guest column
Fighting Anti-Semitism in
Sweatpants and Slippers
N

o one who has seen the classic 
film Casablanca can forget the 
scene. Humphrey Bogart shoots 
a Nazi officer and the only witness is his 
new friend, the Nazi Captain Renault, 
played by Claude Rains. 
When soldiers arrive just 
moments after the shooting, 
Captain Renault looks at 
Bogie, and then instructs 
the soldiers, “Major Strasser 
has been shot. Round up the 
usual suspects.”
The “usual suspects” are, 
presumably, the unfortunate lot of inno-
cent scapegoats who always get targeted 
for crimes they didn’
t commit.
In case you hadn’
t noticed, some 
anti-Semites around the world are already 
blaming the Jews for the coronavirus. To 
them, Jews are always the “usual suspects,” 
this time accused of a truly epic crime: 
creating a global pandemic. It’
s actually 
not the first time this has happened. In 
the 14th century, in the midst of the Black 
Plague in Europe that killed an estimated 
50 million people, many people blamed 
the Jews, which led to the slaughter of 
numerous Jewish communities throughout 
the continent, particularly in Germany.
A variation of that sad theme has played 
out many times throughout history, 
including the Holocaust. There’
s a crisis of 
some sort and the Jews — history’
s “usual 
suspects” — will invariably get blamed. So 
it should come as no surprise that this is 
happening during this horrific coronavirus 
pandemic.
In recent weeks:
• A member of Iran’
s parliament recent-
ly tweeted that this pandemic “is a kind 
of biological attack by the U.S. and the 
Zionist regime.”
• At a recent Ohio rally, people were 
seen carrying signs of a rat wearing a yar-
mulke and a Star of David, with the words 
“the real plague.”

• In Germany, anti-Semites distributed 
yellow stickers shaped like Stars of David 
with anti-Semitic slurs linking Jews to the 
virus.
• In New York, there are people calling 
for virus-carrying Jews to wear a patch 
with the letter “C” for coronavirus.
This modern-day version of Jewish 
scapegoating comes at an extraordinarily 
volatile time. We have economic calamity, 
a killer virus, profound political divisions 
and the technology for anti-Semites to 
easily spread their hateful message. The 
anger and rhetoric of far-right hate groups 
is exploding, and they clearly feel increas-
ingly emboldened to come out from the 
shadows.
Needless to say, this is all a recipe for a 
powder keg of trouble for Jews and other 
minority groups, and one would have to be 
oblivious to history to not recognize it.
But good people who wish to do some-
thing about it are not powerless, even 
while we are mostly staying home during 
this pandemic. There are still a remarkable 

amount of things that people are doing to 
fight hate.
The Anti-Defamation League 
(ADL) has created an initiative named 
#FightingHateFromHome, which is a 
series of webinars that educate and provide 
practical ways for people to be activists 
during the pandemic crisis (see adl.org). 
The ADL’
s Michigan Regional Director, 
Carolyn Normandin, says that far-right 
hate groups are seeing the coronavirus cri-
sis as an opportunity to spread their mes-
sage: “Hateful opportunists are using the 
fear and uncertainty of the current crisis 
to promote anti-Semitism and other forms 
of hate. If you hear anyone promoting vio-
lence or hate, report the incident.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center 
(SPLC) has been monitoring hate groups 
in America for the last 50 years. Lately, 
during this crisis, the group has been using 
its “Hate Watch Blog” to expose the activ-
ities of right-wing activists who use social 
media to protest “Stay At Home” orders 
in various states (see splcenter.org). At the 

COURTESY OF MARK JACOBS

Mark
Jacobs

10 | JUNE 4 • 2020 

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