Moslems are louder and more aggressive than Jews. Plus they have louder and more aggressive allies who appreciate their power and muscle...Socialists, woke lefties, and "As a Jews". I don't see a comeback from this.
Take heart... the lion of JUDAH was created to roar.... in-humanity branded and tortured us into believing lies to still the roaring by poisoning us in body, mind and spirit; we must shed the abuser's crimes that were meant to weaken and destroy
the light of our people.
In memory of my Grandfather's yahrtzeit falling on the exact date near 3000 Americans perished in NY City. I light
It does us well to be reminded, especially now almost exactly 25 years later, that just because Muslim radicals decided to take down 2 buildings in NYC and kill 3,000+ people, we were told not judge all Muslims based on the action of a few. To do so would be an example of Islamophobia. And because we are good caring Americans, we sucked it up and did what we were told. Well, now we are seeing the example of Judeophobia. When you see a Jew behind every metaphorical tree and rock and you wish to kill him/her, perhaps you also suffer from this phobia. The apologists and propagandists of the radical Muslim community have done a good job of getting some of us to whistle their tune. No more. What we must do is continue to fight back.
But is there any place in the Diaspora that is truly immune to this phenomenon. I live in Ottawa, Canada, a much smaller city (12,000 Jews, 1 million inhabitants). Small places, big places: these same patterns keep recurring.
“Israel is not viewed by progressive activists as the world’s embodiment of evil because of settlements or policies or any of the other red herrings that are thrown up to justify the hysterical condemnations. It is viewed as the embodiment of evil because Jews have traditionally been the empty vessel upon which humans have projected their sins — and the Jewish state is both the national embodiment of the Jewish people and the natural inheritor of centuries of projection and vilification of Jews.
Jews worldwide are not targeted because of Israel’s existence. On the contrary, Israel is targeted because of Jews’ existence. At a minimum, it is the Jewish people’s insistence on existing as a self-determined people that sets off the haters.
It is not, fundamentally, the existence or actions of Israel that lead to global condemnations and acts of hate against Jews around the world. No, we’ve got this exactly backward. It is the hatred of Jews around the world that leads to the military and rhetorical assaults against Israel. Global antisemitism is not a byproduct of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a byproduct of global antisemitism.”
So true--I invite Jews to read David Nirenberg's Anti-Judaism to help frame the fact that we are living through the latest chapter in the continual narrative of Jewish history. The past appears governed by primitive epistemologies: belief in blood libels or racial science is the tragic pitfall of minds handicapped by hapless infantile ignorance. Now we may see that these beliefs were as real to their communities as "genocide" and "apartheid" are to our neighbors. Fifty or a hundred years from now Jews will recoil in contempt and incredulity that anyone could use the word genocide incorrectly, while they wake up to their chapter of Jewish hatred, as real as all of history.
Until you have roving gangs of Kaffiyeh wearing militias roaming the streets with the support of the NYC government, the Jews of NYC will just be complacent and ignore the reality of what is happening. The same is true in nearly every large metropolitan area. I really fear that with Mamdani and his associates in charge and growing in power, it will be only a short time before the police are told to stand down protecting Jewish property and citizens. What is occurring is too similar to Germany in the early 1930s to disregard. Vanessa hit it on the head, first comes acceptance of what is happening and then little by little the violence becomes more organized and extreme.
"Until you have roving gangs of Kaffiyeh wearing militias roaming the streets with the support of the NYC government, the Jews of NYC will just be complacent and ignore the reality of what is happening."
Maybe not even then!
Denial runs deep among progressives and liberals, they are still struggling through the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—
when it comes to how their erstwhile allies have jilted them for Islamists.
Most Jewish NYers I know just cannot wrap their brains around the idea that anyone who claims to be for "socialism" could be an enemy. They are trapped in a 20th-century mindset and will try their hardest to stay there no matter what.
Good analogy of frogs in boiling water. These folks remind me of the Shtetl Jews who kept thinking if they kept their head down the Czar and his Cossacks would leave them alone, or the German 'assimilated' Jews who said Hitler is just a crazy fad and it will pass, the Germans will come to their senses. For a people who are intelligent we refuse to understand or learn from history.
Why should this Jew hatred be any different than previous iterations? We are mistaken to believe that living in modern society in the west protects us from the same scourge of centuries. The only difference is the existence of Israel. And our enemies expect us to denounce it.
Excellent point. Unfortunately, too many of our co-religionists are ignorant of history and live in a fantasy world. We are seeing the rapid decay of western 'liberal' (small L) ideals being supplanted once again with Jew hatred, inferiority complexes, the need to find a scapegoat for their own failings and the attractiveness of authoritarian regimes. What our so-called intelligent Jewish people don't understand is that democracies or republics don't have longevity, nor are they the normal state of affairs. The US is already the longest democratic Republic in history and it is fracturing. All modern society is providing is a more efficient way to promote Jew hatred.
I have a few friends who are Jewish red-diaper babies who voted for Mamdani and they are simply disarmed by anyone who says the magic word "socialism". This is the real great faith of 20th-century liberal/Left Diaspora Jews and the cause they consider sacred and have pledged their hearts to—the global march of justice where a single humanity progresses past race, religion and tribe to embrace egalitarian universalism (probably best labeled as Marxist-Lennonism).
They believe anything and everything said by someone on their side of the aisle and interpret all criticism as some species of right-wing bigotry or conspiracism. Facing what has happened (the anti-Semitic upsurge on the Left) would feel like a personal betrayal to them and also prove the failure of the "tikkum olam" strategy whereby Jews are accepted as long as they feel everyone's pain before their own and always make sure to center the interests of others.
I'm a NYer though I no longer live there and all of us of a certain age remember the golden era of NYC Jewry (I used to live by Second Avenue Deli and would constantly walk past the Yiddish Theater Walk of Fame), but times change and golden ages are often replaced by their opposites.
But some people would rather live and die with their sacred illusions intact than change them.
I am a former New Yorker, and the golden age of Jewry in the United States is coming to a rapid close. It is sad that our so-called Jewish leadership organizations don't recognize this fact and recalibrate their efforts to provide alternatives to just allowing us to be victims.
Vanessa Berg's willingness to spread a wide tent that welcomes Muslims being Muslim is laudable but misses a serious point, this form of aggressive political Islam does not share her largesse. The ultimate goal of this practice is dominance noT coexistence. It's Not political dominance that ebbs and flows, but total dominance. As usual, Jews are the easy first target being attacked as Ms. Berg describes. But once Jews are isolated, and subdued, another group will be targeted. Worldwide it has happened country after country, and in Europe, city after city.
A tolerant nation must be able to draw lines as to what is tolerable. This blatantly hateful, blood libeling anti-Americanism is intolerable. It must be branded as such and resisted.
A very fine article with critical analysis that dives directly into the hypocrisy and bigotry powering this extraordinary and disastrous transformation of NYC. However, with the assistance of the ever-increasingly extreme Democratic Party, academia and most of the media, there is no reason to believe the situation will improve. In fact, the Jewish population of the City almost certainly has declined from the 960,000 figure of several years ago. 70 years ago more than twice as many Jews lived in NYC, comprising almost 30% of its inhabitants, compared to 10% today. And the Muslim population continues to grow. Soon they will outnumber Jews in the "Big Apple" and that will be the moment large scale emigration of the Jews of NYC will become inevitable and necessary.
The Muslims, the totalitarian left, but I repeat myself, filled a vacuum. How was that vacuum formed? We need to look at ourselves; this is the right time to do so.
Excellent piece, but I find myself seriously questioning one statement: "New York can become more Muslim without becoming less Jewish."
I used to think the same way. But I've been forced to accept the fact that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests this simply isn't true. Every part of the world that becomes more Muslim becomes less Jewish. And this isn't by accident. It's because of two inescapable facts:
1) Islam is inherently antisemitic.
2) Islam is illiberal.
We simply don't have the luxury of continuing to pretend that Islam isn't a threat - not just to Jews, but to liberal, open societies.
is there any better argument for the state of Israel? As we have always been told, it’s our last refuge. But that very zionist belief is what gives our enemies cause. It's a trap no amount of PR is going to get us out of. i’ve seen videos of Zionist New Yorkers, trying to fight back against mamdani policies, but he just smiles, because he knows time is on his side. Thanks for the informative read
One of the great ironies of history: The mass persecutions, ethnic cleanings and genocides of Jews over the past few centuries are what made Israel the powerhouse it is today. Jew haters are too stupid to understand that they continue to make the case for a strong Jewish state better than any Zionist ever could.
Mamdani knows that more than ‘time’ is on his side; he knows that Satan is…
BUT (Behold the Underlying Truth), what he does not know, or rather, does not believe, is that the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the only true, all-powerful, Creator God.
He has revealed His will and plans for the future in and through His Word, in both the Old (Tanakh), and New (Brit Hadasha) Testaments. And, along with other critically important truths, He says:
Psalms 2:1-4 (Tanakh)
1 Why do nations assemble,and peoples plot vain things; 2 kings of the earth take their stand, and regents intrigue together against the LORD and against His anointed? 3 “Let us break the cords of their yoke, shake off their ropes from us!"
4 He who is enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord mocks at them.”
Isaiah 41:8-13 (Tanakh)
“8 But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham My friend—9 you whom I drew from the ends of the earth and called from its far corners, to whom I said: You are My servant; I chose you, I have not rejected you-10 fear not, for I am with you, be not frightened, for I am your God; I strengthen you and I help you, I uphold you with My victorious right hand.
11 Shamed and chagrined shall be all who contend with you; they who strive with you shall become as naught and shall perish.
12 You may seek, but shall not find those who struggle with you; less than nothing shall be the men who battle against you. 13 For I the LORD am your God, Who grasped your right hand, Who say to you: Have no fear; I will be your help.”
Isaiah 55:6-11
“6 Seek the LORD while He can be found, call to Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked give up his ways, the sinful man his plans; let him turn back to the LORD, and He will pardon him; to our God, for he freely forgives.
8 For My plans are not your plans, nor are My ways your ways—declares the LORD. 9 But as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways high above your ways and My plans above your plans. 10 For as the rain or snow drops from heaven and returns not there, but soaks the earth and makes it bring forth vegetation, yielding seed for sowing and bread for eating, 11 so is the word that issues from My mouth: it does not come back to Me unfulfilled, but performs what I purpose, achieves what I sent it to do.”
If the voters of NY don’t care, the Jews of NY will leave. Jews have been here many times before and survived the experience. And don’t forget, Hochul endorsed Mamdani.
Some of us mistook compassion for direction instead of the consequences of action. We have absolutely no need for permission; we have a covenant: this day, choose life, and an example of what not to do: Egypt.
As a 4th generation Jewish New Yorker who grew up understanding that I and my family were organic necessities to this city, that there is not a 20th century New York City without us, I feel now as though I can actually feel my city harden against us. In social spaces, I feel alone and anxious in my complete opposition to Mamdani. The New York Times is becoming an enemy--the paper is conditioning readers to its routine accusations and condemnations of Israel until we take as bedrock the distortions and falsehoods. As Berg states, it is entirely the case that Muslims bring their whole selves to life in NY, and now Jews may not. Where is Jewish unity against this turn? I don't mean this rhetorically, I mean it literally. I go about with my pro-Israel button on my bag--a really negligible trifle when it comes to activism!--and frankly I would love to see more negligible trifles of activism. Let us show something out on the streets here and be a tiny bit less hidden.
Muslims in NYC are doing to the city’s Jews what Muslims try to do Jews throughout the world - marginalize, vilify and erase.
The time has come to 'hold the line'. Enough exsiting under 'tikkun', do not let go of what
our forbears patrioticly built
and bled for in America.
In that they mimic Rome of yesteryear and today.
How so?
Moslems are louder and more aggressive than Jews. Plus they have louder and more aggressive allies who appreciate their power and muscle...Socialists, woke lefties, and "As a Jews". I don't see a comeback from this.
Take heart... the lion of JUDAH was created to roar.... in-humanity branded and tortured us into believing lies to still the roaring by poisoning us in body, mind and spirit; we must shed the abuser's crimes that were meant to weaken and destroy
the light of our people.
In memory of my Grandfather's yahrtzeit falling on the exact date near 3000 Americans perished in NY City. I light
one candle in the dark.
✍🏻RL
Zachor
It does us well to be reminded, especially now almost exactly 25 years later, that just because Muslim radicals decided to take down 2 buildings in NYC and kill 3,000+ people, we were told not judge all Muslims based on the action of a few. To do so would be an example of Islamophobia. And because we are good caring Americans, we sucked it up and did what we were told. Well, now we are seeing the example of Judeophobia. When you see a Jew behind every metaphorical tree and rock and you wish to kill him/her, perhaps you also suffer from this phobia. The apologists and propagandists of the radical Muslim community have done a good job of getting some of us to whistle their tune. No more. What we must do is continue to fight back.
But is there any place in the Diaspora that is truly immune to this phenomenon. I live in Ottawa, Canada, a much smaller city (12,000 Jews, 1 million inhabitants). Small places, big places: these same patterns keep recurring.
Wife & I are from NYC. Shocked, disappointed, angry.
at this point... self-respect IS essential and angry is justified.
The heavens are a-quivering,
no question marks remain.
Jews including fking “rabbis” helped elect Mamdani. I have no sympathy.
Agreed. That is why that word wasn't on my list.
Pat Johnson, substack:
“Israel is not viewed by progressive activists as the world’s embodiment of evil because of settlements or policies or any of the other red herrings that are thrown up to justify the hysterical condemnations. It is viewed as the embodiment of evil because Jews have traditionally been the empty vessel upon which humans have projected their sins — and the Jewish state is both the national embodiment of the Jewish people and the natural inheritor of centuries of projection and vilification of Jews.
Jews worldwide are not targeted because of Israel’s existence. On the contrary, Israel is targeted because of Jews’ existence. At a minimum, it is the Jewish people’s insistence on existing as a self-determined people that sets off the haters.
It is not, fundamentally, the existence or actions of Israel that lead to global condemnations and acts of hate against Jews around the world. No, we’ve got this exactly backward. It is the hatred of Jews around the world that leads to the military and rhetorical assaults against Israel. Global antisemitism is not a byproduct of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a byproduct of global antisemitism.”
So true--I invite Jews to read David Nirenberg's Anti-Judaism to help frame the fact that we are living through the latest chapter in the continual narrative of Jewish history. The past appears governed by primitive epistemologies: belief in blood libels or racial science is the tragic pitfall of minds handicapped by hapless infantile ignorance. Now we may see that these beliefs were as real to their communities as "genocide" and "apartheid" are to our neighbors. Fifty or a hundred years from now Jews will recoil in contempt and incredulity that anyone could use the word genocide incorrectly, while they wake up to their chapter of Jewish hatred, as real as all of history.
exactly
Until you have roving gangs of Kaffiyeh wearing militias roaming the streets with the support of the NYC government, the Jews of NYC will just be complacent and ignore the reality of what is happening. The same is true in nearly every large metropolitan area. I really fear that with Mamdani and his associates in charge and growing in power, it will be only a short time before the police are told to stand down protecting Jewish property and citizens. What is occurring is too similar to Germany in the early 1930s to disregard. Vanessa hit it on the head, first comes acceptance of what is happening and then little by little the violence becomes more organized and extreme.
"Until you have roving gangs of Kaffiyeh wearing militias roaming the streets with the support of the NYC government, the Jews of NYC will just be complacent and ignore the reality of what is happening."
Maybe not even then!
Denial runs deep among progressives and liberals, they are still struggling through the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—
when it comes to how their erstwhile allies have jilted them for Islamists.
Most Jewish NYers I know just cannot wrap their brains around the idea that anyone who claims to be for "socialism" could be an enemy. They are trapped in a 20th-century mindset and will try their hardest to stay there no matter what.
They are frogs in boiling water...
Good analogy of frogs in boiling water. These folks remind me of the Shtetl Jews who kept thinking if they kept their head down the Czar and his Cossacks would leave them alone, or the German 'assimilated' Jews who said Hitler is just a crazy fad and it will pass, the Germans will come to their senses. For a people who are intelligent we refuse to understand or learn from history.
Why should this Jew hatred be any different than previous iterations? We are mistaken to believe that living in modern society in the west protects us from the same scourge of centuries. The only difference is the existence of Israel. And our enemies expect us to denounce it.
Excellent point. Unfortunately, too many of our co-religionists are ignorant of history and live in a fantasy world. We are seeing the rapid decay of western 'liberal' (small L) ideals being supplanted once again with Jew hatred, inferiority complexes, the need to find a scapegoat for their own failings and the attractiveness of authoritarian regimes. What our so-called intelligent Jewish people don't understand is that democracies or republics don't have longevity, nor are they the normal state of affairs. The US is already the longest democratic Republic in history and it is fracturing. All modern society is providing is a more efficient way to promote Jew hatred.
I have a few friends who are Jewish red-diaper babies who voted for Mamdani and they are simply disarmed by anyone who says the magic word "socialism". This is the real great faith of 20th-century liberal/Left Diaspora Jews and the cause they consider sacred and have pledged their hearts to—the global march of justice where a single humanity progresses past race, religion and tribe to embrace egalitarian universalism (probably best labeled as Marxist-Lennonism).
They believe anything and everything said by someone on their side of the aisle and interpret all criticism as some species of right-wing bigotry or conspiracism. Facing what has happened (the anti-Semitic upsurge on the Left) would feel like a personal betrayal to them and also prove the failure of the "tikkum olam" strategy whereby Jews are accepted as long as they feel everyone's pain before their own and always make sure to center the interests of others.
I'm a NYer though I no longer live there and all of us of a certain age remember the golden era of NYC Jewry (I used to live by Second Avenue Deli and would constantly walk past the Yiddish Theater Walk of Fame), but times change and golden ages are often replaced by their opposites.
But some people would rather live and die with their sacred illusions intact than change them.
I am a former New Yorker, and the golden age of Jewry in the United States is coming to a rapid close. It is sad that our so-called Jewish leadership organizations don't recognize this fact and recalibrate their efforts to provide alternatives to just allowing us to be victims.
Vanessa Berg's willingness to spread a wide tent that welcomes Muslims being Muslim is laudable but misses a serious point, this form of aggressive political Islam does not share her largesse. The ultimate goal of this practice is dominance noT coexistence. It's Not political dominance that ebbs and flows, but total dominance. As usual, Jews are the easy first target being attacked as Ms. Berg describes. But once Jews are isolated, and subdued, another group will be targeted. Worldwide it has happened country after country, and in Europe, city after city.
A tolerant nation must be able to draw lines as to what is tolerable. This blatantly hateful, blood libeling anti-Americanism is intolerable. It must be branded as such and resisted.
Demographics. Just as in London and Paris.
A very fine article with critical analysis that dives directly into the hypocrisy and bigotry powering this extraordinary and disastrous transformation of NYC. However, with the assistance of the ever-increasingly extreme Democratic Party, academia and most of the media, there is no reason to believe the situation will improve. In fact, the Jewish population of the City almost certainly has declined from the 960,000 figure of several years ago. 70 years ago more than twice as many Jews lived in NYC, comprising almost 30% of its inhabitants, compared to 10% today. And the Muslim population continues to grow. Soon they will outnumber Jews in the "Big Apple" and that will be the moment large scale emigration of the Jews of NYC will become inevitable and necessary.
The Muslims, the totalitarian left, but I repeat myself, filled a vacuum. How was that vacuum formed? We need to look at ourselves; this is the right time to do so.
Excellent piece, but I find myself seriously questioning one statement: "New York can become more Muslim without becoming less Jewish."
I used to think the same way. But I've been forced to accept the fact that the evidence overwhelmingly suggests this simply isn't true. Every part of the world that becomes more Muslim becomes less Jewish. And this isn't by accident. It's because of two inescapable facts:
1) Islam is inherently antisemitic.
2) Islam is illiberal.
We simply don't have the luxury of continuing to pretend that Islam isn't a threat - not just to Jews, but to liberal, open societies.
is there any better argument for the state of Israel? As we have always been told, it’s our last refuge. But that very zionist belief is what gives our enemies cause. It's a trap no amount of PR is going to get us out of. i’ve seen videos of Zionist New Yorkers, trying to fight back against mamdani policies, but he just smiles, because he knows time is on his side. Thanks for the informative read
One of the great ironies of history: The mass persecutions, ethnic cleanings and genocides of Jews over the past few centuries are what made Israel the powerhouse it is today. Jew haters are too stupid to understand that they continue to make the case for a strong Jewish state better than any Zionist ever could.
Mamdani knows that more than ‘time’ is on his side; he knows that Satan is…
BUT (Behold the Underlying Truth), what he does not know, or rather, does not believe, is that the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the only true, all-powerful, Creator God.
He has revealed His will and plans for the future in and through His Word, in both the Old (Tanakh), and New (Brit Hadasha) Testaments. And, along with other critically important truths, He says:
Psalms 2:1-4 (Tanakh)
1 Why do nations assemble,and peoples plot vain things; 2 kings of the earth take their stand, and regents intrigue together against the LORD and against His anointed? 3 “Let us break the cords of their yoke, shake off their ropes from us!"
4 He who is enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord mocks at them.”
Isaiah 41:8-13 (Tanakh)
“8 But you, Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, seed of Abraham My friend—9 you whom I drew from the ends of the earth and called from its far corners, to whom I said: You are My servant; I chose you, I have not rejected you-10 fear not, for I am with you, be not frightened, for I am your God; I strengthen you and I help you, I uphold you with My victorious right hand.
11 Shamed and chagrined shall be all who contend with you; they who strive with you shall become as naught and shall perish.
12 You may seek, but shall not find those who struggle with you; less than nothing shall be the men who battle against you. 13 For I the LORD am your God, Who grasped your right hand, Who say to you: Have no fear; I will be your help.”
Isaiah 55:6-11
“6 Seek the LORD while He can be found, call to Him while He is near. 7 Let the wicked give up his ways, the sinful man his plans; let him turn back to the LORD, and He will pardon him; to our God, for he freely forgives.
8 For My plans are not your plans, nor are My ways your ways—declares the LORD. 9 But as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways high above your ways and My plans above your plans. 10 For as the rain or snow drops from heaven and returns not there, but soaks the earth and makes it bring forth vegetation, yielding seed for sowing and bread for eating, 11 so is the word that issues from My mouth: it does not come back to Me unfulfilled, but performs what I purpose, achieves what I sent it to do.”
Am Israel Chai, to the glory of God!
Come to South Florida.Very little antisemitism here & we don't have a state tax.
I think the tikkun olam Jews who voted for this should stay in NYC and experience some more of the warmth of collectivism.
That is why there are fewer Jews in NYC. Soon Miami will be the financial capital of the U.S.
I'm not sure any refuge from Caliphate-building will be left in America or in the West. Only Israel will fight like hell.
If the voters of NY don’t care, the Jews of NY will leave. Jews have been here many times before and survived the experience. And don’t forget, Hochul endorsed Mamdani.
Some of us mistook compassion for direction instead of the consequences of action. We have absolutely no need for permission; we have a covenant: this day, choose life, and an example of what not to do: Egypt.
As a 4th generation Jewish New Yorker who grew up understanding that I and my family were organic necessities to this city, that there is not a 20th century New York City without us, I feel now as though I can actually feel my city harden against us. In social spaces, I feel alone and anxious in my complete opposition to Mamdani. The New York Times is becoming an enemy--the paper is conditioning readers to its routine accusations and condemnations of Israel until we take as bedrock the distortions and falsehoods. As Berg states, it is entirely the case that Muslims bring their whole selves to life in NY, and now Jews may not. Where is Jewish unity against this turn? I don't mean this rhetorically, I mean it literally. I go about with my pro-Israel button on my bag--a really negligible trifle when it comes to activism!--and frankly I would love to see more negligible trifles of activism. Let us show something out on the streets here and be a tiny bit less hidden.