Ishai Shvartz, a Redmond parent, is deeply bothered by an episode in school in which an offspring was asked to remove a Star of David necklace because, in the teacher’s words, “It’s not safe right now.” His kids have also brought home such remarks as, “I hate Israel” and, “Don’t worry, you’re one of the good ones.”
Such unsettling stories have prompted a wide range of area Jewish organizations to announce a new campaign — #CallOutHate, #CallitAntisemitism — an appeal for recognition and rejection of ugly age-old tropes that have of late experienced an unsettling revival.
Antisemitism reared its ugly head in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the first summer of Trump’s presidency as white supremacists marched to the chant of “Jews Will Not Replace Us” – and Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.” The country has since experienced a slaughter of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue and anti-Israel demonstrators chanting “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.”
Seattle’s Holocaust Education Center for Humanity described the phrase as “the pain of being hated.” Never mind that the Jewish community has a wide range of opinions about Prime Minister Netanyahu, his right-wing government and tactics employed in the Gaza war. Never mind participation of Jewish peace activists in calls for a cease fire.
“There is a difference” between condemning Israel’s actions “and saying it should not exist at all,” says Seattle lawyer Bridget Schuster. “I don’t think people understand that.” Of late, she added, “I feel called out and I feel my working relationships have changed.”
Listening to Jewish speakers this past Monday night brought memories of my own Catholic boyhood in Bellingham. My high school class had a program in which we visited my parish, a nearby Episcopal church, and the city’s local rabbi. As we headed out to Sacred Heart Church, I heard a classmate joke, “Those guys worship a bunch of statues.” The remark came to mind recently as a friend recalled being called out wearing a black hat on a Port Angeles bus and hearing a fellow passenger point him out with the words, “That’s a Jew.”
Characterizations are used to demean and will not die. The Rt. Rev. Edward Little is a retired Episcopal bishop, but with a Jewish mother who lost family in the Holocaust. He is known for calling out his denomination, not so much in its criticism of Israel but for stepping over into stereotypes about Jews as controlling, devious, and conspiratorial. Or as Redmond’s Shvartz put it to me this week: “Jews are blamed for whatever the problem of the day is.”
As a half-century resident of Seattle, I am old enough to remember anti-Jewish covenants being removed for local properties in the early 1970s. The city seemed to be passing beyond its prejudices and pioneering ecumenical dialogue. Fr. William Treacy, Rabbi Raphael Levine, and Rev. Martin Goslin talked each week on the KOMO-TV program “Challenge.” They also established Camp Brotherhood near Mount Vernon as a place that brought people of various faiths together to nourish Judeo-Christian ideals of brotherhood.
But antisemitism is a prejudice that won’t go away, nor will stereotypes. It “breeds conspiracy theories and misinformation,” said Solly Kane, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. And lately, in Bridget Schuster’s words, “It has become slightly unsafe to identify myself,” and “I feel called out and I feel my relationships have changed.”
The city experienced a deadly shooting at Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle offices a few years back. Swastikas have been scrawled on the walls of local synagogues. I had my day pack inspected when attending a forum at Temple de Hirsch Sinai. Israel is being accused of “genocide” in pro-Palestine demonstrations and on the website of The Stranger — a chilling word for those who know their history.
Derogatory terminology has reentered our politics. The GOP candidate for governor of North Carolina, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, ridiculed the blockbuster movie Black Panther with the words, “How can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your shvartze pockets, invoke any pride?” (He has apologized, but repeated the word “shvartze” on other occasions.)
Ex-President Trump in 2022 hosted at Mar a Lago two dinner guests known for virulent anti-Semitic rhetoric. Trump himself told a talk show recently: “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel.” During his first run for President, Trump contributed to stereotyping by telling the Republican Jewish Coalition that “you want to control your politicians,” and told his audience to use money to exercise control.
The new local effort is backed by 35 Jewish organizations and has four missions, in the words of Max Patashnik, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. The first is to support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. The second is to support efforts to achieve a long-term peace in the Middle East. The third is to maximize humanitarian aid in a region of great suffering. The fourth is to condemn stereotypes and generalized characterizations.
“We are calling on people to call out hate, to call out antisemitism,” said Shvartz. That’s a worthy calling. As Solly Kane pointed out at the Monday forum, “Antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine” when it comes to bigotry.
Well said, Joel. A timely column.
Hi Joel. You’ve been trained well, reflexively repeating the Zionist tropes we oldsters have heard over and over again. 1) “Israel has a right to exist.” Does it? Does any state, including the U.S., have such a right? There’s nothing In International law that guarantees a state’s right to exist. Maybe we should be focusing instead on the rights of both Jews and Palestinians to safety and dignity? They are more important than states. 2) “from the river to the sea” is an antisemitic slogan. Really? I know Hamas used this slogan in the past to call for the elimination of Jews from Palestine. But I also know many young pro-Palestinian protesters, including thousands of Jews, use the phrase only to mean that Palestinians throughout the Holy Land, in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and inside the green line, are united in their quest for freedom. Also, is it equally offensive when Likud uses the term – as it did in its founding charter, and as Bibi did more recently in defining Israeli “sovereignty?” I hear no such hand-wringing when the phrase is uttered by those with nukes and real power.
The youngsters could be more sensitive and strategic. And a small number are indeed antisemitic. But they aren’t wrong to question some of the shibboleths we oldsters have mindlessly adopted about Israel and Palestine.
Joel – Thank you for this article. It is a sad truth that anti-Jewish thoughts and deeds continue to flourish in American society. I am astonished that any American would succumb to the sickness of race hatred. But that isn’t the reason I am commenting.
Walter wrote, “…they aren’t wrong to question some of the shibboleths we oldsters have mindlessly adopted about Israel and Palestine.” I think this was unfair, a slight against us “oldsters” as well as everyone else who believes, as we do, in this right. Questioning the meaning of such slogans, and their effect on stifling rational discourse, is what I am concerned about.
I’m inclined to partially agree that the meaning of slogans like “Israel has a right to exist” and “from the river to the sea” mean different things in different contexts, and can change over time, however, I disagree with most of Walter’s assumptions as to what they mean in the mouths of the people chanting them in protest demonstrations.
To be sure, it is not a bad idea to re-examine old “truths” that we have long held to be self-evident. My point of disagreement concerns the suggestion that the statement, “Israel has a right to exist”, is a mere shibboleth — just a slogan or password signifying one’s political alignment, rather than a statement of fact that exists independently of who says it.
Even when chanted by pro-Israeli protesters, it is still a statement of fact. Israel is a state recognized by most other states on the globe, and enjoys the same rights to continue its existence as they have, regardless of whether we approve of their form of government or how it handles its internal affairs (though international law and practice permits foreign interference when another state’s legitimate and well-founded interests are threatened).
At the risk of further stirring up controversy I’ll add that, in my understanding of what nationhood comprises, Palestinian people — however defined — have an intrinsic right to form a nation-state and to govern themselves as they see fit. The practical question is, on what land, now controlled by whom? Solve that and you win a hundred dollars, as Groucho Marx would say.
Walter put quotation marks surrounding ‘ Israeli “sovereignty” ‘ (sic) which suggests that he believes a state is not sovereign by nature, which would be an absurdity. The basic principle behind statehood is that states possess internal sovereignty over their affairs, including security.
We Americans are of course free to express our disapproval of what government — any government of any state — says or does, but international law recognizes states as sovereign within their borders.
One can argue for or against the idea of Zionism, but the fact is that support for Israel has been American policy ever since Harry Truman was the first head of state to recognize Israel the same day Ben-Gurion declared it to be independent, on May 14, 1948. Israel is recognized by the majority of nations on the planet. The extent of US support for Israel, and policy support of any Israeli administration is a legitimate subject for debate.
You wrote,”…the rights of both Jews and Palestinians to safety and dignity… are more important than states.” I think most Americans would agree that protection of life and liberty is a human right for all people everywhere, but, sadly, it falls to individual states to ensure those rights, and even states with a strong record of protecting human rights within their own borders can and do at times assign a higher priority to other policy considerations when addressing life-or-death problems.
Although I disagree with some of Walter’s assumptions, he raised a good point about the young people demonstrating about Palestine and chanting “from the river to the sea”; they are young, and the writer of the article is old; I, too, belong to the “oldster” demographic, as I suspect Walter does as well.
Young people are surely right to question the received wisdom passed down from their elders. We older folks surely owe it to the younger generation to share what experience and wisdom we may have gained to help them develop their own views of what they should believe, and what cause is truly worthy of their passion and commitment.
So, what have I learned over the years?
You really can’t judge a book by its cover.
Things are seldom what they seem — “skim milk masquerades as cream’.
That matters which appear clear cut and simple of solution on first examination will often prove complex and confounding the closer you look.
That over time you will appreciate the wry wisdom behind the well-worn phrase, “More studies are necessary….”
Every opinion we hold as “truth” will contain certain assumptions, which may or may not hold true; until verified, our assertion of what IS true should be considered to be an as-yet unproven hypothesis.
We should accept the fact that we may be wrong at times.
We should not cling to old ideas just because we have held them for a long time; then again, there may be a good reason for an idea’s longevity.
Wow Mr. Hatch: Zionist tropes — really nice. I guess many of us drank the Kool-Aid and can’t think for ourselves. You overlay your own polemics and perspective on this article something you are certainly entitled to do, but Mr. Connelly is talking about anti-semitism. Of course it has increased as a spill-over from current events, but it has had a long-life as you well know of more than a thousand years before there was an Israel or a movement called Zionism. “From the River to the Sea” can clearly mean different things to different people but it is guileless of you to deny that for many it means the end of Israel and perhaps the loss of Jewish lives. I’m not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Hamas, as you appear to, that they no longer mean exactly that. 1200 dead people indicate otherwise as do a few hundred hostages. I am deeply saddened and angered by the horrible and unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands in Gaza and for many years with the Israeli government’s unyielding policies to the Palestinians. I know that many Jews, Israeli and not, share this view. Don’t let antipathy to Israel and Zionism obscure the fact that distaste with and hatred of Jews has always been part of American and even more, Europe’s fabric of life. I appreciate the passion of young people on the subject of current events. I also appreciate the longer view of older people. At the end of the day the question remains: Where do we go from here?
“Where do we go from here?” End the occupation and return the hostages. Along the way, stand squarely against anti-Semitism (which includes, as we Americans too often do, treating Jews who criticize Israel as self-haters or traitors) and try to stand just as firmly against Islamophobia and anti-Arab bigotry. Sign the interfaith Washington Solidarity Statement.
Where do we go from here? I thought Walt summed it up rather simply and elegantly:
“Maybe we should be focusing instead on the rights of both Jews and Palestinians to safety and dignity?”
Very well said, Joel!
Is Bridget Schuster saying that it is not anti semitic to say “I don’t agree with Israeli actions” but that it IS anti semitic to say “I don’t think Israel should
exist?” If that is her point, I don’t understand because both are just opinions about a country and not about the inherent value of its citizens. Please explain.
I’ve been renting a house on the Sammamish Plateau for decades. Many Muslims live here, and a few years ago a rambler house on a long parcel of land owned by Muslims was converted into a small, consecrated Mosque. I walked over to an open house they held. As the Muslim congregation grew, they applied for a permit to build a new, but still small Mosque as well as a parking lot. The objections to the parking lot bordered on the absurd but eventually common sense won out and non-Muslims sometimes rent the carefully lit parking lot for gatherings that require lots of space for cars.
Last Friday night, a night of public worship in Ramadan, as I drove to the grocery store I saw a sheriff’s car at one of the entrances to the parking lot sitting with red lights flashing, apparently warning away any would be attackers.
Anti-semitism is indeed deep and evil, but as the Muslim population grows, so does Islamophobia. Dark times.
You can abhor hate directed at a group defined by their fixed identity while simultaneously criticizing their behavior. But at a certain point the criticism can metastasize into an obsession with the transgressions of that group, especially when your ideological faction has given you permission to demonize them.
It’s easy to find people nowadays on social media or at political rallies who are pathologically focused on the criminality of blacks, or the villainy of Jews, or the perversion of transwomen, or the the recidivism of migrants. The exact point where they’ve crossed the line isn’t always well-defined. But it’s pretty clear what’s going on when you see mobs who are fixated on sex crimes committed by trans-identifying individuals but ignore those perpetrated by straight men, or who are preoccupied by the transgressions of the IDF in Gaza but are silent about the brutality of the PLA in Xinjiang or of the Burmese military in Rakhine state.
gun crimes might not be well defined, is not always easily discerned, as if often is with prejudices, but it’s easy to see it happening around us at an alarming scale.
You can abhor hate directed at a group defined by their fixed identity while simultaneously criticizing their behavior. But at a certain point the criticism can metastasize into an obsession with the transgressions of that group, especially when your ideological faction has given you permission to demonize them.
It’s easy to find people nowadays on social media or at political rallies who are pathologically focused on the criminality of blacks, or the villainy of Jews, or the perversion of transwomen, or the the recidivism of migrants. The exact point where they’ve crossed the line isn’t always well-defined. But it’s pretty clear what’s going on when you see mobs who are fixated on sex crimes committed by trans-identifying individuals but ignore those perpetrated by straight men, or who are preoccupied by the transgressions of the IDF in Gaza but are silent about the brutality of the PLA in Xinjiang or of the Burmese military in Rakhine state.
It’s interesting that Joel Connelly chooses this time of horrific famine inflicted upon Palestinians by Israel to talk about Israel’s right to exist. That same old trope. He is apparently undeterred by the shocking attacks by Israel on hospitals, aid workers, civilians, children…all in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, of course, which Israel signed onto, No, Joel, unswayed by the horrific deaths by starvation in Gaza, brings out the same tired arguments about antisemitism. Anyone hat criticizes Israel is tantamount to antisemitic, but not one word does he utter about Islamophobia. Nothing about Palestinian children’s right to exist. About Palestinian families who have a right to eat, to have access to hospitals, doctors, food. They have a right to bury their dead, including a prominent Palestinian author, without violent attacks and arrests by Israel soldiers. All captured on video. Shame on you.