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.”

