10 August 15 • 2019
jn
I
n the wake of the latest mass shoot-
ings to afflict America, some Jewish
organizations and their leaders joined
in the effort to place at least some of the
blame for these atrocities on President
Donald Trump.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs of
the Union of Reform
Judaism reacted to the
slaughter in El Paso,
which was reportedly
the work of a white-na-
tionalist racist who
claimed to be reacting
to the “invasion” of the
country by Hispanics, by pointing the
finger directly at the president:
“When will this president stop
demonizing asylum seekers and immi-
grants, which serves to embolden those
like today’
s shooter?” Jacobs demanded.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs of the left-wing
T’
ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human
Rights agreed, but went even a bit fur-
ther when she said extended her con-
demnation to “President Trump and
his supporters,
” who, she claimed, “have
incited and inflamed hatred to minori-
ties, bear direct responsibility for this
wave of white nationalist violence, based
in hatred of Jews and people of color.
”
That Trump has contributed mightily
to the coarsening of American public
discourse is not in doubt. His willingness
to engage in hyperbole about both critics
and the objects of his ire, such as illegal
immigrants, has helped create a dynamic
in which any sort of rhetoric excess on
both ends of the political spectrum is
now imaginable.
But the leap from rightly reproving
him for over-the-top comments, such
as his “Send them back!” line about four
members of Congress — who are U.S.
citizens, even if they share radical view-
points and three out of four support the
anti-Semitic BDS movement — to fram-
ing him as an accessory to mass murder
is not reasonable.
Ironically, we received a reminder
about the difference between responsi-
bility for bad rhetoric and encouraging
murder this past weekend by one of
his sternest media critics, CNN’
s Jake
Tapper.
On the State of the Union program
that Tapper hosts, he sought to make
an analogy between a widely accepted
example of incitement and what Trump
has done:
“You hear conservatives all the time,
rightly so, in my opinion, talk about the
tone set by people in the Arab world,
Palestinian leaders talking about — and
the way they talk about Israelis, justi-
fying in the same way you’
re doing, no
direct link necessarily between what the
leader says and the violence between
some poor Israeli girl and a pizzeria, but
the idea that you’
re validating this hatred
and yet people don’
t — I mean, you can’
t
compare the ideology of Hamas with
anything else. But, at the same time,
either tone matters or it doesn’
t.
”
That, in turn, prompted a furious
response from one of the House mem-
bers Trump had talked about chucking
out of the country, Rep. Rashida Tlaib
(D-Mich.), a Palestinian American who
is a strong supporter of BDS and a bitter
foe of Israel. Writing on Twitter, she
denounced Tapper by saying:
“Comparing Palestinian human rights
advocates to terrorist white nationalists
is fundamentally a lie. Palestinians want
equality, human dignity and to stop
the imprisonment of children. White
supremacy is calling for the ‘
domination’
of one race w/the use of violence.
”
Suffice it to say that both parties in
this exchange are wrong.
Tapper vastly understates the level
of Palestinian incitement to violence
against Jews. First, it’
s not only a question
of the ideology of Hamas, but that of the
supposedly more moderate Palestinian
Authority and statements made by its
leader, Mahmoud Abbas, such as not
letting “stinking Jewish feet” near holy
places in Jerusalem. The P
.A.
’
s incitement
is a comprehensive program of hate in
its official media and educational system,
in which terrorism is glorified as the
highest form of patriotism, even among
children too young to read and write.
The P
.A. also directly funds and pro-
vides incentives to terrorism. They do
so by paying salaries and pensions to
terrorists and their families. Those who
rightly criticize the Palestinians for this
— and, fortunately, that criticism has
not, as Tapper asserts, been limited to
conservatives — are not talking about
“tone,
” but of direct complicity in terror-
ism.
Tlaib is even more wrong when she
says that Palestinians only want “equali-
ty” and “human rights.
” What they want
is the elimination of the one Jewish state
on the planet, and they are willing to
engage in anti-Semitic incitement and
every manner of terrorism to achieve
that despicable end, even if it means a
genocidal war to deprive the Jews of sov-
commentary
What Real Incitement to Murder Looks Like
views
Jonathan Tobin
Congress. Those days are long gone.
Legacy Jewish organizations still play a
major role, but much of the creativity,
energy and financing in the Jewish com-
munity comes from private foundations,
many of which did not exist at the time.
And they are often willing to make the
kind of bold investments in projects —
with the potential for failure — that con-
sensus-driven federations are reluctant
to support.
Many of the key issues are the same —
assimilation, the quest for Mideast peace,
the cost and content of Jewish education,
efforts to promote Jewish civility, etc. —
but the context within those discussions
has changed significantly. Israel, once
the glue that connected Jews with pride,
increasingly divides us. Does loyalty to
the Jewish state require ignoring threats
to its democratic values?
Closer to home, the biggest growth in
recent years has been in the Orthodox
community and the “nones,
” those
younger people with no Jewish affili-
ation. That makes the growing divide
between the Orthodox and the rest of
American Jewry, on a range of issues,
all the more severe. As assimilation
increases, interfaith marriage is no lon-
ger decried from liberal pulpits; instead,
rabbis compete in ways to reach out to
engage such couples in meaningful ways.
In addition, a community that defined
its success by the numbers of those who
affiliate with synagogues and Jewish
organizations now focuses on providing
engaging experiences for unaffiliated
young people who may otherwise drift
away. The older generation is obsessed
with the fear of a dwindling Jewish com-
munity even as many of their children
and grandchildren are defining their
Judaism through social justice, com-
mitment to the environment and other
critical, but less parochial, issues.
Jewish life isn’
t dying; it’
s evolving. But
how long can we continue to call our-
selves one community?
Perhaps the most surprising change is
the re-emergence of anti-Semitism as a
serious concern, not only for European
Jewry but here at home. Who would
have thought 25 years ago that we would
need armed security at Shabbat services?
Jewish journalism has never faced
a more difficult environment — and
never been more needed to bridge the
gaps among us. Writing about commu-
nal challenges and flaws from within
is always tricky. Indeed, it’
s far more
difficult to be seen as fair to all in this
moment of deep distrust and dismissal,
one side against the other. But that’
s
why serious Jewish journalism is more
important now than ever. The work is
not just an exercise in reporting a story;
it’
s an opportunity to have a say in the
destiny of a community.
At the end of the first column I wrote
in July 1993, I noted that a mainstream
journalist “knows that the answer to ‘
If
not me, who?’
is ‘
Somebody else.
’
The
Jewish journalist knows there is no one
else. And s/he serves a community that
deserves, and requires, better. That can
make Jewish journalism far more than a
job; that can make it a calling.
”
It was true then, as it is now . ■
Gary Rosenblatt is the editor and publisher of the
New York Jewish Week, where this first appeared.
He served as editor of the Detroit Jewish News
from 1984-1993.
commentary continued from page 8
continued on page 12
“Jewish journalism has never faced a more
diffi
cult environment – and never been
more needed to bridge the gaps among us.”