Anti-Semitism is Exhausting
Sep. 4th, 2020 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretSmell the Anti-Semitism
In early 2017 I wrote a facebook post, but I think I didn't end up posting it because it didn't really feel like it was worth the argument it would provoke with my lefty friends. It was centered around a piece of math. In 2014 and 2015 each, there were about 900 anti-semitic incidents recorded by the ADL. That works out to about 3 a day. That's just normal. Obviously you don't read in the newspaper every day about 3 incidents of anti-semitism, unless you read the Jewish press, in which case you do get a barrage of news about anti-semitic incidents. And then suddenly in 2017, Trump got elected and the New York Times was reporting about anti-semitic incidents every other day, and I was seeing all my lefty goyish friends talking on Facebook about how Trump had emboldened anti-semities.
What the math means for goyim is that if you want to politicize anti-semitism, all you need to do is start publicizing it in the mainstream press. If suddenly you start putting every anti-semitic attack in the New York Times after Trump is elected President, it will seem like anti-semitism is on the rise, when it might or might not be true. (By all accounts it does seem like anti-semitic incidents rose after Trump was elected... 4 or 5 incidents a day instead of 3. Is that a notable rise? I dunno.) The Algemeiner, a right wing Jewish newspaper, wrote a memorable article in 2017 after there were a couple of Jewish cemeteries desecrated, reminding everyone that a whole bunch of cemeteries got desecrated when Obama was President, because Jewish cemeteries getting desecrated is normal, it just happens.
I wanted to warn people not to assign political meaning to the anti-semitism, it's just a thing Jews have to endure because it's probably not going to get better and it might get worse. Newspaper headlines about anti-semitic attacks are not on their own proof that Trump is emboldening the right.
But I feel like the article I linked has fallen victim to the same fallacy in spite of not pushing a specific political agenda, the fallacy of thinking that the fact that there's a lot of anti-semitism happening now that the author is aware of means that it's a new phenomenon. The reality is that Jews are just always hated. It's not new. Any year you want to make seem bad, you can dig up the Jewish Week and find plenty of examples to horrify yourself.
This is an exhausting reality.
To this NY metro area Jew, this is crazy. Swastikas getting graffitied in the city is not a new thing, it's not a reason to flee, it's just life. The idea that London in 2014 suddenly became dangerous for Jews and it was time to leave is a sign of a bizarrely privileged Jewish identity.
American Jewry is not unaware of anti-semitism, we're not fucking sleepwalking through it, but where are we going to go that's better? And so we fortify our synagogues and pass quiet notes back and forth about threats, and we pray.
In early 2017 I wrote a facebook post, but I think I didn't end up posting it because it didn't really feel like it was worth the argument it would provoke with my lefty friends. It was centered around a piece of math. In 2014 and 2015 each, there were about 900 anti-semitic incidents recorded by the ADL. That works out to about 3 a day. That's just normal. Obviously you don't read in the newspaper every day about 3 incidents of anti-semitism, unless you read the Jewish press, in which case you do get a barrage of news about anti-semitic incidents. And then suddenly in 2017, Trump got elected and the New York Times was reporting about anti-semitic incidents every other day, and I was seeing all my lefty goyish friends talking on Facebook about how Trump had emboldened anti-semities.
What the math means for goyim is that if you want to politicize anti-semitism, all you need to do is start publicizing it in the mainstream press. If suddenly you start putting every anti-semitic attack in the New York Times after Trump is elected President, it will seem like anti-semitism is on the rise, when it might or might not be true. (By all accounts it does seem like anti-semitic incidents rose after Trump was elected... 4 or 5 incidents a day instead of 3. Is that a notable rise? I dunno.) The Algemeiner, a right wing Jewish newspaper, wrote a memorable article in 2017 after there were a couple of Jewish cemeteries desecrated, reminding everyone that a whole bunch of cemeteries got desecrated when Obama was President, because Jewish cemeteries getting desecrated is normal, it just happens.
I wanted to warn people not to assign political meaning to the anti-semitism, it's just a thing Jews have to endure because it's probably not going to get better and it might get worse. Newspaper headlines about anti-semitic attacks are not on their own proof that Trump is emboldening the right.
But I feel like the article I linked has fallen victim to the same fallacy in spite of not pushing a specific political agenda, the fallacy of thinking that the fact that there's a lot of anti-semitism happening now that the author is aware of means that it's a new phenomenon. The reality is that Jews are just always hated. It's not new. Any year you want to make seem bad, you can dig up the Jewish Week and find plenty of examples to horrify yourself.
This is an exhausting reality.
In 2014, London was becoming an eyebrow-raising place to be Jewish (swastikas graffitied in the city, kosher food boycotted from major supermarket chains, etc.), and Los Angeles was still allegedly the golden Medina. So I jumped ship.
To this NY metro area Jew, this is crazy. Swastikas getting graffitied in the city is not a new thing, it's not a reason to flee, it's just life. The idea that London in 2014 suddenly became dangerous for Jews and it was time to leave is a sign of a bizarrely privileged Jewish identity.
American Jewry is not unaware of anti-semitism, we're not fucking sleepwalking through it, but where are we going to go that's better? And so we fortify our synagogues and pass quiet notes back and forth about threats, and we pray.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-09-04 01:54 pm (UTC)Yep. That's the emes.
Shabbat shalom to you and yours. (Because that's what we can really do: we can make Shabbes. Even in the face of a world that sucks. Because that's what we've always done, and what we will always do.)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-09-04 06:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-09-05 06:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-09-10 05:07 pm (UTC)To me, definitely! A rise by a third seems like a lot. But I definitely take your overall point and think it's an important one. I found the article you linked frustrating – a lot of it was broadly accurate, but to me at least, misleading, particularly in how it conceptualises lefty perspectives. (Which of course leaves me suspicious of its discussion of the right, which I know less about.) Dear article writer, pls some statistics and/or specific examples.
In particular, I wrote like 3 paragraphs about how “in Britain, we don't deny that anti-Semitism exists” is utter shameless bollocks and then deleted it out of mercy, lmao. But WOW that is not at all my experience. It was briefly and intensely discussed, and that discussion promptly evaporated, and we're back to “it'll go away if we pretend it's not there”.
To this NY metro area Jew, this is crazy. Swastikas getting graffitied in the city is not a new thing, it's not a reason to flee, it's just life. The idea that London in 2014 suddenly became dangerous for Jews and it was time to leave is a sign of a bizarrely privileged Jewish identity.
Interesting. I definitely remember noticing swastikas in London twice around that time, and being surprised (& upset) - but ofc it's very possible it'd been going on before and I hadn't noticed.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-09-10 05:27 pm (UTC)Possibly it is significant! But it depends how you count, and it depends on what gets reported, and it doesn't really palpably change the fact that this is just a background of life as an American Jew. I'm not going to bother to do the research so I may have this wrong, but I think the numbers reported for 2017 were the worst since, like, 2003. So not, you know, the worst numbers seen since 1939 or anything.