A sign written in both Turkish and French posted July 2014 in a cafe in Liege, Belgium said doors were open to dogs, but not to Jews. The sign read: “Dogs are allowed in this establishment but Jews are not under any circumstances.” The French version of the sign used the word “Zionists” in place of the word “Jews.”
My husband made an interesting observation that the Jewish people are often likened to canaries in a coal mine. As Charles Small, former head of the now defunct Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism, explained in a 2012 article:
“Jews are like “the canary in the coal mine,” Small added. “Anti-Semitism is a deep, deep hatred, and once we permit this hatred to exist or target one group, it’ll only be a matter of time before other groups are targeted. And mark my words: If the Muslim Brotherhood rises to power and governs — and it looks like they will to some extent, depending on their relations with the Egyptian military — watch the rights of women, watch the rights of gay people, watch the Coptic community.
And yet, the issue of their hatred of the Other is not being dealt with because it’s anti-Semitism, because people don’t want to hear about it. And to be honest, I’m surprised that the Israeli government does not speak out loud and clear about this social movement that is rising to power, which is antidemocratic and anti-Semitic, and which will violate human rights.”
Basically, when social movements, political parties, powerful lobbying goups, and governments come for the Jews, it’s only a matter of time before they come for any other group whose religion, race, sexual orientation, or ideology they don’t agree with.
Last night, something happened that was very upsetting to me. A good friend of mine wrote a blog article for Times of Israel, which is trending for all the wrong reasons. My friend is a social worker, dieting coach, and exercise instructor who helps people overcome eating issues and get healthy. She runs a very popular Facebook page to that end as well. As a relatively new American olim, she wrote an article about how the stress of war has triggered some of her old and unhealthy eating habits, bringing to light that everyday life goes on even in the face of rockets being shot at your home and having to run for cover in bomb shelters. The old struggles still lurk beneath the pile of the new struggles.
Her article wasn’t callous, it was honest. In no way was she equating the death and devastation on both sides to her struggles with food; she was saying that the stress of being in harm’s way has triggered compulsive eating which she has worked hard to overcome. I’m sure folks with OCD, alcohol addiction, drug addiction, gambling/shopping addiction – anyone in the heart of the conflict who has some sort of addictive stress response – knows how these struggles can be made worse during times of extreme tension.
Apparently, her post was brought to the attention of certain online Israel hate groups who immediately crowd sourced like vultures and attacked the comment section with a vengeance. While my friend’s only hope was for an end to the current violence, some commenters went so far as to call for her untimely demise – simply because she wrote about her struggles with eating due to the stress of living in a war zone. Talk about disproportionate response.
Coincidently, for the last 72 hours I have been working on a little media research project. I was appalled at all of the article alerts coming to my email inbox describing the Anti-Semitism associated with the pro-Gaza protests – especially in Europe but even here in the USA. I decided to search the internet and social media sites for examples and share those links on a Facebook page and Twitter account.
I am so horrified by what I’ve found, that I truly do want to stick my head firmly back into the sand and pretend I never discovered the virulent Anti-Semitism being spread openly on the internet and shouted at the tops of people’s lungs in the streets. After coming up for a breath amidst all of this material, I realized without a shadow of a doubt that none of the hateful comments being directed at my friend’s blog were personal. They targeted her because she is a Jew and she lives in Israel.
By now, you all know that that I’m not afraid to critique the internal sociological workings of the Jewish community, but I simply haven’t had the heart for that kind of self-examination lately. While I know that there is still much work to be done to fix our own house, our entire global kehilla is now being targeted with hatred and potential violence. While this hatred has been brewing for years, it has been fully unleashed due to the outbreak of war in Israel. Now is the time for achdus. Internal critique is a luxury reserved for times of peace.
