The September 15 Washington Post has a disturbing article about the increase of anti-Semitism on American college campuses, “In the safe spaces on campus, no Jews allowed,” which is itself a condensation of a longer article by the same name published in The Tower by Anthony Berteaux. What’s disturbing to me are two things. First, that the Jewish students who recount instances of anti-Semitism are progressives, many trying to be allies of movements like Black Lives Matter or going to conferences about people of color. Second, the Jews have traditionally been solidly behind civil rights movements for blacks, and it’s sad to me to see this rupture, which is largely over the Israel/Palestine issue.
What people don’t realize is that there’s a tremendous diversity of opinion among Jews about Israel and Palestine, as well as distortions in reporting (at one conference for People of Color, a Jewish student reported the dissemination of the old lie about Jews poisoning water they sell to Palestine, and on other campuses pro-Palestinian students and professors claim that Jews sell the organs of dead Palestinians (another lie). Since both of these canards can be dispelled by simple-fact checking, I see this as the modern version of “blood libel,” and a form of anti-Semitism. And while there’s tremendous support on American and British campuses for the BDS movement, I see that as anti-Semitic as well, for the aims of that movement are not to promote a two-state solution, but to eliminate the Jewish state entirely.
But I digress. When reading these articles, I was struck once again by the large number of anti-Semitic “hate crimes” in America—disproportionately larger than for members of any other religion, even when you normalize by the number of adherents. Here are the data on religiously motivated hate crimes from the FB( (2014):
In a free society, all of these crimes are reprehensible, and none is better or worse than the others. But I do want to point out the preponderance of Jewish “hate crimes,” which are, by and large, ignored by the press, especially by liberal news aggregators like PuffHo. Let’s look at the proportion of Americans that belong to one faith or another; this is from the Pew Religious Landscape Survey:
If we normalize the proportion of hate crimes by the size of the religious population, then anti-Jewish hate crimes are, on a per capita basis, 1.7 times more frequent than anti-Muslim hate crimes, and 105 times more frequent than anti-Catholic hate crimes!
Yet if you look, say, at the PuffHo Religion page, you’ll get the impression that all the anti-religious hatred in the U.S. is directed towards Muslims. Here are the two items at the top of the page; “Islamophobia” is a standalone section, but there’s no anti-Semitic section.
I can’t recall seeing many articles about anti-Semitism on PuffHo, especially compared to their profusion of articles calling out bigotry against Muslims (have a look). I am not saying, of course, that bigotry against Muslims is ever justified—it isn’t—or that it shouldn’t be highlighted, especially now that we’re facing the issue of immigrants from the Middle East. But I wonder why the concentration of attention on bigotry against Muslims over that on bigotry against Jews. Neither are “races”, so it can’t be that one stance is more racist than another: they’re both religions, Jake!
Perhaps it’s because Muslims are seen as “people of color” (though many Jews are Semites, just like Muslims), and therefore more liable to be oppressed. (Another explanation is that Jews may not have the megaphone that Muslim-rights organizations like CAIR have, though there is an Anti-Defamation League.)
Whatever the explanation, this concentration of attention is an unjustifiably skewed way to inform people about what’s going on, and may, for odious aggregators like PuffHo, represent a form of virtue signaling: “See, we’re on the side of oppressed Muslims (let the Jews take care of themselves.)”
h/t: Diane G.
Part of it I think has to do with the stereotype of Jews as being wealthy. So the privilege of wealth makes up for the anti-semitism, making them “less oppressed”.
Another factor is the impression that Muslims are more easilly identifiable. Unless one is an orthodox Jew you wouldn’t know a Jew from a gentile on the street or in a crowd, while Muslims are identifiable by the clothing, or facial hair. While that might not make them subjected to more hate “crime”, it might make them more frequently subjected to dirty looks, or bigoted remarks.
Yes that was my thought too; they are perceived by SJWs as part of the privileged class in the US.
PCC says:
Even if two people disagree with each other very strongly about mid-east politics, it is hard for me to see how that would translate into ‘not being allowed in a safe space’ or not being allowed to speak. Arguing over land borders is pretty much the quintessential definition of the sort of political speech that we need to be able to have with each other, because it’s pretty much guaranteed that not talking about land border disagreements will cause the problem to continue.
So I really don’t understand this liberal driving-out of pro-Israel liberals. I understand the disagreement, but it is hard for me to see any justification at all in going from that to ‘you make me feel unsafe and I refuse to let you speak at my events’
I can’t believe how you’ve overlooked the obvious reason for the rise of anti-Jewish bigotry! It’s the result of a concerted decades-long propaganda campaign pushed by Arab money and the lure of Arab oil.
Anyone who bothers to look seriously at middle-eastern history over the past century can tell that the “Palestinians” have consistently brought their miseries on their own heads, by their own bigotry, but modern Progressive SJWs are too mentally lazy to study real history themselves. They’d rather be spoon-fed Political Correctitude by clever propagandists who flatter their self-righteousness and use the fashionable buzz-words. It’s appalling how many of the current college crowd are unwilling to think independently, critically, or logically.
“I can’t believe how you’ve overlooked the obvious reason for the rise of anti-Jewish bigotry!”
I wasn’t really addressing the cause for the bigotry against either group. I was simply addressing how the bigotry is perceived to affect each group. Clearly, based on actual FBI hate crime statistics, Jews are victimized more, but I think most people if asked would say Muslims are.
Ever since I’ve been looking at it, there has been much more hate crime per capita against Jews in the US than any other group. However, the group that has the largest level of negative opinion is atheists, though it’s pretty high for Muslims too.
I think it might be about who’s doing the hating. Jews are seen as having the support of both the government and WASPs, which seems to make them a valid target for those who perpetrate hate crimes who are more likely to be younger people. Young people are more tolerant though of atheists and Muslims even though they’re generally more hated overall. Older people are less likely to attack.
I see it as a symptom of the rise of authoritarianism on both the left and right. Jews are a target for those at the extreme ends of both – part of the phenomenon of the ends of the horseshoe being closer to each other than the middle.
Whatever the reason, all bigotry is disgusting. To quote Fenchurch from THGTTG series (Douglas Adams), “Why can’t we all just be nice to one another?”
Your second paragraph is an interesting conjecture.
The other thought at occurs to me is that, with such a (statistically) small sample, it would be unreliable to attach too much significance to small differences in the percentages.
I think a major factor in making the figures potentially capricious, is that these figures presumably reflect convictions. As such, in the case of any individual crime, whether it was classified as a hate crime or something else may depend on the perception of the prosecutor, his enthusiasm for ‘throwing the book at’ the offender, or maybe the results of a plea-bargain. Or even the quirks of the local state law. With such small numbers, the ‘law of averages’ can’t operate to smooth out any anomalies.
Not that I’m looking to cast doubt on the top of the list.
cr
It is hard to know for all the reasons you state. My understanding is that “hate” is a federal crime and is investigated the Justice Department, so definition etc is centralised. As always with this sort of thing there would be issues around having the confidence to report the issue and some groups may be more confident than others about that, and that could vary by state and how bad it is too. As you say, it’s hard to know unless some kind of survey is done as crime statistics aren’t necessarily reliable for myriad reasons.
Without naming names, when a society allows/encourages racist or theocratic bigotry of one sort to become acceptable then its naturally going to spread.
In light of this, it’s all the more worrying that liberal politicians and media are arguing for taking in more and more refugees from the Muslim majority countries. As PCC posted multiple times here, according to reliable Pew polls, significant numbers of people in Muslim countries support death penalty for leaving Islam, despise homosexuals, support the principles of sharia and hate Israel. Is it really sensible to take in more people holding values contrary to the liberal democratic values of Western societies?
It’s notable that in Western countries with significant Muslim minorities (like France) there’s currently an increase in anti-Semitic incidents many perpetrated by Muslims. Liberal policies of opening borders to Muslim migrants will arguably lead to similar results in the US. By the way, liberal American Jewish organizations support these liberal policies out of misguided analogy with the Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. Never mind that current Muslim refugees do not face extermination on account of their religion and in fact pass through multiple safe Muslim countries (like Turkey and Jordan) on the way to their dream destinations in Europe and the US.
+ 1.
When large numbers of immigrants are let in from Third World Muslim countries with traditionally strong and increasing anti-Semitism, and when Westerners are told that this immigration will continue no matter what, and they must accommodate the immigrants together with all of their mental baggage, anti-Semitic hate crimes can be expected to increase.
Moreover, some locals have anti-Semitic views of their own and, while not daring to commit hate crimes against Jews, may be happy when someone else does it. These people are too short-sighted to realize that they will be next.
Personally I’d much rather let in people of varying ideologies so long as they are non-violent participants of democracy, then try and ideologically test potential immigrants for liberalism. If you use the ballot box to settle your differences – and accept when you lose without rebellion – then you’re good. If you use the sword to settle your differences, no you can’t come in.
Its always worth remembering that the next executive leader may not share your values, so when you give the government the power to select who comes in and who doesn’t based on ideology (rather than conduct), the government may exercise that power in ways you don’t like and didn’t expect. Maybe Trump gets elected and uses the power you just gave him to decide that only death-penalty supporters will be allowed in. Because hey, you handed the government that discretionary power.
IMO its far better to limit the government’s immigration discretion to objective and neutral criteria such as whether someone can be expected to obey our laws and not commit or incite violent and illegal acts.
The Conservative Party of Canada is currently having a leadership race, and one of the candidates has proposed vetting immigration candidates for their adherence to “Canadian values”. A lot of the response, nation-wide, has been along the lines of your last two paragraphs.
“Arguably”? Perhaps, but you haven’t presented any argument to support of your assertion. Nor have you provided any support for your supposition that liberal Jewish groups don’t properly understand either Jewish history or current world events.
The gifted American novelist, essayist, and polemicist Gore Vidal (who, truth to tell, developed some batty ideas in his dotage) would sometimes refer to this nation as the United States of Amnesia. That is, unfortunately, an apt description, especially now with our current phobia about Muslim immigrants and paranoia over domestic terrorism.
Our country went through a nearly identical cycle of immigrant bashing and terrorism panic a century ago. Then, the immigrant phobia was directed against Jews and central Europeans, and the paranoia concerned anarchist terrorism (“anarcho-syndicalism,” to be specific, though it soon radiated out to all leftists).
This cycle reached its peak in the first quarter of the 20th century. Indeed, that century began with a bang (so to speak) with the assassination of president William McKinley by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. (If you look at the statements by ranking public figures in the wake of that assassination regarding the grave existential threat posed to America by immigrant anarchists, it’s impossible to miss the parallels to today’s rhetoric regarding radical Islamism.* The foul atmosphere the assassination left behind was exacerbated by the outbreak of WW1 in 1914 and the Russian Revolution in 1917.)
Some of the highlights of that period include Congress’s passage of the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918; the prosecution of Yiddish pamphleteers made famous in the SCOTUS case Schenk v. US; the warrantless “Palmer Raid” seizures of so-called “subversive” literature; the imprisonment of labor leader Eugene Debs; the deportation of Emma Goldman; and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. It was a time of rampant demagoguery and massive infringement on civil liberties. And it was innocent American immigrants who bore the brunt of the public’s and the government’s nativist ire.
There’s a paranoid reactionary strain running deep in the American psyche — sometimes dormant, sometimes not. Largely ignorant of our history, every generation of Americans deigns to think it’s on the brink of national cataclysm, when in truth and fact (notwithstanding the nation’s manifest pressing problems) we are now in a period of relative peace, prosperity, and domestic tranquility (at least compared to turbulent times past, which included foreign invasion, civil war, and two world wars with a great depression sandwiched between them.)
You could see this reactionary paranoia on display this summer with the unrelenting fear-mongering and hate that poured forth nightly from the Republican National Convention that nominated Donald Trump to be our next president (heaven forfend). Let us not succumb to its recrudescence further.
________
Typical of these statements was the assertion by McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt, that “[w]hen compared with the suppression of anarchy, every other question sinks into insignificance,” as well as the claims by subsequent president Woodrow Wilson that America’s most-recent immigrants were “creatures of passion, disloyalty and anarchy” who “poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life” and who, accordingly, “must be crushed out.”
When I suggested that the Holocaust analogy is highly inaccurate and it’s inappropriate to use it to describe the Syrian refugee crisis, you propose another analogy, this time with the European immigration wave at the turn of the last century. Just as I reject the conservatives comparing every enemy to the Nazis and seeing in every Saddam the next Hitler, so I reject false analogies when they come from liberals. Every situation is different, each has to be dealt with on its own terms.
There are a lot of differences between earlier immigration waves and the current crisis. It is much easier nowadays for the immigrants to reject assimilation, to stay in closed, homogeneous communities and refuse to integrate. Reasons for this include the ease of transportation. At the beginning of the 20th century, the European immigrants knew they were leaving their home countries forever. They often took all of their possessions with them and cut off any contact with their past lives. Now a Muslim immigrant can get on the plane and be back in Afghanistan in no time (just as the man who allegedly bombed Manhattan last Saturday did). Furthermore, modern communications and Internet allow immigrants to stay in touch with their home culture, follow local developments and respond to the often anti-American incitement in their countries’ media. Many terrorists were radicalized online and were able to contact foreign terrorist organizations through social media. Also, one can not discount the Saudi efforts at exporting the most extreme strain of Islam, the Wahhabi interpretation, and spreading it throughout the world, including among Western Muslim populations. This includes Saudi funding for the mosques, religious schools and training of imams who then preach the most odious and divisive teachings of Islam. There’s more on Saudis’ pernicious influence in this NYT article http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-islam.html. All of these factors enable rejection of assimilation and allow Muslim immigrants to set up separate communities.
And the facts bear this out. For the past fifty years, European countries have engaged in a vast experiment taking in more and more Muslim immigrants. Different countries used different approaches to assimilation, e.g. France pushed strongly for integration and laicite while Britain engaged in laissez-faire multiculturalism. Yet the results show the failure of integration and assimilation in these countries. According to polls, 35% of French Muslims think suicide bombings against civilian targets can be justified (http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf#page=60), 52% of British Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal (http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/c4-survey-and-documentary-reveals-what-british-muslims-really-think) and 71% of German Muslims think the sexual morality of Western societies is completely degenerate (https://www.bmi.bund.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/139732/publicationFile/14975/Muslime in Deutschland.pdf#page=125). All of these facts indicate significant challenges in integrating immigrants faced by European countries.
In conclusion, I find it ironic that liberals, who are (justifiably in my opinion) concerned about the influence of Christian fundamentalists in the US, want to take in more Islamist fanatics as if we don’t have enough religious nuts in this country. Even if as eric alludes above, new Muslim immigrants non-violently participate in our democracy (as most Christian fundamentalists do, that is not engaging in criminal acts like killing abortion doctors), their backward beliefs on the role of women, homosexuality, separation of “church” and state etc. will pose a huge challenge and only magnify religious influences in our society.
Did you read the Roolz? This comment is way too long. I will allow this one, but if you wish to respond to someone else at this length, either make your comments shorter or respond via private email. Got it?
I apologize, Jerry; I broke the rules first with my lengthy comment. Given that, I think Al was entitled to respond in kind. We can cut it off here.
I disagree with what Al says, but I will defend unto the banhammer his right to say it. 🙂
Now that I think of it, however, there are a pair of points of Al’s that I’d like to respond to. I said I wouldn’t, so I won’t — unless you see fit to grant papal dispensation. 🙂
I understand that you may be coming at this from a European perspective, but IMO the US doesn’t have an ‘immigration crisis.’ Our annual illegal immigration rate is 0.3% of the population, its dropping, and Muslims make up a practically insignificant fraction of that number.
I agree that the internet allows for a much more global propagation of ideas, some of them really bad and violent ideas. I also agree that relatively cheap and accessible global flights lowers the barriers to people going to places like Syria and Afghanistan to become even more radicalized than they might get ‘at home.’
However, none of that has much to do with immigration. Yes Rahami was from Afghanistan, but the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooter was born in New York. The 2015 San Bernadino shooter was born in Chicago. The 2009 Fort Hood shooter was born in Arlington, VA. Even in the notable cases of terrorism carried out by immigrants (such as this case and the Boston bombings), the pattern seems to be that they come over here while children, grow up mostly normal, and then radicalize a decade or two after they’ve been here. IOW, the ‘Manchurian candidate’ or ‘planted agent’ kind of terrorist hasn’t been the threat. The threat is normal American citizens – by birth or naturalization – becoming radicalized later in life and then carrying out attacks. So IMO there is no anti-terrorism justification to screen immigrants by religion or region. Should we deny entry to suspected violent criminals? Absolutely yes. Mothers and children fleeing IS who happen to be Muslim? No, their religion or the fact that they are from the Mideast provides no justifiable reason to deny them entry.
That’s pretty much exactly what Americans said of the Irish immigrants in the 1850’s and after. And the Italian Catholics in the 1870’s and beyond. And the Germans and Poles. And the Jews. It’s the same basic position Trump espouses. Fear them, they will change our society in dreadful ways. They can’t assimilate because they will drag in here with them their own culture/religion and destroy the lovely, stable society we have built with our hard labor.
So it goes. Nothing new here. Move along now.
“Fear them, they will change our society in dreadful ways. They can’t assimilate because they will drag in here with them their own culture/religion and destroy the lovely, stable society we have built with our hard labor.”
Perhaps you can point to an example where a mass migration of muslims, say greater than 5% of the host population, has worked out well.
The UK has a muslim population of around 5%. We spend £4.5bn countering terror plots by home grown muslim radicals. Muslims are over-represented about 3x in the prison population. Arranged first cousin marriages results in a 13x increase in chronic disability in children. Rape gangs (specifically targeting white teenage girls) have operated in multiple English cities. There is increasing radicalisation and adoption of islamic garb. Muslims attempting to reform islam are reviled by the muslim community.
How do non muslims from the Indian subcontinent do? Sikhs and hindus are the kind of migrants any society would want. Highly motivated. Over represented in the professional classes. Low crime rates
Muslims in the US account for about 1% of the population. I’d guess that number could be assimilated within a generation or two. I think the levels in Europe are probably extravagant and will take several generations to absorb. I’m with the pope on this. Save the refugees but send them back when the dust clears.
The UK muslim population doubled in the 15 years prior to 2015. It can increase quickly because:- spouses are frequently sourced from Pakistan, birth rate is high, age profile is “young”. Assimilation sounds fine but it’s not the experience in Europe. Islam in the west is becoming more radical, more assertive. A few months ago there was a discussion program on the BBC about islam. One lady was fully veiled – just the eyes showing. She spoke a lot and claimed she was fully integrated into British society. Nobody contradicted her.
Definitely a harder case than Italians or Irish in the US.
One time on a city sidewalk two drunk Indians kept saying “Hey Jew!” at me, but I also lived on the border of an Indian res and never experienced anything like that.
Neither are “races”, so it can’t be that one stance is more racist than another: they’re both religions, Jake!
“A number of people from the former Soviet Union wishing to immigrate to Israel could be subjected to DNA testing to prove their Jewishness, the Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday.”
Re: Your link. It seems to me pretty well established that Ashkenazi Jews are an ethnic group (if not a “race”), and perhaps Sephardic and other sub-groups are as well. This has been mentioned in the comments of a number of posts on the subject, but, as far as I know PCC has not commented on this. I am interested to hear his take on this, but of course, whether or not he comments is up to his genes, environment, and the laws of physics. Many anti-Semites hate even non-religious Jews and judge someone’s Jewishness more on genetics/ethnicity than religiosity. That sounds racist to me. I’ve seen comments from Neo-Nazis saying things like “an atheist Jew is still a Jew” and “a convert to Judaism is not a *real* Jew.” Again, the religion seems to be secondary to ethnicity. For this reason, I think most anti-Semitism is truly racist.
That link was politicians; here’s better info (Steve Hsu):
A genome-wide genetic signature of Jewish ancestry perfectly separates individuals with and without full Jewish ancestry in a large random sample of European Americans
Many anti-Semites hate even non-religious Jews and judge someone’s Jewishness more on genetics/ethnicity than religiosity. … For this reason, I think most anti-Semitism is truly racist.
I’ve never understood either, but I think it’s based on jealousy: Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence
“Yes, we[Jews] control Hollywood. Without us, you’d be flipping between “The 700 Club” and “Davey and Goliath” on TV all day.”
“Hollywood: If you enjoy TV and movies, then you probably like Jews after all.”
’nuff said!
Sub
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Historically, anti-Catholic bias in the US was not so much religion-based, I think, as it was grounded in anti-immigrant bigotry against the great mass of Catholics who emigrated here from Ireland, Italy, and central Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That bias largely dissipated as immigration from those nations declined, and as the descendants of those immigrants became fully Americanized. (Furthermore, to the extent it was based on religion, it has also been reduced by the Protestant far right — the traditional seat of anti-Catholic bias — making common cause with conservative Catholics over various Kulturkampf issues such as abortion.)
I think American anti-Muslim bias also largely serves as a proxy for anti-immigrant bigotry. It’s grounded in xenophobia toward whatever is thought to be foreign or somehow non-American. It is directed not merely against religious Muslims, but toward anyone who looks vaguely Arab or central or southern Asian, or who is wearing what is perceived to be “Islamic” garb, and encompasses Hindus and Sikhs and other religious and ethnic minorities.
Anti-Semitism tends to be an even more complicated matter, due to how tightly bound together Jewish ethnicity and religion are in the public consciousness. I think anti-Semites are largely motivated by the same type of ethnic biases and xenophobia that animate anti-Catholic and anti-Muslim bigots, but that those who act on their bigotry to commit hate-crimes do so with a religious component, both because the anti-Semitic tropes tend to be religious (Christ-killer, matzo made with the blood of Christian children, the Star of David) and because religious venues like synagogues provide ready target for their crimes. Anti-Semitism tends to be especially virulent because it is based not only on the same type of hatreds discussed above, but also on a paranoid fear that the object of hatred has vast and hidden powers to control world events.
Sometimes you just have to laugh at life’s ironies. In the past, the Catholic label was used as a proxy/dogwhistle to keep southern Europeans out. In the present, we have evangelical Protestant organizations objecting to central American immigration at least in part because they ‘don’t share our Christian values’ – IOW, ‘Mexican’ is being used as a proxy/dogwhistle to keep Catholics out (at least by some groups). Haters gotta hate.
Jews are a small minority but are perceived as being quite powerful. You can go back to the NT to see the Jews get labeled as “Christ killers,” which allowed Christian dominated countries to harass and persecute them. Ironically, they were protected in Muslim countries for a time while Christianity took Western Europe through the Dark Ages. In modern times, anti-Semitism was prevalent in the US with publications like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion being published and promoted by American icons like Henry Ford. The tragic irony being that many of the American anti-Semitic publications and the people who promoted them were influential on Hitler and the Nazis. We all know how the Nazis fared under the Nazis and the Soviets.
When I go online, I find these far right extremist views being expressed, where “Jews run the World,” are the Illuminati, control all of the banks, etc. Jews are commonly alleged to especially control the media, governmental bodies, academia, and the arts. Then I find those who claim that the Holocaust never happened and that the Jews made up this story to manipulate the West for sympathy.
Then on the far Left you see anger towards Jews because of the situation between Israel and Palestine.
It seems difficult for many people to view individuals Jews as human beings rather than a member of a powerful, monolithic, secretive cabal. This makes it far too easy for extremists to attack Jews without arousing too much of an outcry.
Like Diane pointed out, Jews have been allies of the Civil Rights Movement as well as allies of the Freethought movement. We need to find ways to defend their civil liberties just as much as we would fight for any other group being targeted and oppressed.
Let us get some stats on who does the crime. We know the rates are highest on the Jewish but who are the perpetrators. It is not the atheists and it is not just the Neo-Nazi or KKK, although they would be obviously high in the stats. Where do the Protestants, Catholics and Muslims fall in this puzzle. Being just the run of the mill atheist, I do not understand this anti-Semitism today in America. I’m just saying, maybe the numbers would help people like me understand where this is coming from and why it is happening.
I know it is all based on ignorance as all prejudices are but I do not get it.
Randall, here you go. FBI statistics on hate crime perpetrators for 2014. A few clicks around will also get you statistics for previous years.
Unfortunately, the FBI does not collect data on perp religion. But they do collect data on perp race, ethnicity, and ‘bias motivation.’ The majority of hate crime perpetrators are white. They culturally identify as not of Hispanic origin. And looking at table 5, it appears that race is not known for the majority of anti-Jewish hate crimes, but for anti-Jewish incidents where race is known, whites perpetrate the majority of them; 87 incidents out of 122.
To those who’d like to distinguish “political” anti-Semitism from something less-nuanced and more essentialized, please don’t fall into the trap of assuming that the “Jews run the world” and are the Illuminati mentality (including holocaust denial, etc.) is located solely among the knuckle-dragging white far Right. This also seeps into the ostensibly political anti-Semitism of the multicultural far Left re Israel. (I am for Palestinian rights and for Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign country and refuse to see that as an oxymoron, however naive and wrong-headed some would say that view is) I’ve found a lot of very ugly, even obscene, what I’d call “fundamentalist” visceral, racist anti-Semitism just below the surface in a lot of Progressive discourse on these matters. And the canards that JAC calls modern examples of the blood libel are examples.
However, in a comment to a post some time ago, which I reiterate here, I called attention to a literal contemporary iteration of the old blood libel, that Jews sacrifice gentiles, drink their blood and eat their flesh (first found in a pre-Christian context) — kinda sounds like the Sacrifice of the Mass — most notably elaborated in the preachments of the British ex-athlete and sportscaster, David Icke, which has it that Jews (and the Royal Family and various other luminaries such as Kris Kristofferson share this bloodline) are the hybrid spawn of ET reptilians and need the flesh and blood of gentiles to sustain them, especially blond-haired menstruating Aryan women, so engage in murderous orgies. This is some of the most convoluted, ugliest, most outrageous and grotesque stuff I’ve ever encountered. David Icke has scads of devotees all over the world, from various walks of life, ethnicities, political persuasions, and degrees of fame. For instance, Alice Walker, who advocates for BDS, etc., has publicly and repeatedly declared her belief in David Icke’s teachings, including that Jews are bloodthirsty reptilian hybrids. She has stated this proudly and publicly in her blog and elsewhere, so my calling attention to it is not an ad hominem attack or a case of libel, blood or otherwise, though some might think this comment flag-worthy and in need of a take-down.
“Jews run the world”…Does that mean I can vote for Mel Brooks for president in November?
Mel Brooks would certainly get my vote!!!
Hell, I’d vote for Foster Brooks over the Donald.
I’d vote (hic) for…I’d vote for (hic) I’d, I’d… I’d vote for bananas Foster over Chump.
Now that’s funny.
I, for one, welcome our reptilian overlords. And they only eat blond women because the atheists and Satanists cook all the juicy Christian babies before the reptilians can get to them.
Truth is MSM is full of shit and are betting on people not reading the original study.
Perhaps we will find out someday why MSM has such a hard-on for Islam and muslims.
Jews are viewed as white, and hatred towards whites is viewed as just evening the score.
Finding those two old civil-rights allies on opposing sides of any issue is always a source of great pain and agita for me. The only thing I can compare it to is finding two favorite teams facing off in the World Series, but with added weight and seriousness (not that the World Serious, as Dizzy Dean used to call it, isn’t itself serious business around my house).
So Jews were the SJW that people criticize now on your blog…oh, the irony.
No, Francisco, the irony is on those of you who know so little regarding the history of American social justice that you cannot distinguish those who fought the battles from keyboard posers who signal their virtue by mongering personal grievance and offense.
+1
cr
+
You just confirmed my point. Funny how definitions do not apply anymore when it is about your own fights.
Funny how European-Jews are viewed as Semites (Biblical term that has nothing to do with biology) instead of Europeans (yes, Euro-Jews are Europeans who used to speak a High-German written with Hebrew alphabet (Yiddish).
http://biologydirect.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1745-6150-5-57
For the analogy, Persian is an Indo-European language written with Arabic alphabet. Persians are not Arabs…
I guess even my favorite Evo biologist has his own bias.
Funny how you chose a controversial and less representative paper about Jewish origin to prove a (biased) point, namely that Ashkenazy Jews do not descend of ancient Israelites.
If you’d bother to read the reviewers’ comments you’d see that they mostly did not agree with the author’s conclusion.
Most of the present literature provides clear evidence that Ashkenazy Jews at least on the paternal side are rooted in the middle east. Of course there was mixing with local European populations, but not to the point to erase the common middle eastern ancestry.
See papers with different conclusions:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09103
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/20560205/
And a book:
https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Genetic-History-Jewish-People/dp/0195379616
The article I share is up to date review unlike the one you share.
Y chromosome is only one marker, scientists have debunked the “Jewish markers” here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25431579
and here
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25653666
Furthermore, nowadays, scientists do whole genomes analysis with a statistically significant samples like this studies (300 AJ)
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5835
where it is read :
“AJ (Ashkenazi Jewish) and European populations using their joint allele frequency spectrum determines AJ to be an even admixture of European and likely Middle Eastern origins. We date the split between the two ancestral populations to ≈12–25 Kyr, suggesting a predominantly Near Eastern source for the repopulation of Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum.”
Yes, AJ have Middle Eastern origin 12, 000 years ago like other Mediterranean Europeans…
Yes, there is a European Jewish ethnic group …in Europe, founder effect 700 years ago.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/10/did-modern-jews-originate-italy
It does not diminish the beauty of the European Jewish culture but culture and genetic are different.
“But I wonder why the concentration of attention on bigotry against Muslims over that on bigotry against Jews. Neither are “races”, so it can’t be that one stance is more racist than another: they’re both religions, Jake!”
Not quite.
Islam is solely a religion, though there may have been crimes against Arab-looking people (or Sikhs) because they were mistaken for Muslims.
But Jewish-ness is not just a religion, since there are many non-observing or even atheist Jews. Also, to complicate matters, there is the state of Israel doing controversial things.
So I don’t think antisemitism is solely a religious bias.
cr
I agree. After the Nazi Nuremberg laws and the Holocaust, it is simply incorrect to say that Judaism is just a religion. Nazis did not ask Jews if they believe in the Abrahamic God, or even if they are circumcised or go to the Temple before they murdered them.
If Human races exist, Jews, as a collective, are strong candidates for being a race/ethnicity of its own. Many genetic markers support the assumption that Jews form a cohesive, though not “pure” ethnic group.
People are used to identify races just by the color of skin. This isn’t the case in the Middle East, where tribal identification is the norm. The Jews are descended from one of those tribes. Surely they mixed with other peoples in the Diaspora, but still maintained their identity and genetic characteristics to some extent.
I’ve seen this discussion on Tw*tter today. An example: Matthew Yglesias Verified account
@mattyglesias
“I almost never encountered overt anti-Semitism in the US (abroad is another story) my whole life. Since Trump, it’s routine.”
5:53 AM – 21 Sep 2016
Then an online article: “Jared Taylor, an outspoken white nationalist, has stated that while there are “areas of disagreement” among alt-right adherents, “the central element of the alt-right is the position it takes on race.” If those sentiments seem a lot like the thinking espoused by Donald Trump, then you’ve stumbled onto the reasons why the movement has thrown its vast virtual weight behind the candidate. Subscribers to Reddit boards /r/WhiteRights and /r/The_Donald have increased by leaps and bounds, in some cases, rising by tens of millions month over month. It is not a coincidence this growth has happened as “the number of white nationalists and self-identified Nazi sympathizers on Twitter have multiplied more than 600 percent in the last four years, outperforming the so-called [ISIL] in everything from follower counts to number of daily tweets,” according to a George Washington University study. Stephen Bannon, Trump’s campaign head and the executive chairman of Breitbart News, has proudly dubbed his publication “the platform for the alt-right.” There’s strength in numbers, and the spread of Trumpism and alt-righties has helped make the internet a difficult place to exist for many.
In recent months, targets of online hate, including New York Times writer Jonathan Weisman (who devoted a column to the anti-Semitism alt-righters and other Trumpites have tweeted at him) and feminist writer Jessica Valenti (whose 5-year-old daughter was threatened with rape by an Instagram troll) have abandoned parts of social media. Journalist Julia Ioffe told the Guardian that she has received calls from people who’ve serenaded her with Hitler speeches, and was the subject of a neo-Nazi website post titled “Empress Melania Attacked by Filthy Russian Kike Julia Ioffe in GQ!” Bethany Mandel wrote about being subject to so much anti-Semitism—she was called a “slimy Jewess” and told she “deserve[s] the oven”—that fear prompted her to buy a gun. Cleveland.com columnist Henry J. Gomez writes that he’s seen a rise in hate mail following Trump’s ascension, with messages suggesting he should be “on the other side of the wall” and that his heritage should “disqualify” him from covering the presidential campaign. Much like the possibility of a Trump presidency, the alt-right’s “trolling” isn’t a joke, but a dangerous reality that taints online and offline lives, which are one and the same.” http://www.alternet.org/media/how-rise-toxic-troll-culture-has-made-vast-areas-internet-dangerous-place-just-perfect-donald