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| President Elect of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum (Yahoo) |
This election got a lot of media attention. None of which had anything to do with Ms. Sheinbaum’s religion. It was all about the first woman ever being elected president in Mexico’s over 200 year history. But still., she is Jewish and there is a part of me that takes pride in the fact that a Jew would be elected in a country like that. Even if her faith is about as relevant to her as last year’s snowfall total in Chicago.
(Personally, I would not have voted for Ms. Sheinbaum. Her politics tend towards the extreme left and she is soft on crime. If there is one issue that plagues Mexico more than any other it is crime. I would have voted for her opponent who ran on a law and order platform. But I digress.)
My point in bringing this up is to illustrate how irrelevant being Jewish is to becoming a leader of people the vast majority of whom are not Jewish. Hard to call a country like that antisemitic. Mexicans don't care what their leader’s religious beliefs are. They only care what their leader will do for the country.
What’s true for Mexico is probably even more true for the US. I’ve said it before. All this angst about America channeling 1930s Germany is simply not true. The rise in antisemitism is a function of a very limited group of people who do not reflect the views of the vast majority of the American people.
What about all those pro Palestinian protests where one can hear a lot of antisemitic rhetoric?
Sure. Most of those protesters are Palestinian students. They hate us. But in just about every protest one will find Jews protesting right along with them. Just this past Shabbos there was a protest against the University of Chicago that included a Jewish women wearing a sign slung over her body with a quote from the Torah which read Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof (Justice, Justice you shall pursue) – written in Hebrew characters. I don’t think she is antisemitic. I would just call he a useful idiot. One of many ignorant Jews like her that join those protests in solidarity with their fellow Palestinian students.
I strongly suspect that the vast majority of the Americans could not care less about what’s happening in Gaza. To the extent that they might express a negative opinion in a survey is probably due to the way a question is asked - or perhaps more significantly based on how limited thier knowledge is of the subject. Nothing to do with antisemitism.
And yet there is no doubt that there has been a substantial increase in antisemitism since Israel’s war with Hamas broke out. Should we worry? Is antisemitism a real danger to us now? Is this what Germany was like after Hitler came to power in 1933?
Unfortunately Jewish history has conditioned our people to quickly jump to that conclusion. Espcially since the Holocaust. But such comparisons are misplaced in my view. Consider the follwoing
Intermountain Jewish News publisher, Rabbi Hillel Goldberg penned an article in last week’s issue of Mishpacha Magazine on this very subject. He related several personal experiences he had. Here are two quick examples from that article which show a more positive side of America.
It is early last November. I am about to enter the gate at the side of the East Denver Orthodox Synagogue on Friday evening before Shabbos. Out of nowhere, a person approaches me. He clearly wants to talk to me but seems unfamiliar with the surroundings.
He says, “I’m Catholic. I go to the big cathedral — you know, the big one?”
“Yes,” I say, “I know.” (It’s near our office.)
“I’m Catholic, and I want you to know that we stand by Israel. We pray for you. We are with you. I want you to know that.”
I thank him. I am moved…
Around that time was the event at Colorado Christian University. I knew it was supposed to be an evening of solidarity for Israel. Parenthetically, with no prompting whatever, the university hired the local Vaad Hakashrus to make the meal kosher, charged nothing, and held the event in a lecture hall. I knew there would be passionate speeches in support of Israel’s military response to Hamas, but a week or so before the event, I received a call from the lead organizer.
“We also want to raise some money for Israeli organizations. Suggest some.”
I responded, “Don’t do organizations. Pick one.” I figured, why should a few dollars be spread around and not do much good?
He said: “Okay, name one.”
Off the top of my head, I suggested Hatzalah and explained briefly what it is. He said, “Okay.”
That evening, after the speeches and the Hatzalah presentation, came the “ask” — trying to persuade people to respond generously. In my experience, the “ask” takes some time and usually entails some not-so-subtle pressure.
Here, the ask took ten minutes. That’s it.
The results were announced: “One million dollars!”
Rabbi Goldberg is quick to add the following:
Anti-Semitism in the United States today cannot be denied. One simply cannot list all the instances, curses, attacks, lame justifications, and outrageous, ignorant claims about Israel (“genocide”).
Agreed. That is followed with the following question:
But what about “philo-Semitism”? How extensive is it? How representative are the chance encounters I’ve had?
As he says, it’s hard to know the answer to that question. But my guess is that there is a lot more philosemtism than there is antisemitism among the Amercian people. At the very least Americans are no worse than the vast majority of Mexicans that voted for a Jewish woman to lead them. That she is Jewish made no difference to them.
