#WTH The new war on the Jews

Note: Good morning everyone. Please forgive the quiet on the WTH front. June is our hell month — three birthdays, graduations, Father’s Day. Nothing bad, but little free time. Below is a very personal post. While Iran has been on my mind (WT actual H?), increasingly, I find myself despairing about the new war on the Jewish people in our country and around the world. So, not for the first time, I’m sharing a little of my thinking with you. Dany

My niece was preparing for her Bat Mitzvah, and like any normal 12 year old, she was nervous to the point of tears. We sat down on her bed, and I tried to talk her through the moment. We Jews, I told her, carry the fate of our world on our shoulders. More than 5000 years ago, we were the lone believers in one God. Then the pagans and the worshipers of many gods hated us. In the years since, our enemies have multiplied: The empires that opposed the people of Israel. The Christians who silenced those they didn’t convert. The Muslims who silenced those they didn’t convert. The occupiers, the exilers, the oppressors, the killers, the inquisitors, the segregationists, the tyrants, the Communists, the Nazis, and the run of the mill conspiracy theorists and haters. Our numbers have been winnowed down ruthlessly; but you stand on the shoulders of every Jew that survived, resisted, held on, and believed… for millenia. Just as those who come after you will stand on yours. Imagine the heritage, the honor, and the incredible uniqueness you hold in your hands. This is a great moment of tradition that millions have struggled to present to you. These few words in your Bat Mitzvah are just a tiny hill to climb; there are no Romans, no Nazis, no Communists. You can do this, and easily.

And so she did.

You’ll notice there isn’t much religion in my little speech of encouragement. Of course, Judaism is first and foremost a religion. But Jews are also a people. Over centuries, we have been forced or encouraged to abandon our faith and our lands, and many, many did so. Yet in most instances, even that act of abnegation was insufficient for our enemies. To the inquisitors, to the oppressors, to the Nazis, and now to our enemies on the Left, and increasingly, on the Right, there is no act of self abnegation that is sufficient.

The story of California State Senator Scott Wiener lays bare the problem, per Jewish Insider:

The language used by protesters who accosted and harassed California state Sen. Scott Wiener at a transgender pride march last week left little doubt that they harbored a deep-seated hatred toward Israel and Zionists. “F*** you and your Zionist handlers. F*** you and your Israeli masters,” one person shouted at Wiener as he walked toward a Pride Shabbat event, according to a video posted by one of the activists.

Wiener, who is gay, said in a social media post that the protesters were so “physically and verbally aggressive” that he had to leave the event, which he has attended every year since its inception in 2004, entirely.

He told CNN on Monday that the incident was “absolutely” antisemitic. “There were elected officials in that march who have not taken the positions that I’ve taken, and they were left alone,” said Wiener, who is running to replace retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the San Francisco-based seat.

Wiener’s most ostensible sin is his religion. This is a gay man of the California Left. He has accused Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, a key condition of admission into the new Democratic Party. True, he supports the U.S.-Israel relationship and the existence of the Jewish state, but that was not at issue. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie (D-Jewish), Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Jewish), and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Christian), all labeled the attack antisemitism. San Fran Supervisor Connie Chan, who’s also running for Pelosi’s seat, would not. Ditto Pelosi, Rep. Ro Khanna (who instead used the event to promote antisemite Rep. Thomas Massie’s amendment to end all U.S. aid to Israel), CA Gov. Gavin Newsom, Xavier Becerra (running for CA gov), and Steve Hilton (R, also running for CA gov).

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The Wiener incident is only one data point, but the rise of the Mamdani Left, and its recent primary successes (a guy with an SS tattoo, FFS?), the rise of the Tucker Carlson Right (and our own Vice President’s admiration for it), and the increasing prevalence of naked antisemitism in everyday life are a horror for Jews of every political stripe, even those who act as enablers for these bigots.

What so many who have excused and accommodated antisemites forget — or lie to themselves about — is that the new class of Jew haters is much the same as the old: What they hate is not your support for Israel; not your support for Zionism; not your support for aid to Israel; not your defense of the IDF. What they hate is the Jew; and for the hater, that Jewishness cannot be washed away with pious anti-Zionism or Leftism or strident Tucker-philia. In their world view, Jewishness is a permanent stain that can never be removed.

Still, we Jews like to lie to ourselves. We like to think that the 21st century is different. We like to think that the knock on the door will never come for us. Our forefathers were suckers, marginalized; we don’t hide, we don’t fear, we don’t cower in the face of our proliferating enemies. But we do.

Today, our cowering looks less like Anne Frank hiding behind a false door and more like the inquisition. Today, too many are converting politically, if not religiously — ahem, Chuck Schumer — in the hopes of outrunning the Jew haters. Today, we explain: We don’t love Israel. We don’t believe in a homeland for the Jewish people. It’s just Bibi. It’s just the war. It’s just Trump.

What crap. The onus to explain is not on us. It is on the people who hate us. The onus is not on us to change. It is on those who hate us. There is no shame in being a Jew, whether Zionist, or conservative, or liberal, or gay, or straight, or black, or white. The shame is in being a Jew-hater, no different from hating black people or Hispanics or Catholics or Muslims or gays or anyone else.

It’s time to start fighting antisemitism for real. People think AIPAC does it, and they do, sort of. Similarly, they think the Anti-Defamation League does it, and the Conference of Presidents, and all of the other myriad Jewish organizations. But, like any population in peacetime, these organizations spend more energy on defeating each other and currying favor than they do naming and shaming each and every antisemite. AIPAC is starting to do the work in primaries, but that has brought the ire of the Jew-haters — many veterans of the Obama administration and the Mamdani Left — down upon them.

Sure, there are other, smaller organizations. Stand With Us. CAMERA. Stop Antisemitism. Canary Mission. I appreciate their efforts enormously, and love their man by man, woman by woman, assault on the Jew-haters. But we need more systemic efforts to shame as bigots these rising stars of the political Left and Right. It should be as disqualifying to scream against Zionism (the new euphemism for Jew) as it is to scream to N word.

We also need to out the handmaidens of the Qataris and the Chinese and Iranians whether they be in the White House, on podcasts, or at universities. They stir the pot in service to their anti-Jewish and anti-American paymasters. It should be as disqualifying to take their coin as it once was to serve the Soviet Communists.

And in every single damned case, we need to call it out for what it is: Jew hatred.

This is a war. It is, of course, a war for the values that America stands for, a war for our rights and our heritage, and a war against our — all decent people’s — shared enemies. Because, as I have said more times than I want to count in recent years, first they come for the Jews. Who will they want to destroy next?

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