It took the Holocaust to make casual anti-Jewish talk so toxic that polite society wouldn’t stand for it. Eroding that sense of toxicity is much easier; internet memes can do it. But it’s also possible to invite backlash against strong, important taboos by clinging to weaker ones that are broader than necessary. We ignore the distinction at our peril.
Ilhan Omar’s tweets caused a controversy. But anti-Semitism in Congress is nothing new.
Nathan Guttman’s “Five Things” Column lists all the issues you should watch this coming week.
Last week, Republican Lee Zeldin introduced House Resolution 72. Its title, “Rejecting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred in the United States and around the world,” should have promised a wide bipartisan group of co-sponsors rushing to sign on.
Billionaire George Soros has been accused of being a Nazi collaborator. This story tells how this anti-Semitic trope went from the extreme to the mainstream.
Our reaction to the events in Pittsburgh began with mourning for the victims. From mourning we moved to the legitimate fear that comes from living in a nation where easily procured weapons of mass death terrorize people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people and—as always—Jews.
Seriously, for a White House struggling to shake off criticism of being too hospitable to extremists and anti-Semites on the margins of its support base, the Trump administration’s reluctance to fill the of anti-Semitism envoy is starting to raise concerns.
The Anti-Semitism Monitor reports anti-Semitic incidents around the world by country and date on a weekly basis.
In 2014, four people were shot to death at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, two years after the killings of four Jews, including three children, at the Ozar Hatorah School in Toulouse in the south of France. These tragedies and others like them made it clear that anti-Semitism, that pernicious prejudice, was alive and well.
