Great article.......it's hard to believe that the virulent antisemitism is again here, and unfortunately all over the world ......let's pray for things to get better !!!....thank you so much for speaking the truth.......good luck with everything you do. Am Israel Chai.....
So what's your takeaway? And what were you doing working in the Obama White House? Barack Hussein Obama cozied up to the Muslim Brotherhood, let Assad go to the Russians, lectured Israeli students about the need to compromise then went to Ramallah to coddle the Palestinians, and even now after October 7 talked about the need to contextualize the slaughter of Jews in the framework of Israeli occupation. You spent your time helping anti-Semites only to discover they come for you anyway. Like the majority of American Jews, you still have not got it. Or did you vote for Trump this time round?
I came in with a tech surge that helped fix the ACA website so Americans could have health insurance. I’d been in the private sector before and tech was getting creepy, so I wanted a change. I stayed because were nice to me and the work was interesting and meaningful, until it wasn’t. But like a frog in water I didn’t notice until it started to boil.
Glad you got out and now can go on to better things. Although I have been writing about left-wing antisemitism and the Israeli situation for decades I too was shocked by the virulence of antisemitism that has exploded in the West since October 7. It is very unsettling and depressing and makes me feel Jews have no home in the West anymore. This past year is not one to be forgotten.
The West is well on its way to collapse, the Trump interval notwithstanding. The progressive misunderstanding of what modern society is about has captured western elites, a sure sign of decadence. But yes, there is always Israel, the one bright spot that is not part of the West, however much its leaders claim they are also defending the West, meaning by that what the West stood for post-World War Two.
So please tell me that you got a job!! It’s so hard to not find a ‘happy’ ending eventually. Will Jews be denied access to these professions as a matter of course in this era of new/blatant antisemitism?
I wish … turns out writing about the antisemitism at your last job doesn’t make you super employable, and I won’t work with antisemites again, so my options are limited. I know a lot of people asking the same questions — where will all the Jews squeezed out of academia, nonprofits and the arts go? So far no one has an answer. I’m hopeful we will see people create something spectacularly Jewish and new.
First I want to stress you have SOLIDARITY here. We support you, we get it, and we are deeply sorry you went through it.
I can’t say I have any hesitation to call out anti semitism nor do I worry I’m exaggerating it because I barely minorly (worthy of ignoring) experienced it before the recent explosion and it is an explosion.
Sometimes nebulous but sinister statements take time to process even when they feel really wrong. There’s something deeply sickening about calling the Jews the punchline in the context in which it was said. It’s an ugly combination of blaming Jews because they merit it while making light of it. We aren’t dispensable we are חָזַק וֶאֱמַץ and we will stand up and be heard and not to sound like Gloria Gaynor but we will survive.
Hate always has a gloss on it whether it comes from a pitchfork mob or intellectuals. The quality of intellectuals today is not what it was but even where the thinking runs deep what intellectuals aren’t today as a whole is open minded. They can’t even fathom themselves as being anything but which is an ironic hint.
There’s a strangeness to watching radically religious and radically unreligious people gather together with the most extreme of tunnel visions to passionately protest one thing as the sum of all evils it’s a truly retrograde step for civilization.
What you went through is a step beyond a Gentleman’s Agreement. It’s not just a top layer of anti semitism. But don’t waste your energy your devotion your mind and your humanity on lost souls.
"This all happened before Hamas slaughtered thousands of Jews for being Jewish in the wrong place at the wrong time, and before people I worked with in the White House praised the slaughter"
Hana, I enjoyed your article but I think my reaction is very different from most of its other readers. I am an independent voter, who previously voted for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The past two elections, I voted for Trump because I could see what was going on..
First, I think that expression is: "Jews are always the PUNCHING BAG."
Second, Antisemitic didn't come FOR your progressive think tank, it came FROM your progressive think tank.
Third, I'm sorry that you adopted a political perspective, with luxury, progressive values that ended up biting you in the end, but that was your decision. Antisemitism was apparent in progressive organizations for a decade or more. You aligned with these people and that's on you. Your reaction is in perfect alignment with the (falsely accused of being antisemtic) tweet that Elon Musk put out about Jews supporting the ADL, when the ADL had been pushing an anti-white progressive agenda for years.
At your workplace, you should have immediately gone to a lawyer and sued this organization for the way they engaged with you. Maybe you still can. I'm sure your mistreatment was pernicious, in a way that perhaps you didn't notice at first, but you kept putting up with progressively (pun intended) worse treatment, all the while hoping that they would treat you better if you could just make them understand. They cannot.
October 7th was a wakeup call for Jews and their luxury, progressive values. It will take a long time to undo the damage that luxury, progressive values have done to this country. My kids, who are in college, are paying the price.
From what I can tell, you're still a progressive and you still have all the same luxury, progressive values; you just wish the other progressives would treat you, and the Jews, better. Good luck. They won't.
Oh no, I’m done with these people. My baseline for whether I’ll work with people is now: are you an antisemite?
That turns out to be a very limiting criterion. I came into the White House after they solicited private sector tech people to fix our county’s dysfunctional tech systems. The private sector tech was getting creepy and I wanted to do something else.
I stayed for six years because they were nice to me, the work was interesting, and the antisemitism was minimal. It got worse as the years went on, and here we are. I did not vote for either candidate, because I will never again vote for an antisemite.
I abhor that antisemitism is so resurgent and sympathize with your well written story, except the part where being thought "White" is so distressing. It's an absurd construct anyway, right? Is it the progressive victim hierarchy that you object to or just your perceived misplacement in it? Not sure how supposedly "white" people like me (I identify as Scotch Irish when such things are relevant) are supposed to respond to that kind of indignation, but if you want allies it's best not to insult them. Hopefully we can all move past the divisive nonsense and unite against identity-based hatred and the evil it unleashes.
I had a whole long comment written out to respond and lost it.. so not going to try to recreate it. Please just understand that her comment regarding not being white was in no way meant to be an insult. It was a statement of fact. Even though many of us Jews here in the USA's ancestors lived in Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi) We are not Eastern European nor are we white. Our DNA is closely related to that found in the Levant and surrounding areas
Here in the USA the lions share of the Ashkenazi Jews eventually settled after fleeing Europe prior to Israel's rebirth and since we "look" white, we are assumed by most gentiles to be white. But the reality is, we are not.
White is meaningless term except to white supremacists and critical race theorists though. Italians and Finns are just as different as Arabs and Greeks. Heritage and culture are very meaningful and important, but the color coding has got to go. It's a poisonous construct. Thanks for your reply and all the best to you.
I agree — White vs. Black is an American framework devised to enforce slavery. It serves zero purpose as a way of grouping Americans today, and in fact has been proving harmful.
People do instinctively categorize by appearance, including skin color, but the categories and criteria depend entirely on the context. Someone who is white (or black etc) one place might not be in another, so meaningless in an inherent sense. Culture and customs of course are very meaningful and important and often overlap with appearance markers but not always. Problems arise depending on how we interpret the categories and use them to assign guilt or innocence or to give social advantages to some over others. It's a big, nuanced topic for sure.
Why are we still using the same insane 5 categories and why are they asking? Why are we insisting on binaries of Black v. White, when those were invented to enslave black people? I don’t care what I look like to other people — my whole live I’ve felt like I was passing as White.
I know American bureaucracy is fixated on race. As a white Canadian I group all Europeans and Middle Easterners as white. The Middle Easterners are a bit darker than Northern Europeans, about the same as Greeks or Sicilians. Hope that’s not offensive.
Yes — this is the crux of the issue. We are a hue of colors and who care which color you ended up? Why are we using the color of people’s skin to make policy decisions?
As a “white” person of polish and Irish descent I hope previous to this treatment you didn’t fall into the race bait game. You seemed surprised by the treatment at a “progressive “ place (whatever that means).
Thanks for the article. It’s another example of what Einat Wilf calls “the pound of flesh”. Until progressive Jews shed every aspect of being Jewish, racist progressives will not accept them.
That's a hard story to tell. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. May you be blessed as your chutzpah carries you forward. 😊🌼
Shalom.
Fascinating story Anti Semitism is clearly deeply embedded in the woke world
Thank you for this bit of excellent writing and truth telling.
"So there are different kinds of White people?” she asked.
Such casual viciousness is heartbreaking and maddening. Repeated in endless variation is devastating.
"Progressives" are learning a hard lesson we Cassandras have been screaming about for decades.
Great article.......it's hard to believe that the virulent antisemitism is again here, and unfortunately all over the world ......let's pray for things to get better !!!....thank you so much for speaking the truth.......good luck with everything you do. Am Israel Chai.....
thank you so much for writing this. I agrre and feel the same way as the daughter of an Israeli.
So what's your takeaway? And what were you doing working in the Obama White House? Barack Hussein Obama cozied up to the Muslim Brotherhood, let Assad go to the Russians, lectured Israeli students about the need to compromise then went to Ramallah to coddle the Palestinians, and even now after October 7 talked about the need to contextualize the slaughter of Jews in the framework of Israeli occupation. You spent your time helping anti-Semites only to discover they come for you anyway. Like the majority of American Jews, you still have not got it. Or did you vote for Trump this time round?
I came in with a tech surge that helped fix the ACA website so Americans could have health insurance. I’d been in the private sector before and tech was getting creepy, so I wanted a change. I stayed because were nice to me and the work was interesting and meaningful, until it wasn’t. But like a frog in water I didn’t notice until it started to boil.
Glad you got out and now can go on to better things. Although I have been writing about left-wing antisemitism and the Israeli situation for decades I too was shocked by the virulence of antisemitism that has exploded in the West since October 7. It is very unsettling and depressing and makes me feel Jews have no home in the West anymore. This past year is not one to be forgotten.
They have no place with progressives. That’s not the same as “the Western world”. But then there is always Israel.
The West is well on its way to collapse, the Trump interval notwithstanding. The progressive misunderstanding of what modern society is about has captured western elites, a sure sign of decadence. But yes, there is always Israel, the one bright spot that is not part of the West, however much its leaders claim they are also defending the West, meaning by that what the West stood for post-World War Two.
These stories just keep on coming. Heartbreaking.
So please tell me that you got a job!! It’s so hard to not find a ‘happy’ ending eventually. Will Jews be denied access to these professions as a matter of course in this era of new/blatant antisemitism?
I wish … turns out writing about the antisemitism at your last job doesn’t make you super employable, and I won’t work with antisemites again, so my options are limited. I know a lot of people asking the same questions — where will all the Jews squeezed out of academia, nonprofits and the arts go? So far no one has an answer. I’m hopeful we will see people create something spectacularly Jewish and new.
First I want to stress you have SOLIDARITY here. We support you, we get it, and we are deeply sorry you went through it.
I can’t say I have any hesitation to call out anti semitism nor do I worry I’m exaggerating it because I barely minorly (worthy of ignoring) experienced it before the recent explosion and it is an explosion.
Sometimes nebulous but sinister statements take time to process even when they feel really wrong. There’s something deeply sickening about calling the Jews the punchline in the context in which it was said. It’s an ugly combination of blaming Jews because they merit it while making light of it. We aren’t dispensable we are חָזַק וֶאֱמַץ and we will stand up and be heard and not to sound like Gloria Gaynor but we will survive.
Hate always has a gloss on it whether it comes from a pitchfork mob or intellectuals. The quality of intellectuals today is not what it was but even where the thinking runs deep what intellectuals aren’t today as a whole is open minded. They can’t even fathom themselves as being anything but which is an ironic hint.
There’s a strangeness to watching radically religious and radically unreligious people gather together with the most extreme of tunnel visions to passionately protest one thing as the sum of all evils it’s a truly retrograde step for civilization.
What you went through is a step beyond a Gentleman’s Agreement. It’s not just a top layer of anti semitism. But don’t waste your energy your devotion your mind and your humanity on lost souls.
Jewish Democrats need to hear this. But it would likely fall on deaf ears.
..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
"This all happened before Hamas slaughtered thousands of Jews for being Jewish in the wrong place at the wrong time, and before people I worked with in the White House praised the slaughter"
Hana, I enjoyed your article but I think my reaction is very different from most of its other readers. I am an independent voter, who previously voted for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The past two elections, I voted for Trump because I could see what was going on..
First, I think that expression is: "Jews are always the PUNCHING BAG."
Second, Antisemitic didn't come FOR your progressive think tank, it came FROM your progressive think tank.
Third, I'm sorry that you adopted a political perspective, with luxury, progressive values that ended up biting you in the end, but that was your decision. Antisemitism was apparent in progressive organizations for a decade or more. You aligned with these people and that's on you. Your reaction is in perfect alignment with the (falsely accused of being antisemtic) tweet that Elon Musk put out about Jews supporting the ADL, when the ADL had been pushing an anti-white progressive agenda for years.
At your workplace, you should have immediately gone to a lawyer and sued this organization for the way they engaged with you. Maybe you still can. I'm sure your mistreatment was pernicious, in a way that perhaps you didn't notice at first, but you kept putting up with progressively (pun intended) worse treatment, all the while hoping that they would treat you better if you could just make them understand. They cannot.
October 7th was a wakeup call for Jews and their luxury, progressive values. It will take a long time to undo the damage that luxury, progressive values have done to this country. My kids, who are in college, are paying the price.
From what I can tell, you're still a progressive and you still have all the same luxury, progressive values; you just wish the other progressives would treat you, and the Jews, better. Good luck. They won't.
Oh no, I’m done with these people. My baseline for whether I’ll work with people is now: are you an antisemite?
That turns out to be a very limiting criterion. I came into the White House after they solicited private sector tech people to fix our county’s dysfunctional tech systems. The private sector tech was getting creepy and I wanted to do something else.
I stayed for six years because they were nice to me, the work was interesting, and the antisemitism was minimal. It got worse as the years went on, and here we are. I did not vote for either candidate, because I will never again vote for an antisemite.
I abhor that antisemitism is so resurgent and sympathize with your well written story, except the part where being thought "White" is so distressing. It's an absurd construct anyway, right? Is it the progressive victim hierarchy that you object to or just your perceived misplacement in it? Not sure how supposedly "white" people like me (I identify as Scotch Irish when such things are relevant) are supposed to respond to that kind of indignation, but if you want allies it's best not to insult them. Hopefully we can all move past the divisive nonsense and unite against identity-based hatred and the evil it unleashes.
I had a whole long comment written out to respond and lost it.. so not going to try to recreate it. Please just understand that her comment regarding not being white was in no way meant to be an insult. It was a statement of fact. Even though many of us Jews here in the USA's ancestors lived in Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi) We are not Eastern European nor are we white. Our DNA is closely related to that found in the Levant and surrounding areas
Here in the USA the lions share of the Ashkenazi Jews eventually settled after fleeing Europe prior to Israel's rebirth and since we "look" white, we are assumed by most gentiles to be white. But the reality is, we are not.
White is meaningless term except to white supremacists and critical race theorists though. Italians and Finns are just as different as Arabs and Greeks. Heritage and culture are very meaningful and important, but the color coding has got to go. It's a poisonous construct. Thanks for your reply and all the best to you.
I agree — White vs. Black is an American framework devised to enforce slavery. It serves zero purpose as a way of grouping Americans today, and in fact has been proving harmful.
People do instinctively categorize by appearance, including skin color, but the categories and criteria depend entirely on the context. Someone who is white (or black etc) one place might not be in another, so meaningless in an inherent sense. Culture and customs of course are very meaningful and important and often overlap with appearance markers but not always. Problems arise depending on how we interpret the categories and use them to assign guilt or innocence or to give social advantages to some over others. It's a big, nuanced topic for sure.
But what are you according to the US race codes? Middle Easterners look white to me.
Why are we still using the same insane 5 categories and why are they asking? Why are we insisting on binaries of Black v. White, when those were invented to enslave black people? I don’t care what I look like to other people — my whole live I’ve felt like I was passing as White.
I know American bureaucracy is fixated on race. As a white Canadian I group all Europeans and Middle Easterners as white. The Middle Easterners are a bit darker than Northern Europeans, about the same as Greeks or Sicilians. Hope that’s not offensive.
Yes — this is the crux of the issue. We are a hue of colors and who care which color you ended up? Why are we using the color of people’s skin to make policy decisions?
As a “white” person of polish and Irish descent I hope previous to this treatment you didn’t fall into the race bait game. You seemed surprised by the treatment at a “progressive “ place (whatever that means).
Thanks for the article. It’s another example of what Einat Wilf calls “the pound of flesh”. Until progressive Jews shed every aspect of being Jewish, racist progressives will not accept them.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2221234/episodes/13250897