That antisemitic attacks are up is no secret. Since October 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents have spiked to an alarming level. The latent antisemitism that existed among some Americans was released with a vengeance I never imagined still existed.
That seems to corroborate the view articulated by Rashi centuries ago: “Esav sonei l’Yaakov” - Esav hates Yaakov. So said the newspaper comic-strip character Pogo, in 1971, on Earth Day, commenting on humanity’s responsibility for climate change. Never has that observation been more applicable to the Jewish people than it is right now.
on-Jews, in other
words, inherently hate Jews unless proven otherwise. While that has generally
been true historically, for a variety of reasons, I have always maintained that
the United States is the exception to that rule, citing many examples of why
that was the case.
I still feel that way, notwithstanding the massive increase
in antisemitism that has occurred since October 7, 2023. Why that happened is
beyond the scope of this post. What is relevant here is that many of these
antisemitic attacks are taking place in a climate of anti-Israel rhetoric that
gives the latent but virulent antisemites of the world “permission” to attack
Jews as supporters of the Jewish government supposedly guilty of genocide. A
narrative whose chief spokesman these days is the mayor of New York.
How did such a rabid critic of Israel become the mayor of a
city that hosts, by far, the largest Jewish population of any city in the
United States? And how did a number of like-minded politicians come to be
running for major offices in the United States?
Is it because of antisemitic voters? Sure, some of it is.
But many of those voters are Jews, as noted by Rabbi Emanuel Feldman in
his Mishpacha column this week.
For example, 50% of the Jewish vote on New York’s heavily
Jewish Upper West Side went to Mamdani.
The more liberal the Jew, the more likely that Jew is to
vote against Jewish interests. Substantially more of these Jews disapprove of
Netanyahu than disapprove of Mamdani—by a margin of 5%!
How is that possible?
Rabbi Feldman provides the obvious answer, which is
something I have been talking about for quite some time now.
The Jews voting for Mamdani are ignorant of the most
elementary truths about their own heritage. As Rabbi Feldman also notes, their
Bible is The New York Times. Is it any wonder that they see Israel
in the same negative light as their “Bible” does - and vote for a man who
reflects those views?
And then there is this little statistic noted by Rabbi
Feldman: Between 2000 and 2024, 146,000 more Jews permanently left Israel than
entered it.
Wow! There are more Jews leaving Israel than there are Jews
making Aliyah.
That is where the Pogo comment becomes relevant. He was not
the first to make it. Rabbi Feldman cites Isaiah 49:17: “Thy destroyers and thy
traitors emanate from thine own selves.”
The solution to this dilemma is pretty much the same as that articulated recently by Conservative Jewish rabbis...
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