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Leftist Anti-Semitism
Is Th e Real Problem

W

hen anti-Semitism is the
in Europe, 2005-2015” — written by
topic of conversation in
Johannes Due Enstad of the Oslo-based
Jewish circles, it typically
Center for Studies of the Holocaust —
focuses on the Nazis, skinheads and
concludes that European anti-Semitism
others of the far right while ignoring
is now dominated by the political left,
the growing and now dominant anti-
not the right, and that political Islam is
Semitism of the left. The coverage in
a major cause of the uptick.
the Jewish News of the Charlottesville
Growing left wing anti-Semitism
incident shows that in spades. Other
should not be a surprise. Professor
than the second half of the
Kenneth Waltzer, retired direc-
article by Allan Dershowitz
tor of Jewish Studies at Michigan
in the Aug. 31 JN, one would
State, in his late-2009 paper
never know there was a threat
“The Contemporary Anti-Semite
to the Jewish community from
and The Radical Anti-Zionist,”
other than the KKK and the
pointed out the rising anti-Sem-
Nazis.
itism on campus and in society
Nowhere does the Jewish
is masquerading as anti-Zionism
community ask why the
from the political left.
Eugene
Charlottesville police did not
One of the (January 2017)
Greenstein
provide security for the town
Women’s March key organizers,
synagogue or ask why the
Linda Sarsour, is for BDS and
police stood down and let the
the application of Sharia law.
Antifa anarchists attack the
Sharia law calls for the death
despised Nazis with spray can flame-
of gays, women being valued at half
throwers and baseball bats.
compared to a man, non-believers being
Dershowitz noted that “Antifa and
given the choice of convert or death, etc.
its radical allies pose real danger to
Sarsour, in an interview with The
the future of our nation because of
Nation, said. “It just doesn’t make any
their increasing influence on university
sense for someone to say, ‘Is there
campuses (and) our future leaders ...
room for people who support the state
The recent events … have made them
of Israel and do not criticize it in the
heroes among some mainstream liber-
movement?’ There can’t be in feminism.
als, who are willing to excuse their anti- You either stand up for the rights of
liberal bigotry because they supposedly
all women, including Palestinians, or
are on the barricades against fascism.”
none.”
In his recent Atlantic article on Antifa,
She has nothing to say about how
Peter Bienart, a Jewish leftist, said
women are treated as second-class citi-
“Many of its activists oppose the very
zens in Islamic countries such as Saudi
notion of a centralized state. But in the
Arabia. Also, Black Lives Matter (BLM)
name of protecting the vulnerable, anti- sees fit in its platform to call out Israel
fascists have granted themselves the
for abuse of Palestinians while ignoring
authority to decide which Americans
black slavery in the Muslim world.
may publicly assemble and which may
In the recent Chicago Gay Pride
not … (using violence and intimidation). parade, a Jewish gay group was not
Unlike the politicians they revile, the
allowed to participate as it had a Star
men and women of Antifa cannot be
of David on its flag. The gays are in soli-
voted out of office.”
darity with the Palestinians; however,
In reality, as we saw three weeks ago
Palestinian society will murder gays for
at Berkeley, Antifa dressed in black with being gay while Israel has an annual gay
masks behave the same as fascist Nazi
parade.
Brown Shirts and, as in Germany, the
Outside of Dershowitz, no other
police stood down.
notable liberal has of late stood up and
Today, anti-Semitism from the right
spoken out against the violence from
is small compared to the anti-Semitism
Antifa and the hypocritical use of inter-
coming from the left and from political
sectionality by gays, BLM, the feminist
Islam. One of the leading authorities on movement, etc., to promote anti-Zion-
anti-Semitism, Dr. Charles Asher Small,
ism/anti-Semitism. When will the Jewish
in his 2017 State of Anti-Semitism
community realize they can’t be blind to
Address “New Trends in the USA and
the anti-Semitism of the left and politi-
Around the World,” points out the
cal Islam? When will we as Jews and our
threats from the left and political Islam
leadership stand up to all fascists regard-
are more significant than from the right. less of whether from the left or the right
Professor Dershowitz in recent
as they all hate us? •
articles has made the same observation.
Eugene Greenstein is a community activist.
A new study, “Anti-Semitic Violence

8

September 21 • 2017

jn

Larger Story On
Suicide Prevention

First, thanks for your coverage on
suicide prevention in the Aug. 31 DJN
article, “You Can Save a Life.” It’s such
an overwhelming and sad problem,
and it’s good for your readers to read
about it and understand communal
resources.
Next, as a guy who runs a Jewish
agency and works on a regular basis
with lots of others in this space, it was
disappointing and confusing to see
that the coverage was just on a piece of
what’s going on in the Jewish communi-
ty. Friendship Circle and Rabbi Yarden
are doing amazing work. So are Kadima
and BBYO and the Jewish Fund Teen
Board and Frankel Jewish Academy
and Jewish Family Service and … We
are all involved in a Teen Mental Health
Work Group, convened by Federation,
because we are deeply concerned about
the problem, acknowledge that to “end
users” where to turn for help is confus-
ing, and want to coordinate, remove
barriers and save lives as a unified com-
munity.
More comprehensive coverage about
all that all of us are doing, includ-
ing SafeTALK and ASIST and Mental
Health First Aid and A Single Soul, etc.,
would have served your readership bet-
ter. Posting suicide prevention resourc-
es as part of this article was an impor-
tant thing to do. Having Rabbi Yarden’s
contact information as the only number
in the Jewish community is, again, only
part of the picture.
Again, thanks for your attention to
this, but there’s a larger story out there.

Perry Ohren,
CEO, Jewish Family Service of Metropolitan
Detroit

Opposition To Israel
Anti-Boycott Act

We write to urge members of the
Greater Detroit Jewish community
to join us in opposing the proposed
Congressional legislation known as the
“Israel Anti-Boycott Act.”
This bill, currently making its way
through both houses of Congress, seeks
to amend the Export Administration
Act (EAA) of 1979, which prohibited
participation by American corpora-
tions in the Arab boycott of Israel. The
corporations that participated in that
boycott did so as a result of coercion by
the governments of Arab nations. Thus,
the EAA provided what many deemed
to be important and necessary relief
from such foreign coercion in matters
of trade.
The current bill extends the law
in problematic ways that should be

of equal concern to all of us, without
regard to the merits of arguments for
and against BDS. These provisions of
the new law — as currently proposed
— constitute nothing less than a viola-
tion of our First Amendment rights to
political speech.
According to experts from the
American Civil Liberties Union, the
current language of the proposed act
infringes upon the right of individual
American citizens and groups to even
advocate participation in boycotts of
Israel or the disputed territories under
its control. This goes well beyond any-
thing that the original EAA was created
to regulate. The ACLU suggests that, if
passed into law as worded, an individ-
ual on Facebook who might be seeking
information about companies doing
business with Israel may very well be in
violation of the law.
As Humanistic Jews, we are commit-
ted to the values of open discourse and
absolute freedom of political speech.
Unlike the law that it is amending, this
bill does not protect anyone from coer-
cion; it fosters it by attempting to con-
trol the political speech of American
citizens. Furthermore, it does so in
ways that have already failed to stand
the test of constitutionality. As recently
as 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
unanimously (NAACP v. Claiborne
Hardware Co.) that notwithstanding
the broad powers of the government to
regulate commerce, peaceful advocacy
of politically motivated boycotts is pro-
tected.
The First Amendment was not estab-
lished to protect popular speech. There
is no need for such safeguards. It was
created to protect unpopular, even odi-
ous speech. For this reason, we strongly
believe that — whatever one’s position
might be — the rightness or wrongness
of BDS must be judged in the court
of public opinion, not by silencing its
advocates. For this reason, we stand
with the ACLU in urging members of
our Jewish community on all sides of
this issue to oppose the Israel Anti-
Boycott Act in its current form on the
grounds that it is a clearly unconstitu-
tional regulation of political speech.
We ask that those who vigorously
oppose BDS recognize the constitution-
al rights of its proponents. Not because
they agree with them. But because they
support fundamental American values.

Jeffrey L. Falick, Secular Humanistic Rabbi
Professor Ronald Aronson
Professor Fran Shor
Ann-Marie Fisher
Charles Paul
Steven Blum
Susan Warrow
Melanie Ben-Gal
Paul Caradonna

