I’m Jewish, and I’m here to tell you that antisemitism exists on the left.
I get it. Israel has a lot of power and influence, and antisemitism was used against Corbyn as a smear. That doesn’t mean that antisemitism on the left isn’t also a real thing, and I’m tired of being regarded with suspicion as a Zionist stooge every time I bring it up.
I’m sick of being grilled by strangers about Palestine as soon as they find out I’m Jewish. You wouldn’t get in a Sunni’s face about the ongoing Saudi genocide in Yemen, so why do I have to answer for a whole country I’m not from? Why am I a “suspect” until I can prove my credentials?
I’m sick of being regarded as just a (((white person from Brooklyn))), as one poster on here put it. White people from Brooklyn don’t get their places of worship shot up at random, or called k*kes everywhere online, or get assaulted if dressed traditionally.
I’m sick of making friends in left spaces IRL, to later hear them regurgitate Rothschild conspiracies or tell racist jokes about the Hasidic communities nearby. Big noses! Love of money! We have sex through a hole in a sheet! It never gets old! This shit people say about Jews would never get said about any other minority. I’ve even seen a “left” (ex)-friend from school say that “the only good jew is a dead jew” in messages (which apparently was “fine because she’s Lebanese and it’s a cultural thing and she doesn’t really mean it”).
There are many problems on the left, including racism and sexism, and it doesn’t get better if we just pretend they don’t exist. Jewish leftists are your allies, please treat us as such. We want the same goals as you. If we bring up that we feel uncomfortable, PLEASE do not just write us off. It’s heartbreaking to raise the issue of the racism that you’re experiencing in a supposedly inclusive space, just to be accused of being a shifty wrecker working for a foreign state.
This post was inspired by this one, where a random Jewish person (with “free palestine” on their page, no less) is implied to be a paid Israeli troll just for bringing up that anti-Semitism is a problem on our side too.
Edit: I’d just like to say thank you all for the overwhelmingly positive response to this post. It’s really great to know your comrades have got your back. I also appreciate how those with questions have (mostly) been open minded and engaged in good faith. It makes a difference.
what do you think about what the establishment did to Jeremy Corbyn by weaponizing this charge as a lie?
As a Jew, this is my problem with the TrueAnon podcast. While they never explicitly mention The Jewish Question, they seem to uncritically reference a multitude of conspiracy theories clearly borne out of right-wing circles. I know they try to frame it as a curiosity or “just asking questions” or whatever, but functionally, they may as well just be reading excerpts from the Turner Diaries.
On the flipside, yeah, Jews, and Zionists in particular, hold way too much power and lord it over American and Middle East society. So I “get” the antisemitism. By demographics, they’re overrepresented in politics, law, entertainment, and finance, so any conspiracy corkboard is gonna be lit up with red string. And while we can talk about “white men” dominating all sectors of society, any similar discussion about Jews gets swept under the carpet.
It’s complex. What’s certain is it’s next to impossible to discuss it without everyone bringing their baggage.
Also, if you’re generally skeptical like me and think 9/11 was “allowed” to happen by the security state so the US could invade the Middle East and ram through panoptical legislation like the Patriot Act, there’s no doubt Israeli leadership/AIPAC had a seat at the table. Again, just …complex. But ascribing that bloodthirst Zionism to all Jews is really the problem. That being said, anyone defending Israeli apartheid should get the wall.
That’s the thing though, I don’t live in fucking Israel and I don’t have a say in how they run their country. I’m literally just a guy with a religion working a normal job so I can have a holiday once in a while. I’m not a Mossad commander because I’m circumcised and take Saturdays off.
Not to be a person who defends podcasts (and I haven’t listened in a while), but trueanon does the ironic antisemitic conspiracy thing for comedy, the same as they do with lots of other veins of conspiracy. Felix Biderman and Eli Valley also do it. Michael Brooks loved to do joking antisemitism bits. As you are jewish you can probably appriciate black humor being a cultural staple, and you can also appriciate how annoying it is to be jewish and face constant accusations of being anti-semitic or self-hating.
Not that it is any sort of ironclad shield, but some times jokes are just jokes
Nah, they’ll devote 30-40 mins of a podcast uncritically regurgitating fascist conspiratorial nonsense. That’s a completely different ballpark than some blue checkmark ironically doing triple parentheses. It’s kinda sus that you’d pull those other names into the same realm.
You’re right very suspicious that I associate these four leftist jewish professional online joke-makers who exist in the same small media sphere and frequently crossover. They bear no real similarity besides their religion, what they do, and also that all four famously face(d) unrelenting bad-faith accusations of anti-semitism from the twitter right. Its probably just me doing self-hating Judaism, you are right to immediately imply an accusation of antisemitism you have won
Last time I checked, racism had to do with the systemic subjugation and dehumanization of a class of people, not “I made shit friends who didn’t respect me, and also look at what happened to this Jewish person”. But ok, continue to convince yourself that Jewish Americans are barely a ring above black people & somehow not essentially integrated into the white settler bloc. I’ll say this as a white (immigrant) American, I find your attitude patronizing and barely distinguishable from “look, not all white people, and it’s actually you that has the problem for being angry”. Very easy to have this attitude from a position of privilege, shows itself in the attitude towards your Lebanese associate. Real glee to focus keenly on the extremeness of her comments, virtually glossing over why a teenager from fucking Lebanon might have some socially reinforced resentment towards Jewish people, because then you’d have to consider the fact that your community developed an ideology that resulted in the wonton destruction of 4 different nations, which they still continue to undermine. Would never take this kind of position if I was talking to some Serb who’s family was affected by inter-ethnic conflict. You are able to hold this position because you are removed from all that, aka a city lib.
If I’m being an anti-Semite, feel free to ban me. I’m speaking from the position of euro who is extremely familiar with the consequences of ethnic conflicts. Hell, half of this I paraphrased from a lifelong Jewish friend, but whatever. Westerners hate nuances because than they’d have to reconcile the long lasting consequences of the decisions of their respective communities. This is, to me, exclusive to the wealthy white west.
My attitude isn’t patronising. I’m explaining how I’ve been made to feel uncomfortable in left wing spaces on account of my race and religion. I’m aware that Jewish people experience privileges that other races don’t and at no point have I minimised the suffering of any other people.
It doesn’t bring me ‘glee’ to focus on the extremeness of my Lebanese friend’s comments. We were born in the same country, went to the same school together and were friends for a long while. I was immensely saddened that she wished me death on account of my race. I understand the history of conflict, but I am just a man trying to live my life in a righteous way. It’s interesting how her comments are completely fine, but my being upset at them isn’t.
Synagogues get shot up. Bombs go off in kosher supermarkets. Memorials and cemeteries get defaced. This stuff happens because people think, as you put it, we’re ‘destroying and undermining nations’.
Where do you get that the OP thinks that “Jewish Americans are barely a ring above black people”? I don’t get that message at all. The fact of the matter is that we live in a country that has failed to even condemn Naziism in any meaningful capacity. While it might be true that Jewish Americans don’t face problems like environmental racism and generational wealth gaps like black people in America do, ignoring very real, very tangible, and serious racism because other groups have more racism is why you’re getting downvoted, and I shouldn’t have to (and won’t) explain why it’s wrong to do that.
Yes of course there is. What do you want to hear from us? There’s homophobia, transphobia and all kinds of reactionary opinions by people that call themselves left wing. We need to address it all. Have any specific actions we could take or just want to vent?
I made this post because it’s often denied. I understand the reticence to approach the issue due to it being used in bad faith by people trying to de-legitimise the left, but there seems to be a notable amount of people who literally don’t think it exists on the left at all. They are incorrect.
Would the downvoting cowards kindly explain themselves?
I hope this site treats antisemitism with the same brush it treats transphobia.
Make their names public.
I was actually breaking character and being serious. I guess we’ll know if mods treat antisemitism as a real prejudice or not. :shrug:
phase in
You can read all about the rapture and why we need conflict in Jerusalem in my novel, Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation.
