“Some people say they love Jews, but they don’t like Israel. But if a person is anti-Israel in the sense of being against the Jewish state and they support BDS they are anti-Semitic 100 percent. BDS is absolutely like what the Nazis did in Germany in terms of discriminating against Jewish businesses.”
“I think President Trump’s record speaks for itself. It is obvious that he has supported Israel and Jewish causes for the past three years unequivocally; he doesn’t flinch. “
“I cannot stand ‘the squad.’ I cannot stand where they’re coming from. And then there’s Bernie Sanders who I don’t understand at all. He worked on a kibbutz and members of his family on his father’s side were killed by Hitler. I don’t know why he became a socialist. If he’s elected, it will destroy the country.”
“It’s the far-right that holds marches and says ‘Jews will not replace us.’ It’s the far-right who are unabashedly anti-Semitic and racist. No question about it. But I don’t let the left off the hook either. I marched in Washington the day after the inauguration. I had my pink hat and I was very proud. But when two of the organizers ended up defending Louis Farrakhan and refused to condemn the anti-Semitism, I stopped paying attention to them. I push delete every time they send me something. And ‘the squad’ needs an education. Ilhan Omar apologized after one anti-Semitic comment and then proceeded to make a couple more, and that is not okay with me. I would love to sit down with her or ‘the squad’ and talk about what they’re doing, and how they’re splintering the left.”
“The rise of hate attacks against Jews in our country is appalling. It’s not only the shootings and stabbings but the fact that in my synagogue we have to have a police officer during Shabbat services. We’re living in a time where we feel so unsafe to be Jewish in our community that we have to pay a law enforcement officer to stand outside of our shul. That for me is the most frustrating thing of all. You can’t even live a normal life when you feel that you’re constantly having to watch your back.”
“I do believe the BDS movement is inherently anti-Semitic. I don’t think it’s just about rights for Palestinians. I think it’s anti-Semitic in its roots and that’s where the folks who are driving it are coming from.”
“President Trump didn’t invent this stuff, but he’s certainly been the cheerleader-in-chief. He has been a catalyst and encourager for the spread of hate and racism in a way that I’ve never seen before. All we have to do is watch Trump’s rallies. They’re very violent. They really remind one of the Nuremberg rallies under the Nazis. They are not so dissimilar.”
“In general, when politicians talk about anti-Semitism, they mix it up with this greater concept of overall hatred and bigotry. Anti-Semitism has always been a unique and pernicious disease. It is not the same thing as discriminating against Muslims or African Americans. It’s its own unique thing. And too often politicians conflate all of these unacceptable attitudes without singling out a hatred (toward Jews), which is and always has been a special pathology of the human condition.”
“Anti-Semitism on left is about policy, it’s not racial. The far-right thinks we are a different race. In Israel, they are not treating Palestinians equally. They are second-class citizens. I’ve been there many times and it’s like South Africa under Apartheid. People who feel the Israeli government is treating people like second-class citizens are not anti-Semitic. I don’t take it personally if they hate me. I don’t support Israel (politically) right now but I still buy Israeli products and would fly El Al.”
“Historically, I was far more concerned about white nationalism on the right. Trump’s part of it—he’s a reflection of it. He’s brought it out into the open. But I’ve been doing reading about the divestment movement on campuses and it just doesn’t make sense to me that Israel is the country that’s attacked for human rights when there’s mass genocide going on in other parts of the world. Yet somehow Israel is the one that’s targeted both in the United Nations and with divestment. I do see that coming from the left, which is the direction I lean so it concerns me.”
“We need a decent person, someone with integrity, who ends up in the presidency and then has the moral standing to be able to start addressing some of these issues. For me, anyone on the Democratic side would be able to accomplish that, whether they’re my favorite candidate or not. As we’re seeing in Washington every day right now, we just need different leadership at the top that tells the truth and really tries to bring some decency, caring and compassion back into our government and in our national discourse.”
“I think Democrats need to do a better job of not getting on the Republican bandwagon that characterizes Representatives Omar and Pressley as anti-Semites, which they are not. It’s dangerous when this rhetoric refers to them as anti-Semitic simply because they critique Israel.”
