Sparks Fly at a Hamptons Kiddush

As it happened, the services took place on the same Saturday morning that The New York Times reported that the Anti-Defamation League—which is really just a fancy way of saying Abe Foxman—denounced the idea of allowing the construction of an Islamic cultural center two blocks north of where the 9/11 attacks took place, joining numerous Republican candidates and would-be candidates for office, including Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin. His reasoning is truly incomprehensible. Foxman admits that Muslims “may have every right to build at this site” but opposes it nevertheless. Just as “survivors of the Holocaust are entitled to feelings that are irrational,” Foxman explained, so are the loved ones of September 11 victims. “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted,” he told the reporter.

So because Foxman is upset about Nazis murdering Jews 70 years ago, Muslims are not entitled to practice the freedom of religion guaranteed them by the United States Constitution. You would think a grown man would be ashamed to make such an argument in public, much less one who pretends to speak for “anti-defamation.” Perhaps the organization founded in 1913, which describes its mission to “fight anti-Semitism” and “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all” should be amended to include “except when it upsets a few alter kockers, then it’s okay.”

My questions: How long are we going to tolerate these irrational racists as responsible, respected members of the Jewish community? How corrupted by the Holocaust and by Israel’s 62 years of war are American Jews that such statements do not offend their sense of logic, if not of shame?

Eric Alterman is a professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and City University of New York’s graduate school. His latest book is Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America.