The Rise of Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: Philip Carl Salzman, FCPP, Nov. 14, 2017— At one of Canada’s elite universities, McGill University in Montreal, a series of disturbing anti-Semitic incidents have drawn wide attention and unsettled Jewish students and faculty members.
A New Anti-Semitism is Growing in America and We Must Unite Against It: Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman, Fox News, Nov. 24, 2017 — Hatred of Jews is an ancient cancer of the soul that refuses to die.
Antisemitism As a Gateway to Terrorism: Ramy Aziz, ISGAP, Nov. 27, 2017— Antisemitism is one of the most lethal diseases of hatred that has ever faced humanity…
Amid Celebrations of Martin Luther, Some Want to Talk About His Anti-Semitism: Verónica Zaragovia, Tablet, Oct. 31, 2017— Is the war in Syria won?
Alberta Professor Accused of Anti-Semitic Views Reinstated: J.W. Schnarr, Lethbridge Herald, Nov. 23, 2017
Roger Waters Hits Another Wall, Losing German Broadcasters’ Backing Because of His Support for BDS: Liel Leibovitz, Tablet, Nov. 29, 2017
France Submits to Terrorism, Muslim Anti-Semitism: Guy Millière, Gatestone Institute, Nov. 28, 2017
The Plame Truth About Antisemitism in America: Gary C. Gambill, The Jewish Exponent, Nov. 1, 2017
THE RISE OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Philip Carl Salzman
FCPP, Nov. 14, 2017
At one of Canada’s elite universities, McGill University in Montreal, a series of disturbing anti-Semitic incidents have drawn wide attention and unsettled Jewish students and faculty members. There have been repeated campaigns to “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction”(BDS) Israel, the homeland of the Jewish People. The McGill Daily student newspaper has an established policy of rejecting any article supporting or defending Zionism, the national movement of the Jews, or presenting Israel in any but a negative fashion. Most recently, in response to the failure of the BDS movement to be validated at McGill by the Student Society Judicial Board , disappointed supporters voted down three nominated members of the Student Society Board of Directors, one Jewish and two not, on the grounds that their ties to Jewish organizations and/or their supportive attitudes toward Israel made them biased.
Some Canadian Jewish organizations have raised concern about this, and, for its own part, the McGill Administration, which does not support the BDS movement, and favours inclusiveness, has launched an investigation. Anti-Semitism is not a new phenomenon. For two thousand years there was an element of anti-Semitism in Christianity, with Jews being blamed for rejecting the Messiah and even for the death of Jesus. Anti-Jewish texts can be found among both Roman Catholics and Protestants, most notably in the (work) of Martin Luther and other reformers. But over the years, traditional Christian anti-Semitism gradually declined in Western Europe and most of North America, although not in much of Eastern Europe and not in Quebec. After World War Two, and the Holocaust, anti-Semitism because less fashionable in Western Europe and North America Nonetheless, in both the U.S. and Canada, hate crime against religion has traditionally overwhelmingly targeted Jews.
In the 21st century, anti-Semitism has taken a new form, hatred of the Jewish people in their collective representations, particularly hatred of Israel. This is not a matter of criticism of government policies of Israel, as one might make of policies of the U.S., Russia, or China. Rather, this hatred is reflected in the demand and intention that Israel be destroyed. We hear this regularly from Iran, Palestinian Hamas, Hezbollah, and, more stealthfully from Palestinian Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, as well as from the European, Canadian, and American supporters of these organizations.
Hatred of Jews is also manifested in identifying Jews as a cause of evil in the world, which is common among Imams during mosque sermons, as well as in the intention to cleanse the world of all Jews: “the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)….’” This hatred is seen in the double standard applied to Israel, in which it is uniquely condemned for crimes against humanity, without ever considering other states, such as Iran, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Syria, for their crimes against humanity. But, of course, for anti-Semites, only Israel in all the world is to be condemned.
There are two main sources of contemporary anti-Semitism, particularly of hatred of the Jewish People and of their homeland, Israel. One source is the “progressive” left, which dominates higher education, especially in the social “sciences,” humanities, social work, and education. Remarkably, after Marxism failed in many places in the world, having mainly produced despotism, poverty, and death, it was wholeheartedly adopted by Western academics as the new Truth. Marxism-Leninism became the framework through which most Western academics viewed the world. After celebrations of the classical Marxist class struggle which never arrived, attention turned to Lenin’s imperialism theories, and became the dominant model, under such labels as “political economy”, “globalization”, “political ecology”, and, most popular, “postcolonialism”.
This approach is applied to the Jewish state, arguing that Israel was a colony of the West, that it was an imperialist settler state, oppressing and supplanting the” “indigenous” Palestinians, and, in the last weeks, that it is a white, supremacist state. This is the account of Israel taught by many professors in Western colleges and universities. In my own faculty, for example, dozens of professors from Anthropology, Political Science, Islamic Studies, History, and other departments published a letter announcing that they took this particular view of Israel and they supported BDS. In the BDS vote held last year by the American Anthropological Association, almost half of the Anthropoligists voting, voted in favour of boycotting Israel. In contrast, no boycotts were proposed in any BDS supporting academic organization for boycotting China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, or even the Islamic State.
Nothing in the Marxist, postcolonial model actually fits Israel. As is well known, Jews occupied the entire area of ancient Judea and Israel, and were the only people there when the Romans invaded prior to the birth of Christ. It was, after all, the Romans who renamed the territory “Palestine,” to erase the memory of the Jews who fought against them for two centuries.
As for modern Israel, no Western country sent Jews as a colonial force to their ancient homeland in Palestine; rather, Europeans, especially the British, did everything possible to keep Jews from emigrating to Palestine. As for being Western and white, half of all Israeli Jews are of mizrahi or of Sephardic origin, that is, of Middle Eastern ethnic background. This does not include the Israelis from East Asian, South Asian, and Ethiopian origins, who add to population of non-European Jews in Israel. Arabs came relatively late to Palestine, initially in the 7th century, replacing the Roman Byzantines. Today, Arabs represent around 20% of Israelis, most of whom are Israeli citizens, and of whom around 80% are Muslims. All citizens of Israel, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, have the same legal status. All can vote in the only democracy in the Middle East. As well, Arabs and Muslims have positions in all professions and institutions, governmental and civilian. Accusations of apartheid are risible…
[To Read the Full Article With Footnotes Click the Following Link—Ed.]
A NEW ANTI-SEMITISM IS GROWING IN AMERICA
Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman
Fox News, Nov. 24, 2017
Hatred of Jews is an ancient cancer of the soul that refuses to die. For thousands of years, successive generations of bigots have embraced it, each trying to sell anti-Semitism in a new and more attractive way, with new lies and slanders. One of the most prominent peddlers of this vile doctrine in America today is Palestinian-American Linda Sarsour. And now, in a supreme irony, Sarsour has been invited to head a panel discussion Tuesday at the New School for Social Research in New York City on combating anti-Semitism. This makes as much sense as inviting a Ku Klux Klan leader to head a discussion on combating racism, or inviting disgraced filmmaker Harvey Weinstein to head a discussion on combating sexual misconduct.
Sadly, Sarsour is just one of many enablers and inciters of a troubling new anti-Semitism growing in America today, especially on college campuses, where it is poisoning young minds. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, this new anti-Semitism seeks to disguise itself – often by posing as a progressive movement supporting human rights of Palestinians. But like the wolf that masquerades as a sheep, the modern-day Jew-haters are what they are, regardless of how they seek to cover it up.
Sarsour gained instant media celebrity status as co-chair of the National Women’s March protesting in Washington against President Trump the day after his inauguration. She was warmly embraced by many as a leader of the so-called “resistance” to our new president. Speaking to the Islamic Society of North America in July, Sarsour said that Muslims are “struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world (she means Israel), but here in these United States of America where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.”
And Sarsour is also a strong supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The movement compares Israel to South Africa under its former white minority government that discriminated against nonwhites. BDS seeks to isolate Israel from the world as an international pariah, calling for the end to investment, trade, cultural and academic ties with the Jewish State. The BDS movement echoes the boycott of Jewish businesses ordered by Adolf Hitler after he became the dictator of Germany in 1933. The Star of David was painted on the doors and windows of businesses owned by Jews, along with anti-Semitic slogans and signs saying “Don’t Buy from Jews.”
And while Sarsour asserts she is not against the existence of Israel, her claim is absurd. She wants to replace Israel with a “one-state solution” in which the culture and identities of over 6 million Jewish citizens would be extinguished and subsumed under a nation combining Israel, the West Bank and Gaza that would quickly have an Arab majority. Making Jews a minority in the land of Israel, which was created to be the only Jewish state on Earth, would turn the country into yet another Arab-majority Mideast nation. From Morocco to Iraq, those nations drove out most of their Jewish citizens decades ago and have a long record of discrimination against the few who remained. Israeli Jews would meet a similar fate, or worse.
Sarsour is a symptom of worsening anti-Semitism in America. In 2016, despite constituting under 2 percent of the U.S. population, Jews were the targets of 684 of the 1,273 anti-religion incidents tallied by the FBI – more than double all other anti-religious attacks combined. Most of the incidents involved damage or vandalism against synagogues and cemeteries. But 238 involved ugly intimidation on our nation’s campuses. FBI findings are echoed by an Anti-Defamation League report that shows anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. surged by more than one-third in 2016, and by an astounding 86 percent in the first quarter of 2017. This includes a doubling of anti-Semitic bullying and vandalism at schools.
Fortunately, there is no indication that most Americans have embraced anti-Jewish attitudes. A 2017 Pew Poll shows that 67 percent of Americans have “warm” views about Jews. However, there are troubling signs. For example: Anti-Semitic incidents on America’s top college campuses from 2014 to 2015 are increasing. Most involve intimidation of Jewish students who support Israel, pressure to disinvite or silence pro-Israel speakers, and the de-legitimization of Israel by a double standard applied to no other nation; The BDS movement is growing on college campuses, supporting by vicious lies alleging Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. Some professors support this movement and its lies; Vandalism continues at synagogues and Jewish cemeteries. Jewish institutions are forced to spend large sums on security measures, fearing attacks like the recent murderous rampage at a church in Texas…
[To Read the Full Article With Footnotes Click the Following Link—Ed.]
ANTISEMITISM AS A GATEWAY TO TERRORISM
Ramy Aziz
ISGAP, Nov. 27, 2017
Antisemitism is one of the most lethal diseases of hatred that has ever faced humanity; it led to the Holocaust, a horrific and premeditated tragedy of human history, which resulted in the murder of millions of innocent lives and erased thousands of towns and villages from the map. Yet, despite centuries of antisemitism, this genocidal ideology still exists today. In fact, it is increasing at alarming rates, both in the East and in the West. In fact, antisemitism has become one of the most common tools used by political Islamist terror groups as a way of gaining sympathy and support, spreading extremism, and recruiting new members. This process is carried out using different methods, depending on the receiving audience. As demonstrated below, terrorist groups market extremist ideologies differently in the East and in the West.
In the West, specifically in Europe, terrorists and extremist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and Hamas — a designated terrorist organization according to the European Court of Justice— are working under the cover of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and student unions, thereby engaging in clear and severe violations of European laws, while simultaneously taking advantage of European freedom and democracy. These extremist groups exploit their presence in universities and other social and political circles to promote lies, falsify facts, and present a distorted narrative of the ongoing conflict between Israel and terror organizations. They solicit empathy by using the rhetoric of “resistance” in order to gain the support of young people and the European community, who remain unaware of the nuances and context of the Arab-Israeli conflict or the destructive role of terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
These terrorist groups cooperate with other factions of political Islam that have been gaining traction in Europe in order to organize events that urge Europeans to put pressure on their governments and parliamentary and economic institutions to boycott Israel. They use speech that is loaded with hatred and violence against the Jews, presenting an outrageous picture of antisemitism in Europe, the continent that bore witness to one of the most terrible crimes in human history.
Today, antisemitism in Europe has reached dangerous levels, enabling prominent European politicians, such as Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the British Labour Party, to call for removing terror organizations, including Hamas and Hezbollah, which he calls ”friends,” from both the British and European lists of terrorist organizations. This shows how many young Europeans and politicians have moved to support terrorism from the gateway of antisemitism, which remains deeply rooted in European societies until today.
In the East, terrorist and extremist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others, depend on the principle of Jihad against the Jews and the restoration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque to recruit Muslim youth and use them to carry out various terrorist activities. To perform this task, these groups use religious texts and interpretations, which present Jews as the enemy of Islam and promote the idea that God has ordered Muslims to kill Jews “wherever you may find them.”
Extremist Islamic currents are competing to use antisemitism and the fight against the Jews as a way of gaining legitimacy and attracting the largest number of supporters and fighters to their ranks. The Muslim Brotherhood has used this ideology since its establishment, as is evident in many of the organization’s writings, most notably in Muslim Brotherhood leader Sayyid Qutb’s book, Our Battle with the Jews. Hamas also uses antisemitic propaganda, based on the same doctrinal interpretations, in order to raise funds to execute terrorist operations, under the banner of Jihad against the Jews, while also attempting to gain support in an effort to displace Fatah, its main political rival…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
AMID CELEBRATIONS OF MARTIN LUTHER,
SOME WANT TO TALK ABOUT HIS ANTI-SEMITISM
Verónica Zaragovia
Tablet, Oct. 31, 2017
In Wittenberg, Germany, right now, walking around without a city map in one hand and camera in the other makes you stand out. The Protestant Reformation began, one could argue, 500 years ago this month, and tourists have been coming in droves to its birthplace. Martin Luther did not begin the Reformation but gave it a major kick in the pants here, and just about everything here is named after him, including the city’s official name, which in 1938 became Lutherstadt Wittenberg…
According to legend, on Oct. 31, 1517, Luther nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the wooden doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. In his theses, Luther criticized the pope and Catholic Church practices like the selling of indulgences for redemption (when in reality, Luther wrote, the money was for renovations of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome). The doors burned down in 1760, but because of the printing press’s advent, copies of Luther’s work went viral, and he helped splinter the Catholic Church. But Luther wrote more than just the 95 Theses. He’s also the author of a corpus of virulent anti-Jewish writings. Over the next 30 years, as Protestantism took root, Luther evolved from being tolerant of Jews, hopeful they could become good Christians, to being disgusted with them. He described Jews as blasphemous, contaminators and murderers who should be expelled by Protestant authorities.
Helena Fuentes, a nun with the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt, near Frankfurt, wants people to acknowledge this dark side of Luther before celebrating the Reformation. On Wednesdays, she joins other members of the Sisterhood who stand by Wittenberg’s main square with Pastor Thomas Piehler of the Andreas Church in Leipzig. Together, they’ve been hosting silent vigils calling for an anti-Semitic stone relief on a historic Wittenberg church to come down. The relief is called a Judensau, or Jewish sow, high up on an exterior wall of St. Mary’s Town Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where Luther preached. “Praise of God and Jew hate do not belong together,” Piehler added. He and the nuns hold banners with statements, in German, like “Luther used the Judensau for his anti-Semitism” and “Let’s call it Luthersau. Then would you take it down?”
Luther wrote about this relief in 1543 in On the Schem Hamphoras. The title of his work refers to the nonsensical name of the Wittenberg relief, apparently a play on the Hebrew term shem ha-meforash, which refers to God’s name. Luther describes the rabbi as looking under the sow’s tail into the Talmud, insinuating that the ancient writings on Jewish law and tradition were in her bowels. Earlier this year, the Wittenberg city council voted to keep the Judensau on the church, arguing that to do so preserves history. Piehler, though, hopes the attention paid to this Judensau could renew the debate. “So many articles have been published in Germany and this question has once again come to the table,” Piehler said. “That is very important to me—that the discussion does not stop there, and of course, our hope is that the Judensau is taken down in the Jubilee year.”
Historian Mirko Gutjahr, of the Luther Memorials Foundation, points out the downside of taking it down. Gutjahr is a curator of the Wittenberg exhibit “Luther 95 Treasures 95 People,” which includes pieces related to Luther’s anti-Judaism. If a museum displays the Judensau within its walls, only people “coming to the museum to learn things,” would see this stone relief, Gutjahr said. He doesn’t think that’s an effective way to combat anti-Semitism. Instead, everyone should have access to the Judensau. It should stay exposed in the city “like an open wound,” Gutjahr said. But he, like Piehler, believes the topic, and Luther’s anti-Judaism more generally, should be debated. “Parts of the world are taking up ideas which we thought would be now in the backdrops of history again,” Gutjahr said, referring to current anti-immigrant sentiment—in medieval Germany, a Judensau was supposed to deter Jews from settling in an area. You should not leave it out, he believes, “since it’s part of the history as well, part of the Reformation and part of Martin Luther.”
Another question, still unresolved, is how much to blame Luther for Nazism, centuries later. Julius Streicher, who published some of the most hateful propaganda against Jews in his anti-Semitic newspaper, Der Stürmer, brought up Luther during his trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. “Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants’ dock today if this book had been taken into consideration by the prosecution,” Streicher said in the morning session on April 29, 1946. “In the book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent’s brood, and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them…” Later that year, the tribunal convicted him of crimes against humanity, and he was hanged. Others ask whether this is an anachronistic reading of history. Luther certainly was not the only one of his time to bash Jews. Plus, Luther also attacked Turks, Islam, and the papacy. “This is precisely the opportunity to ask those kinds of questions,” said Dean Bell, professor of history at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago, who’s been speaking at and attending recent events on Luther…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
CIJR Wishes All Our Friends & Supporters: Shabbat Shalom!
Alberta Professor Accused of Anti-Semitic Views Reinstated: J.W. Schnarr, Lethbridge Herald, Nov. 23, 2017—A professor accused of espousing anti-Semitic views has been reinstated at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta.
Roger Waters Hits Another Wall, Losing German Broadcasters’ Backing Because of His Support for BDS: Liel Leibovitz, Tablet, Nov. 29, 2017—When activist Malca Goldstein-Wolf learned that former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters was slated to play Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany next June, and that the concert will be sponsored by the public broadcast Westdeutscher Rundfunkshe (WDR), she took to Facebook to protest against using taxpayer money to fund a man she labeled a “Jew-hater.”
France Submits to Terrorism, Muslim Anti-Semitism: Guy Millière, Gatestone Institute, Nov. 28, 2017—In Bagneux, France, on November 1, 2017, a plaque placed in memory of Ilan Halimi, a young Jew murdered in 2006 by a "gang of barbarians", was destroyed and covered with graffiti. When a few days later, another plaque replaced it, the French government issued a statement that "hate will not win".
The Plame Truth About Antisemitism in America: Gary C. Gambill, The Jewish Exponent, Nov. 1, 2017—No one born into this world makes it very far without developing subconscious prejudices of one kind or another.
