Should We Worry?

ADL Chairman, Jonathan Greenblatt - Is the sky falling?

There are at least 272,000 reasons why the ADL continues to exist. That is how much money its CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt is paid to continue to insist that Jews in America are increasingly targets of antisemitism. Which for me (along with his politics) raises questions about his motives.

Greenblatt reports that antisemitic acts were up by 57% in 2017. The obvious implication by this former white house employee (under Clinton and Obama) is that the current administration is at least in part to blame. He implies that most acts of antisemitism are at the hands of right wing racist fanatics (like White Supremacists, NeoNazis, or the KKK). And that they have finally been emboldened by a President who ‘dog whistles’ them into action. And the best proof of that is what happened in Pittsburgh:  The deadliest attack against the Jewish people in US history was perpetrated by a racist right wing antisemite - egged on by the President’s rhetoric.

Now I am not going to argue that the President’s rhetoric hasn’t spurred some degree of increased antisemitism by the right. But to imply that ‘the sky is falling’ - that Jews are in mortal danger because of this President would be laughable if it weren’t taken so seriously by the very individual whose job is to fight antisemitism.

Here are several things to consider. One is that the right wing antisemitic fringe is exactly that - a fringe. It continues to exist there. On the fringe. 

Another thing to consider is that 57% is a misleading statistic.It is true that Jews are still the main target of hate crimes. But the 1,700 incidents reported is relatively minuscule in a population of well over 325 million people. And this year’s increase in not an aberration. Yair Rosenberg makes note of that in Tablet Magazine: 

Today, the FBI published its annual report cataloging hate crimes for the previous calendar year. This year, as has been the case every year since the bureau began collecting these statistics in 1992, Jews topped the list. And it wasn’t close. Of 1,564 anti-religious hate crimes in 2017, 938 targeted Jews. In other words, Jews were subject to 60 percent of anti-religious hate crimes, despite constituting just 2 percent of the American population.

These numbers mark a 37-percent increase from 2016, when Jews were the targets of 54 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes and 684 incidents. While this indicates that anti-Semitic crimes have increased since Donald Trump’s election, it also isn’t exactly a historical aberration. In fact, anti-Jewish attacks comprised 60 percent of all such crimes in 2014, 61 percent in 2013, 61 percent in 2012, 63 percent in 2011, 67 percent in 2010, and a whopping 71 percent in 2009.

In other words, it’s not that American anti-Semitism has reached unprecedented levels under Trump; it’s more that people are finally starting to notice it. 

What’s more is that if one looks at how those crimes were labeled as antisemitic by the ADL one would have to question that statistic altogether. As Jonathan Rosenblum notes in his Mishpacha column last week (available here): 

Among the 1,700 incidents in the ADL's 2017 report were 163 bomb calls (8% of the total incidents) to Jewish community centers placed by a troubled Israeli teenager. 

One must also take into consideration what some of those crimes actually were. Like the painting of a swastika on a barnyard door. As Jonathan also notes: 

In the most important category — physical attacks on Jews — there was a drop to less than half the previous year — from 39 to 17. The ADL press release trumpeting the 57% figure omitted that pertinent detail. 

Now let us contrast that with the kind of virulent antisemitism taking place ‘on university campuses and in certain precincts of the left’ (to put it the way Jonathan does).  If one wants to know what that kind of antisemitism does, one needs to see what is going on in Europe: 

Lethal physical assaults have become, for instance, a reality of Jewish life in France, from which Jews are fleeing in large numbers. 

What is the truth about antisemitism in America? I’ve said it before. Many times. But I will let Jonathan say it this time: 

Far from living in a climate of pervasive anti-Semitism, Jews are the most admired religious group in America. Two-thirds of Americans profess that admiration. 

I don’t think here can be any real question about where most of the real antisemitism comes. It is not from the fringes of the right, despite what the Greenblatts of the world would  have you believe. It is coming form the Left – especially among certain Academics whose darlings are now the poor ‘Palestinian underclass’ being oppressed  the ‘Zionist occupiers of Palestine’.

And yet when it comes to practically ignoring that reality and blaming antisemitism on the right - the Left eagerly embraces that narrative using the tragedy in Pittsburgh to do so. As Jonathan further notes: 

As of the day of the funerals, The Hill reported that 57,000 Jews had signed a petition of the Pittsburgh branch of Bend the Arc urging President Trump not to come to Pittsburgh. (I would wager that President Trump has more Jewish grandchildren than many, if not most, of the signatories to the petition criticizing him for fomenting anti-Semitism.)

Bend the Arc claims to be America's largest Jewish social justice group. Its chairman is Alexander Soros, George's son. Like his father, Alexander's only Jewish-centered activity is condemnation of Israel. 

Very telling! Jonathan’s analysis is sobering. Despite my personal disgust with how the President conducts himself in office - when it come to antisemitism the President is not the enemy. Those who try and paint him that way have their own personal agendas for doing so. Mostly having to do with their politics.

Now if someone wants to oppose the President based on his policies, I have no problem with that. But when they try and vilify him in the eyes of a minority in order to gain support they might not otherwise get… that is unethical and frankly - disgusting.