incitement.
On the lowest rung of this hierarchy of ethnic worthiness, Jews are designated as white oppressors of marginal peoples. They are accused of complicity in a colonialist plot against Palestinians and as accomplices in the training of police brutality. If they profess to be liberals, or radicals of the left, they are shunted aside as persecutors of the weak. Even as they are scorned as unfairly privileged, they are treated as campus pariahs.
Marxism is a movement of the deluded; anti-Semitism is a movement of the cleverest. When students become inquisitors and administrations are feeble, when the elect succumb to the political haters, so will a nation’s conscience. A vengeful mob is a fearsome thing, but the true monsters are its teachers.
Sad there is always so much to add to this thread. I haven't been adding info because it seems hopeless. I think anti semitism will always remain the last acceptable form of prejudice. :/
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Opinion | Anti-Semitism and the Intellectuals
The book burners were inspired by the bookish. Who else could know which books to burn?www.wsj.com
Anti-Semitism and the Intellectuals
By Cynthia Ozick
June 14, 2020 5:59 pm ET
Sad there is always so much to add to this thread. I haven't been adding info because it seems hopeless. I think anti semitism will always remain the last acceptable form of prejudice. :/
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Opinion | Anti-Semitism and the Intellectuals
The book burners were inspired by the bookish. Who else could know which books to burn?www.wsj.com
Anti-Semitism and the Intellectuals
By Cynthia Ozick
June 14, 2020 5:59 pm ET
@AGBF
I am so tired of hearing about Bolton's book. If he had any integrity he would have testified. But he's no better than his former boss, looking to enrich himself at the expense of others.
He would have but he wasn't subpoenaed to testify. The D party was in a rush to impeach Trump.@AGBF
I am so tired of hearing about Bolton's book. If he had any integrity he would have testified. But he's no better than his former boss, looking to enrich himself at the expense of others.
Your vision may be failing. This is antisemitism. And is not “coincidence.”I know why Trump campaign used a red triangle instead of a blue triangle. I see on the picture that Nazi used differently colored triangles to mark different groups of prisoners. I don't know why they used a red triangle for Jewish prisoners. They used yellow Star of David to mark Jews, not red. To me it looks like a pure coincidence, just like bright red trillion cut spinel or sunstone in somebody's ring or pendant. It resembles Superman's symbol. Red circle or red square don't look as good as red triangle if some one wants to get attention. The Nazi mark doesn't have black lines, Trump's symbol was placed on white background, not white and blue striped one. I don't see any anti-Semitism here. I grew up in USSR and I saw Nazi symbols in books, in movies, in art but I never saw a red triangle. Maybe because my TV was black an white? https://www.dresshead.com/womens-dress-red-white-triangle-printing-cortex-belt/![]()
He would have but he wasn't subpoenaed to testify. The D party was in a rush to impeach Trump.
Your vision may be failing. This is antisemitism. And is not “coincidence.”
Why is your profile blocked so people cannot see who you are?
The point is not about triangles. It is that the President of this great country should know better than to use a Nazi symbol. It wasn’t just a triangle. Read what Kenny posted - the article. As to personal privacy, in the US vs the former USSR you have it. I have no beef with you Musia. Only with your unfounded opinion that this was coincidence. Surely we have a President and his team of advisors who don’t make such coincidental mistakes. They’re smarter than that, right?
The point is not about triangles. It is that the President of this great country should know better than to use a Nazi symbol. It wasn’t just a triangle. Read what Kenny posted - the article. As to personal privacy, in the US vs the former USSR you have it. I have no beef with you Musia. Only with your unfounded opinion that this was coincidence. Surely we have a President and his team of advisors who don’t make such coincidental mistakes. They’re smarter than that, right?
Every year, the Kantor Center at Tel Aviv University publishes a report on the state of anti-Semitic incidents around the world.
When releasing its 2019 data on Monday — which noted an 18% surge in incidents last year — researchers also said they're already seeing an increase in anti-Semitism this year related to the coronavirus pandemic.
"Although this report deals with antisemitism in 2019, we cannot disregard the implications of the Coronavirus crisis during 2020," Professor Dina Porat wrote in the report's executive summary. "It has inspired antisemitic expressions that we must address."
Porat wrote that, in the first few months of 2020, there has been a rise in anti-Semitic expressions and "Jew-hatred," mainly originating from activists on the extreme right.
The hateful rhetoric mimics age-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories — blaming Jewish people for economic unrest and global disasters, the report says.
An example of that bubbled up in the United States as recently as Saturday. In an echo of Nazi propaganda, protesters at an Ohio rally held signs depicting a rat donning a Star of David and yarmulke that read "the real plague."
The actions of the protesters drew disgust from people on Twitter, including local Democratic State Rep. Casey Weinstein.
A Jewish community in New York has been the target of anti-Semitic attacks online
Similar hateful rhetoric has bubbled up in social media posts from residents of a New York City suburb, prompting a response from The Anti-Defamation League.
Rockland County, which has a population of more than 325,000 residents, has been a hotspot for coronavirus cases in New York.
The county is about 30 miles from New York City, the global epicenter of the crisis, and is also home to a large community of Orthodox Jews.
In Facebook groups and other social media platforms, some residents have attributed the high number of coronavirus cases to a failure of social distancing among the religious community.
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Members of the Jewish community walk amid vandalized tombs in the Jewish cemetery of Westhoffen, west of the city of Strasbourg, eastern France, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2019. AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias
In 2019, when the Rockland County Republican Party producing a campaign advertisement widely criticized as anti-Semitic, Ed Day, the county's Republican executive, called for its withdrawal, criticizing its tone but saying that its contents were "well-grounded."
Day has now called for a containment zone around Spring Valley and Monsey, which are towns where a large number of Orthodox Jewish residents live. And on his Facebook page, Day had thanked police for breaking up a gathering of Orthodox residents at synagogue during Passover.
"All of us in Rockland County — residents, community leaders, and elected officials — are facing this public health crisis together," Evan R. Bernstein, vice president of the ADL's Northeast Division, told The Yeshiva World, a news organization that serves Jewish communities. "The scapegoating and finger-pointing that we have seen in recent days, coupled with a surge in antisemitism online, serves no purpose other than to distract and divide us. Now is the time for unity, not for placing blame."
The attacks recirculate old tropes and take advantage of new technologies
The Kantor Center study notes that Jewish hatred during times of crisis is not new and that the kind of language used has relied heavily on centuries-old canards.
For example, some have baselessly blamed Jews for poisoning water supplies and others have accused them of undermining the world economy "in order to facilitate their control over it," the study said.
When there were coronavirus outbreaks at synagogues, some called it a punishment for the "rejection of Jesus Christ."
The Anti-Semitism has resulted in a trend in cyber-attacks on Jewish institutions and groups trying to congregate online, the study said, with organizations being targeted by "zoombombing."
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Neighbors gather to show their support of the community near a rabbi's residence in Monsey, N.Y., Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019, following a stabbing Saturday night during a Hanukkah celebration. AP Photo/Craig Ruttle
Earlier this month, for example, a group of 150 Yeshiva University students met virtually for a Passover event.
During the Zoom conference call, a dozen or so people logged into the chat and started inundating it with hateful messaged and popular tropes among neo-Nazis.
There were death threats, Holocaust references and references to "dirty Jews," one of the students told Huffpost.
"Since the beginning of March 2020, there have been disturbing examples of Jews, Zionists and Israelis, as individuals and as a collective, being accused of causing and spreading the Coronavirus," the study said. "In the past, global and national calamities, natural disasters, plagues, tsunamis, earthquakes, as well as world wars and economic crises were followed by accusations against the Jews as their main perpetrators."
In response, residents who blamed the high number of coronavirus cases to a failure of social distancing among the religious community posted hateful messages on Day's Facebook page. According to the Forward, some even called for patches with the letter "C" be sewn onto those infected with the virus.
Eventually, the comments on got so bad that Day himself called it out and urged people who spotted the hateful rhetoric to contact the county's Human Right Commission, he told The Forward.
"The language was getting to a point where it was starting to harken back to a time in our history, in the 30s in Europe, that nobody really has to be reminded of, obviously," Day told the outlet. "I made a comment at the top of the page that said, this is not something you need to be doing. And it stopped."
"If I was truly anti-Semitic, I think probably one of the most anti-Semitic acts I could commit would be to let Jewish people get sick and die," he continued.
Day didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. He told Forward that the containment zone idea was "based upon logic, science, reality" — and not anti-Semitism.
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Surrounded primarily by family, David Neumann, center, wipes his eyes as he speaks to reporters in New City, N.Y., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2020, about his father, Josef Neumann, who was critically injured in an attack on a Hanukkah celebration. AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Still, the cultural tension has sparked fear and uncertainty in a community that has seen a surge in violence in recent months.
In December, a man broke into a Hanukkah dinner hosted at a Hasidic rabbi's Monsey home and stabbed five guests. A 72-year-old man died from his injuries in March. The month prior, a 30-year-old Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed several times on his way to morning prayers.
I have to say I was truly shocked when a couple of years ago, we took friends to a museum in Tx. They had a special exhibit about the holocaust. While we were there, a school group came in and on viewing the horrific photographs of the conditions in Auschwitz, the emaciated people, and even the piles of bodies, several of the children were laughing. I don’t know if they actually thought they weren’t real (even then, why would you laugh?), but it saddened me to think they didn’t understand what had happened in the world. Is history not taught to children there, or do kids see so many disturbing images, that such horror has no effect on them anymore?
I know they were laughing at the images and not just giggling about an in joke, because I was standing next them and heard what they were saying.
I have to say that I am glad I need no longer be afraid of of another Holocaust
As a American, I will stand up against anti-semitism here as I do against anti-Muslim prejudice and racism.
I do not like many of the policies that have been enacted by Israel, because I see huge suffering on the part of the Palestinian people. I have family (through marriage) in Israel and all of them have done military service in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). My great-nephew, pictured below, came here almost 20 years ago and worked his way through college as a mover. He had already seen action in Lebanon. (He was a medic.) Now he has a master's degree in a computer related field and is a scientist. (My late mother gave him this shirt.)
As a American, I will stand up against anti-semitism here as I do against anti-Muslim prejudice and racism. I have to say that I am glad I need no longer be afraid of of another Holocaust when I see anti-semitism in the United States and defense of it, however. I am glad that Israel exists and is strong. With the existence of Israel and its strong military Jews will never again need to fear the white supremacists and Nazis who hide just below a thin veneer of civility in the United States and Europe.
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I wish I shared your optimism Deb. I never say never and a lot has happened here in the USA that has surprised me over the years especially recently. No, I do not share your confidence or optimism. I wish I could.
Ditto. I will always stand up against all forms of prejudice. To stay silent is to be complicit. There is no room for hate and prejudice-when you discriminate against anyone you discriminate against everyone.
"Defeating racism, intolerance and prejudice of all kinds will liberate us all." -Ban Ki-moon
“Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” –Abraham Joshua Heschel
Missy i promise we will never let it happen again
and yet so much genocide has happened in the world since![]()
I just came across this
how can this be ok ?
Ben Shapiro says DeSean Jackson posts show anti-Semitism is 'last hatred that is allowed' in US
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Ben Shapiro says DeSean Jackson posts show anti-Semitism is 'last hatred that is allowed' in US
The lack of outrage from many on the left over anti-Semitic social media posts by Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson sums up the hypocrisy of the "cancel culture" mob, Ben Shapiro said Wednesday.www.foxnews.com