There is no question that there is clearly a dramatic increase in anti-Semitic incidents, violence, and statements which have been evident over the past several years especially beginning with the “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017. This spike or even trend has been sparked by extremist groups, public figures, university protests, media coverage, and general civic unrest. The causes for this resurgence of this classical hatred is not new. It is prevalent on the left and right, domestically as well as globally, live and in cyberspace, in the U.S and aboard. The forms in which anti-Semitism is appearing include those based on religion, race, ethnicity, and politics. This hatred is both anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Anti-Semitism is escalating, tolerated and accepted.
These are some of the anti-Semitic events from last week:
1. In Philadelphia on July 4, a group of 150-200 Patriot Front members marched through Center City wearing tan pants and black shirts reminiscent of the Nazi brown shirts. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) this is a Texas based white supremacist group that “espouses racism, anti-Semitism, and intolerance’ seeking to preserve the “ethnic and cultural origins” of America’s heritage. Until they were dispersed, they were chanting to “reclaim America” and “the election was stolen.”
2. In Brighton, Massachusetts, a Chabad rabbi was picking up his child at a summer school/day camp program. He was attacked and repeatedly stabbed while waiting outside the school and was hospitalized. His assailant, Khaled Awad, was captured, and is being held.
3. The New York Times reported that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Boston Fine Arts Museum are unwilling to recognize that they hold in their collections today significant works of art which were sold in the spring of 1933 as the Nazi’s forced the Jewish owners to divest themselves of these works which sold at extremely low prices. Numerous European museums have arranged to return, compensate, or provide restitution to the heirs of the original owners, although the New York and Boston museums have refused. These two American museums do not acknowledge that the Jewish owners divested themselves of these works “under duress”.
4. The Yale College Council, the Yale undergraduate student government, approved a resolution last week denouncing Israel for committing “injustice, genocide, and ethnic cleansing occurring in Palestine.” Yale is not the first academic institution to attack and renounce Jews and others who support the so-called apartheid policies of the State of Israel. The explicit condemnation of Israel during the recent May confrontation with Hamas has fueled world-wide condemnation not only of Israel but of all Jews. This resolution sought to connect racial oppression in the U.S., as exemplified by systematic police enforcement of white supremacy against Black Americans, with Israeli policy of apartheid.
5. In a byelection held in Batley and Spen in northern England, the Labour Party surprised analysts by holding the seat in Parliament, although the winner won by only 323 votes. While it was positive news for Labour Party leader Keir Starmer it was a defeat for George Galloway, the third-party spoiler candidate who garnered 8,264 votes. Galloway, a former MP had been censured by Parliament and ousted from the Labour Party for extremist and anti-Semitic views. He subsequently has run numerous times as an extremist right-wing independent, presenting himself as the true voice of the Palestinian people. Galloway has repeatedly advocated anti-Israel and anti-Semitic positions. Today he claims to be the true voice of the right in Britain and continues to spew hateful speech against Jews and Israel.
6. The Government of Poland and the legislature are controlled by the Polish ultra-nationalist PiS Party. They continue to minimize the Polish collaboration with the Nazis. Three years ago, they called for the civil prosecution of any scholar who suggests--the very well documented thesis--that many Poles collaborated with Hitler in his effort to exterminate the Jews. Their argument was that Jews were persecuted because they were Polish citizens, not because they were Jews. Last week the Government announced it was now shutting down the payment of restitution claims to Holocaust victims and their descendants.
This was part of a week’s work on anti-Semitism.
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