8 March 14 • 2019 jn views Yiddish Limerick Purim Mir hern Haman’ s name, and noisily we jeer Ahashverosh der kenig un Esther zahynen here. Mir kenen trinken un zahyn shiker Farbalt nisht mein liqueur. A fraylikher yontef far mir un far dir. Mir hern- we hear Der kenig- the king Zahynen- are Mir kenen trinken- we can drink Un zahyn shiker- And be drunk Falbalt nisht- don’ t hide Mein- my A fraylikher yontef- a happy holiday Sar mir un far dir- for me and for you By Rachel Kapen W hen Rep. Ilhan Omar uses classic anti-Jewish tropes — when she denounc- es Jews and Zionists as disloyal, mon- ey-grubbing hypnotists who control U.S. policy — she tramples the line between criticizing Israel and anti-Semitism. She denounces Israel advocacy as dual loyalty — but only when Israel is involved. She ignores the support other Americans have for other countries — such as Pakistini-Americans for Pakistan, Indian-Americans for India, Irish- Americans for Ireland. She appeared to apologize for only having “unknowingly used” a bad choice of words, which she purportedly only now understood amounted to “an anti-semitic[sic] trope … which is unfortunate and offensive. ” On Feb. 27, Rep. Omar candidly stated that she had not apologized for her tweet being anti-Semitic, either wittingly or unwittingly, merely for “for the way that my words made people feel. ” Omar’ s words and deeds are clearly anti-Semitic as defined in the State Department definition of anti-Semitism, particularly with regard to viewing the Jews as “conspiring to harm humanity” and feed- ing “the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions. ” Also, in Omar’ s gutter criticism of Israel as an “apartheid regime, ” she is clearly “denying the Jewish people their right to self determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. ” The fight against anti-Semitism and racism cannot be won if Congress indulges, ignores and finesses Rep. Omar’ s anti-Semitism and anti-Israel extrem- ism. The March 7 House Resolution condemning all types of hatred is a watered-down resolution that ignores Omar’ s virulent and reprehensible anti-Se- mitic statements and her association with terrorist organizations that promote the murder of Jews. Congress should compel Omar to resign from the House Foreign Relations Committee and from Congress. ■ Sheldon L. Freilich is president, Zionist Organization of America - Michigan Region A Shameful Record commentary Sheldon L. Freilich T his has been the era of the anti-Semitic “trope,” with the word popping up in hundreds of news stories since the 2016 campaign. In short, tropes are phrases or images that evoke classic anti-Semitic ideas rather than state them explicitly. It’ s a long list: the dual loyalty trope, the blood libel, the clannishness charge, the global conspiracy motif and the control-the-media mantras (to name a few). When Donald Trump’ s closing argument at the end of the 2016 campaign invoked “the global special interests” that “don’ t have your good in mind” — and then featured images of a financier, a banker and the chair of the Federal Reserve, all Jews — he was accused of employing the “trope” of Jewish global control. When Hungary’ s government ran a campaign against the pro-democracy philanthropist George Soros featuring his smil- ing face and the slogan “don’ t let him get the last laugh,” some said it recalled the Nazi-era trope of the “laughing Jew.” When freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar complained that U.S. pol- icy toward Israel is “all about the Benjamins, baby,” politicians and observers insisted that the Minnesota Democrat had invoked age-old stereotypes of Jewish power and control. Her recent comment about those with influence having “alle- giance to a foreign country” is a well-worn anti-Semitic trope about Jewish attachments to Israel making them disloyal to the United States. Anti-Semites usually make it pretty easy for us to identify them. They scrawl swastikas on Jewish gravestones. They bluntly describe Jewish conspiracies and quote the classics of anti-Sem- itism like Mein Kampf or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. They make it clear that “no Jews are allowed.” But “tropes” are anti-Semi- tism once (at least) removed. Intentional users employ a trope as code hoping to avoid the anti-Semitism charge while dog-whistling their audiences. (The Hebrew expression for such circumlocution is hamevin yavin — literally “those who understand will understand.”) Tropes are often easy to identify because they can be deployed unknowingly by those who couldn’ t accidentally, say, deface a synagogue. As a result, tropes allow those charged with anti-Semitism a degree of deni- ability. ■ Andrew Silow-Carroll is editor of JTA.org. Andrew Silow- Carroll commentary An Idiot’s Guide to Anti-Semitic Tropes CORRECTION: In “Being Me” (page 10, March 7), the story stated that Azriel Reuven Apap was born female. The story should have said he was assigned female at birth.