The moral software we use to detect antisemitism hasn’t been updated in years. It no longer recognizes the new strains of Jew-hate. That’s what makes it so dangerous.
Surveys in France show that if you exclude Muslims, only a small fraction of the remaining population holds antisemitic views. But the vast majority of the Muslim population holds antisemitic views, thus the poll averages.
Modern European antisemitism is traditional Third World Muslim antisemitism as you would find in Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan that was imported into Europe through misguided immigration policies.
Modern European right wing parties like AfD in Germany, VOX in Spain and RN in France are today's strongest supporters of Israel.
Thank you for a cogent well thought out article. I've been very clear-eyed about what's happening and recognizing this new humanitarian anti-semitism.
1) Discomfort among virtue signaling liberals on the topic of Judaism.
Example: When non-Jewish 'friends' suddenly clam up when current events are being discussed.
2) Insistence on context where none is needed.
Example: While there is no context other than seething murderous hatred; search hard for it to justify the burning, raping, killing and kidnapping of Israelis.
3) Slip on your ProPal t-shirt, wrap a keffiah around you and add a face mask so you're ready to head out to the campus center for a day of calling for the murder of Jews. Be sure to place your Starbucks order on the app so you don't miss spending any time with your buddies bonding over how awful Jews are.
4) Even some Jews hate Jews! Well, of course, the self-hating, apologist Jew who never seems to understand the writing on the wall.
Psst...You're still a Jew.
5) Jewish university presidents who won't protect Jewish students from mob mentality.
Example: Alan Garber of Harvard. Thinks he's a hero for human rights. What's a few Jewish students getting harassed and threatened when there are huge endowments to protect. Fucking coward, kapo.
1) Discomfort among virtue signaling liberals on the topic of Judaism.
Example: When non-Jewish 'friends' suddenly clam up when current events are being discussed.
This has been driving me crazy - wondering if it's me - I'm a little crazy when it comes to Jewish issue - or if everyone hates me, or what??? This make the most sense. Suddenly they are having virtual signaling dissonance. They intellectually know I'm right (most recently it was "me too unless you're a Jew"), but they can't admit it.
What rankles me more than the kids with their hidden faces and obnoxious placards and chants, the professors that teach opposing Zionism is the highest ideal ....the number of celebrities that are so ignorant or bigoted or both.
My friend told me about a very well regarded British commedienne who posted a video mocking Oct. 7th as no big deal. How does one get to be so depraved? We're up against a lot of evil today coming at us from all quarters. And these moral midgets like Greta shriek "shame." they have no shame.
I find it beyond sad that we can no longer even mention the root cause of antisemitism. This is an excellent essay, but Elohim is not mentioned. Not even once. But underlying it all lies the basic Truth: it's all about the one true G-d who chose the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be His people. How can we discuss Israel, Zionists, and Jews without a thought of Adonai? I'm only grafted in…an immeasurable blessing. Yet I find myself tiptoeing around the core fact. The Creator of the Universe chose Israel to uniquely be His people. He certainly did not choose me because I was such a sterling example of manhood. When He chose me in 1974, I was a drug-crazed hippy heavily into the occult. I was born on D-Day as the troops were hitting the beaches in France. I was raised in a society dedicated to the elimination of the concept of an Almighty Creator. I stumbled into the sixties enraged at the lies I'd been fed in my public school curriculum. But I had not a clue, until… Adonai touched me. He totally changed my life. This whole crazy process we are living through is my G-d, and yours, doing what has to be done to save all the Jews who will turn to Him. Within a decade, the Messiah will be seated on His Throne of David in Jerusalem. All the G-d haters will be eliminated. This is all that matters at this point in the history of Mankind. We are all called to turn to the Lord and live.
That would be true. However, in intellectual honesty, why don't you just speak to the air and say, "If this crazy Norwegian I'm talking to is telling the truth, will you tell me if you exist and what to do about that?" If he doesn't respond, then you're free to be an atheist.
I don't think they have good intentions at all. They know they are defending evil, and their intent is to support the genocide of Jews. I just think they use certain language to deceive others about their intentions.
"For those who understand history’s long arcs, none of this is a surprise. The worst violence doesn’t come from those who know they’re hateful. It comes from those who believe they’re virtuous. The real danger isn’t immorality; it’s moral fanaticism. The road to hell is really paved with good intentions".
I, too (re: your recent substack article) am SO very done with the crap. And I tend to attribute the worst intentions to pro-hamas people. But I was just at a farmers market talking to people about a specific local environment issue. I was wearing my Magen David necklace and my Israel necklace (made from rockets and Iron Dome - SO COOL), and I had a lovely chat with a woman wearing earrings with the red hand symbol. I don't think she registered the I was a Jew (not sure how she could miss it), she certainly had no hostility despite wearing a hideous, vicious symbol next to her face. I suspect she just thought it was a "good" symbol and that's as far as she took it. I had a hard time concentrating initially when I saw the earrings, but realized there was no threat and dealt with it like it's one of those incomprehensible things that are going on every minute of every day. However, I remain really pissed and a pessimist, if for no other reason than the utter stupidity of these people and there isn't an end in sight.
This oldest hatred has never subsided and never will. Jews need to act like hornets. Just swarm and sting everyone, no mercy, until the world realizes it’s better to leave us alone. Our enemies will not stop until they have murdered us all. They have told us this. Kill one of us, our response needs to be extreme. When someone tells you who they are it’s probably better to believe what they say. As Golda Meir would have put it, if the choice was between a respected dead Israeli and a hated living Israeli, her choice would have been hated and alive Israeli.
"How can an educated, liberal, progressive man remain so blind to a reality so thoroughly documented?" lol I almost spit my coffee! All those adjectives assure that he is and will remain blinded to reality!
How? Because all these things have different, hidden, deeper meanings than what's on the label. In the 21st century:
"educated" might possibly mean someone interested in study or in a particular field and its history and scholarship, but it also means learning all the proper social clues and class etiquette that separates the "educated" from the "uneducated", which unfortunately usually means some acceptance of Social Justice ideology;
"liberal" means a belief that all humanity are the same and all can be taught, molded and persuaded by appeals to reason, fairness and tolerance, which is false and one of the reasons why liberals keep denouncing Israel, because they refuse (or are unable) to accept that the Palestinians will never be appeased and brought to accept peaceful coexistence—there is no liberal who can acknowledge that the Palestinians don't want a state but want to murder Jews and destroy Israel. There is no way to compute this in modern Western liberalism;
And "progressive" of course means that this friend sees the world through the Oppressed/Oppressor binary and knows that all upscale educated liberal Westerners make sure to always signal their allegiance to modern ideology and morality and thus cannot oppose or denounce Palestinianism, as it tickles all the progressive erogenous zones: a fight for freedom and Justice against white settler-colonial imperialism etc etc...
Jews have to accept that they won't be getting any help or support from the "educated, liberal, progressive" class, as these people live in a world where all their incentives—social, career, financial, etc—lead to opposing the Jewish state and supporting its enemies.
Liberals are just as ideologically indoctrinated as any Communist or Islamist but can never see it, as it's the water the swim in, and now their ideology insists that our anti-Jewish moment is really just a "far right" fever dream, which is how they process and rationalize everything they're too afraid to face.
You have opened up to the light of day the darkest, oldest hate. The new ‘moral’ component to antisemitism makes it so much more dangerous. Great article!
Just to be clear, anti-Zionism and anti-Judaism are two separate things. This is weaponized victimization used to try and legitimize colonialism and genocide. Of course, antisemitism is real and an ongoing issue, but so is the suffering and inhumane treatment received by the Palestinian people under the Israeli state for the past 78 years. Zionism is oppression.
Ohh, someone got mad because they get called out on massacring innocent civilians and has no way to go about their apartheid agenda other than insulting people online. Honey, I'm not the uneducated one.
Honey, not everyone is American. But you should put that great interest and concern for civil rights on the fascist government of your invented country, which is genociding millions of people. XO
May I suggest reviewing actual history. From 1948-1967 Egypt occupied Gaza and horribly oppressed Palestinians. Israel first occupied Gaza after they were yet again attacked by Arabs with the goal of annihilation. Gaza was released in 2006, Hamas and Fatah vied for control, Hamas killed Fatah opposition, and was ELECTED to govern Gaza. And continued to try to annihilate Israel. Then ask what was Egypt's role in oppressing the people of Gaza? Where are the bomb shelters? Why doesn't Hamas protect its own people in areas when Israel gives advance warning that they will attack? This can all be fact checked.
"the absurdity (and the injustice) of making individuals bear collective responsibility for acts they didn’t commit or condone. Between 2014 and 2019, the international coalition flattened entire historic cities: Mosul, Raqqa, Fallujah. Thirty-five thousand airstrikes. More than 90,000 dead. Over a million displaced. The damage was massive. The suffering real"
Wittingly or not this statement places Israel's prosecution of its war on the same footing as the the coalition's actions. It ignores that the enemy, Hamas, dresses as civilians, further embedding itself in the civilian population. It uses civilian housing and social infrastructures as bases of operation. The civilian population itself widely supported and cooperated with Hamas making them accessories before, to, and after the fact. It ignores that while war inevitably incurs civilian casualties, the ratio of civilian deaths to operative deaths is about 2:1, especially exceptional considering that this is urban, close-quarters warfare.
and
"no one would justify attacks or harassment of people in New York or London because of those bombings. No one did that after the Bataclan massacres in Paris. So, why is it acceptable when it’s Jews? Especially when Jews in France, Britain, or America aren’t Israelis; they’re members of a Diaspora, living thousands of miles away."
Secondly, it separates Israelis from Jews, intimating that Jews are not responsible for the so-called war crimes being committed by Israelis. However, in the non-Jewish mind, Israel is a Jewish state run by Jews, so whatever Israelis do it is Jews who are the perpetrators.
Regarding the epithet "Zionist," perhaps it is best to go on the offensive. We need to remind everyone at every opportunity that just as we call an Englishman, Ukraininian, Mexican, or citizen of any other land proud of his country a nationalist, so too, Zionists who stand for the peace, security, and safety of their historical, indigenous, ancestral homeland are nationalists. And Zionism is the Hebrew word for Nationalism.
AVI: thank you for your clarity and insights! Your personal experience with antisemitism in France and USA is invaluable. The Enlightenment--born in France and emulated in the USA--has created generations of communicative and brilliant scholars whose insights are beyond instructive. In the current Post-Enlightenment state, electronic media is a never-ending source of creative expression; in parallel, expressions of outrage are both via electronic dialogue and mass public protests. The number of assaults you describe in France and your friend objects to validating (lone wolf and small group tactics) occur within the context of mass global electronic communication which has little risk (unless one catches the attention of US NSA, EU Interpol, or US & NATO military intelligence). The empowering knowledge you and others provide is plentiful, whilst knowledge about empowering action is NOT AS FORTHCOMING. Situational awareness training, self-defense training, and carrying of legally permissible deterrents (e.g. bear spray, Krav Maga training, walking sticks, use of tactical gloves [reduces hand pain when throwing a punch]) if MATCHED WITH scholarly antisemitism writings could help ensure more members of our Jewish communities thrive after reading about, witnessing, or directly surviving lone wolf or group tactical assaults. Thank you again for your writings!
The Jews in the Diaspora, especially the U.S., had forgotten we are “the others.” The world reminded us - loudly, violently.
Yet, too many Jews do not understand the message. They are still blindfolded to the reality of what is taking place today.
Thank you for laying this out so clearly. Eyes wide open after the world’s reaction to 10/7
Surveys in France show that if you exclude Muslims, only a small fraction of the remaining population holds antisemitic views. But the vast majority of the Muslim population holds antisemitic views, thus the poll averages.
Modern European antisemitism is traditional Third World Muslim antisemitism as you would find in Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan that was imported into Europe through misguided immigration policies.
Modern European right wing parties like AfD in Germany, VOX in Spain and RN in France are today's strongest supporters of Israel.
Thank you for a cogent well thought out article. I've been very clear-eyed about what's happening and recognizing this new humanitarian anti-semitism.
1) Discomfort among virtue signaling liberals on the topic of Judaism.
Example: When non-Jewish 'friends' suddenly clam up when current events are being discussed.
2) Insistence on context where none is needed.
Example: While there is no context other than seething murderous hatred; search hard for it to justify the burning, raping, killing and kidnapping of Israelis.
3) Slip on your ProPal t-shirt, wrap a keffiah around you and add a face mask so you're ready to head out to the campus center for a day of calling for the murder of Jews. Be sure to place your Starbucks order on the app so you don't miss spending any time with your buddies bonding over how awful Jews are.
4) Even some Jews hate Jews! Well, of course, the self-hating, apologist Jew who never seems to understand the writing on the wall.
Psst...You're still a Jew.
5) Jewish university presidents who won't protect Jewish students from mob mentality.
Example: Alan Garber of Harvard. Thinks he's a hero for human rights. What's a few Jewish students getting harassed and threatened when there are huge endowments to protect. Fucking coward, kapo.
1) Discomfort among virtue signaling liberals on the topic of Judaism.
Example: When non-Jewish 'friends' suddenly clam up when current events are being discussed.
This has been driving me crazy - wondering if it's me - I'm a little crazy when it comes to Jewish issue - or if everyone hates me, or what??? This make the most sense. Suddenly they are having virtual signaling dissonance. They intellectually know I'm right (most recently it was "me too unless you're a Jew"), but they can't admit it.
What rankles me more than the kids with their hidden faces and obnoxious placards and chants, the professors that teach opposing Zionism is the highest ideal ....the number of celebrities that are so ignorant or bigoted or both.
My friend told me about a very well regarded British commedienne who posted a video mocking Oct. 7th as no big deal. How does one get to be so depraved? We're up against a lot of evil today coming at us from all quarters. And these moral midgets like Greta shriek "shame." they have no shame.
I find it beyond sad that we can no longer even mention the root cause of antisemitism. This is an excellent essay, but Elohim is not mentioned. Not even once. But underlying it all lies the basic Truth: it's all about the one true G-d who chose the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be His people. How can we discuss Israel, Zionists, and Jews without a thought of Adonai? I'm only grafted in…an immeasurable blessing. Yet I find myself tiptoeing around the core fact. The Creator of the Universe chose Israel to uniquely be His people. He certainly did not choose me because I was such a sterling example of manhood. When He chose me in 1974, I was a drug-crazed hippy heavily into the occult. I was born on D-Day as the troops were hitting the beaches in France. I was raised in a society dedicated to the elimination of the concept of an Almighty Creator. I stumbled into the sixties enraged at the lies I'd been fed in my public school curriculum. But I had not a clue, until… Adonai touched me. He totally changed my life. This whole crazy process we are living through is my G-d, and yours, doing what has to be done to save all the Jews who will turn to Him. Within a decade, the Messiah will be seated on His Throne of David in Jerusalem. All the G-d haters will be eliminated. This is all that matters at this point in the history of Mankind. We are all called to turn to the Lord and live.
If only it were that easy.
I never said it was easy. But, the reality is that God created it all. You have to turn to Him to survive.
As an atheist, I don't have that comfort. I am glad it is helping you.
That would be true. However, in intellectual honesty, why don't you just speak to the air and say, "If this crazy Norwegian I'm talking to is telling the truth, will you tell me if you exist and what to do about that?" If he doesn't respond, then you're free to be an atheist.
Modern anti semitism clearly defined. Excelent article.
I don't think they have good intentions at all. They know they are defending evil, and their intent is to support the genocide of Jews. I just think they use certain language to deceive others about their intentions.
...............................................................................................................................................................................................
"For those who understand history’s long arcs, none of this is a surprise. The worst violence doesn’t come from those who know they’re hateful. It comes from those who believe they’re virtuous. The real danger isn’t immorality; it’s moral fanaticism. The road to hell is really paved with good intentions".
I, too (re: your recent substack article) am SO very done with the crap. And I tend to attribute the worst intentions to pro-hamas people. But I was just at a farmers market talking to people about a specific local environment issue. I was wearing my Magen David necklace and my Israel necklace (made from rockets and Iron Dome - SO COOL), and I had a lovely chat with a woman wearing earrings with the red hand symbol. I don't think she registered the I was a Jew (not sure how she could miss it), she certainly had no hostility despite wearing a hideous, vicious symbol next to her face. I suspect she just thought it was a "good" symbol and that's as far as she took it. I had a hard time concentrating initially when I saw the earrings, but realized there was no threat and dealt with it like it's one of those incomprehensible things that are going on every minute of every day. However, I remain really pissed and a pessimist, if for no other reason than the utter stupidity of these people and there isn't an end in sight.
This oldest hatred has never subsided and never will. Jews need to act like hornets. Just swarm and sting everyone, no mercy, until the world realizes it’s better to leave us alone. Our enemies will not stop until they have murdered us all. They have told us this. Kill one of us, our response needs to be extreme. When someone tells you who they are it’s probably better to believe what they say. As Golda Meir would have put it, if the choice was between a respected dead Israeli and a hated living Israeli, her choice would have been hated and alive Israeli.
"How can an educated, liberal, progressive man remain so blind to a reality so thoroughly documented?" lol I almost spit my coffee! All those adjectives assure that he is and will remain blinded to reality!
How? Because all these things have different, hidden, deeper meanings than what's on the label. In the 21st century:
"educated" might possibly mean someone interested in study or in a particular field and its history and scholarship, but it also means learning all the proper social clues and class etiquette that separates the "educated" from the "uneducated", which unfortunately usually means some acceptance of Social Justice ideology;
"liberal" means a belief that all humanity are the same and all can be taught, molded and persuaded by appeals to reason, fairness and tolerance, which is false and one of the reasons why liberals keep denouncing Israel, because they refuse (or are unable) to accept that the Palestinians will never be appeased and brought to accept peaceful coexistence—there is no liberal who can acknowledge that the Palestinians don't want a state but want to murder Jews and destroy Israel. There is no way to compute this in modern Western liberalism;
And "progressive" of course means that this friend sees the world through the Oppressed/Oppressor binary and knows that all upscale educated liberal Westerners make sure to always signal their allegiance to modern ideology and morality and thus cannot oppose or denounce Palestinianism, as it tickles all the progressive erogenous zones: a fight for freedom and Justice against white settler-colonial imperialism etc etc...
Jews have to accept that they won't be getting any help or support from the "educated, liberal, progressive" class, as these people live in a world where all their incentives—social, career, financial, etc—lead to opposing the Jewish state and supporting its enemies.
Liberals are just as ideologically indoctrinated as any Communist or Islamist but can never see it, as it's the water the swim in, and now their ideology insists that our anti-Jewish moment is really just a "far right" fever dream, which is how they process and rationalize everything they're too afraid to face.
You have opened up to the light of day the darkest, oldest hate. The new ‘moral’ component to antisemitism makes it so much more dangerous. Great article!
Just to be clear, anti-Zionism and anti-Judaism are two separate things. This is weaponized victimization used to try and legitimize colonialism and genocide. Of course, antisemitism is real and an ongoing issue, but so is the suffering and inhumane treatment received by the Palestinian people under the Israeli state for the past 78 years. Zionism is oppression.
Read the room. Alternatively, go fuck yourself.
Yeah, killing babies indiscriminately is so cool and justifiable. Quit the crying, it's not believable.
Pay reparations for your slave holding family and then we’ll talk.
Turn off tik tok. You are an uneducated bigot.
Ohh, someone got mad because they get called out on massacring innocent civilians and has no way to go about their apartheid agenda other than insulting people online. Honey, I'm not the uneducated one.
How many black slaves did your family own, cracker?
Honey, not everyone is American. But you should put that great interest and concern for civil rights on the fascist government of your invented country, which is genociding millions of people. XO
May I suggest reviewing actual history. From 1948-1967 Egypt occupied Gaza and horribly oppressed Palestinians. Israel first occupied Gaza after they were yet again attacked by Arabs with the goal of annihilation. Gaza was released in 2006, Hamas and Fatah vied for control, Hamas killed Fatah opposition, and was ELECTED to govern Gaza. And continued to try to annihilate Israel. Then ask what was Egypt's role in oppressing the people of Gaza? Where are the bomb shelters? Why doesn't Hamas protect its own people in areas when Israel gives advance warning that they will attack? This can all be fact checked.
Well put in all regards. Depressing admittedly but accurate. Tough times ahead..
Very accurate and insightful essay. Thank you.
Two observations:
Firstly, regarding the statements
"the absurdity (and the injustice) of making individuals bear collective responsibility for acts they didn’t commit or condone. Between 2014 and 2019, the international coalition flattened entire historic cities: Mosul, Raqqa, Fallujah. Thirty-five thousand airstrikes. More than 90,000 dead. Over a million displaced. The damage was massive. The suffering real"
Wittingly or not this statement places Israel's prosecution of its war on the same footing as the the coalition's actions. It ignores that the enemy, Hamas, dresses as civilians, further embedding itself in the civilian population. It uses civilian housing and social infrastructures as bases of operation. The civilian population itself widely supported and cooperated with Hamas making them accessories before, to, and after the fact. It ignores that while war inevitably incurs civilian casualties, the ratio of civilian deaths to operative deaths is about 2:1, especially exceptional considering that this is urban, close-quarters warfare.
and
"no one would justify attacks or harassment of people in New York or London because of those bombings. No one did that after the Bataclan massacres in Paris. So, why is it acceptable when it’s Jews? Especially when Jews in France, Britain, or America aren’t Israelis; they’re members of a Diaspora, living thousands of miles away."
Secondly, it separates Israelis from Jews, intimating that Jews are not responsible for the so-called war crimes being committed by Israelis. However, in the non-Jewish mind, Israel is a Jewish state run by Jews, so whatever Israelis do it is Jews who are the perpetrators.
Regarding the epithet "Zionist," perhaps it is best to go on the offensive. We need to remind everyone at every opportunity that just as we call an Englishman, Ukraininian, Mexican, or citizen of any other land proud of his country a nationalist, so too, Zionists who stand for the peace, security, and safety of their historical, indigenous, ancestral homeland are nationalists. And Zionism is the Hebrew word for Nationalism.
AVI: thank you for your clarity and insights! Your personal experience with antisemitism in France and USA is invaluable. The Enlightenment--born in France and emulated in the USA--has created generations of communicative and brilliant scholars whose insights are beyond instructive. In the current Post-Enlightenment state, electronic media is a never-ending source of creative expression; in parallel, expressions of outrage are both via electronic dialogue and mass public protests. The number of assaults you describe in France and your friend objects to validating (lone wolf and small group tactics) occur within the context of mass global electronic communication which has little risk (unless one catches the attention of US NSA, EU Interpol, or US & NATO military intelligence). The empowering knowledge you and others provide is plentiful, whilst knowledge about empowering action is NOT AS FORTHCOMING. Situational awareness training, self-defense training, and carrying of legally permissible deterrents (e.g. bear spray, Krav Maga training, walking sticks, use of tactical gloves [reduces hand pain when throwing a punch]) if MATCHED WITH scholarly antisemitism writings could help ensure more members of our Jewish communities thrive after reading about, witnessing, or directly surviving lone wolf or group tactical assaults. Thank you again for your writings!
Excellent essay. Thank you. Now, friends tell me it is about the war in Gaza that Israel and the Jews are so hated all over the world.