Bari Weiss has been everywhere lately promoting her book that says that anti-Zionism is dangerous anti-Semitism, and oh by the way, white nationalism is also a threat to Jews. She says anti-Zionist Jews are just trying to blend in with the “cool group,” when they should be celebrating Jewish specialness, and our “radical ideas” that still “drive people crazy.”
Bari Weiss has written a book about how to fight anti-Semitism, but during an interview with Bill Maher where he was telling anti-Semitic jokes non-stop she just laughed. Jonathan Ofir says this is because they agree on Israel and Zionism.
Bari Weiss’s book argues that if you embrace Zionism you will suffer ostracism and career reputational damage. But the last week she’s gotten treatment other authors only dream about, from cable networks to the 92d Street Y to a big-media party where everyone bewailed social media (because the leftwing dares to advocate for Palestinian human rights).
Lately we’ve seen several institutional efforts to show that American Jews are all for Israel, except the lunatics. That’s because the appearance of wall-to-wall US Jewish support is a necessity for Israel lobby groups in convincing politicians to back Israel unconditionally. IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace are a threat to the Stalinist consensus.
Zionism is Judaism, and anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic, New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss argues in her new book on anti-Semitism. “Whereas Jews once had to convert to Christianity, now they have to convert to anti-Zionism.”
Trump’s claim that Jews who vote Democratic are “disloyal” is ugly and dangerous, but he is only echoing Zionist indoctrination: that American Jews must give unconditional support to Israel. New York Times columnist Bari Weiss praises the idea that “Jews should be loyal to Israel,” while Trump aide Elliott Abrams says Jews, except in Israel, “must stand apart from the nation in which they live.”
Longtime pro-Israel journalist Ira Stoll follows up a lot of “whispered speculation” to unearth NYT editorial page editor James Bennet’s religious background, as “crucial context” for understanding the paper’s bias on Israel. It turns out that Bennet’s Jewish mother who survived the Holocaust was married in a church, and he was too. And BTW, she likens Israelis to Nazis.
For the past 25 years or so I have had a running debate with Jewish friends, Is anti-Semitism over? I’ve argued that it is, given the incredible Jewish inclusion. I was wrong. Anti-semitism remains an abiding hatred, and Poway shows it’s recurrent.
Many Democratic candidates for president are skipping the AIPAC conference because it’s offering a red carpet to a racist, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israel prime minister’s explicit slurs of Arabs have alarmed American progressives. But Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Bill de Blasio and the New York Times haven’t noticed.
When Batya Ungar-Sargon of the Forward landed on Rep. Ilhan Omar for an alleged anti-Semitic “trope” in calling out the Israel lobby’s use of money to influence politicians, she joined the army of slanderers ready to assign any criticism of Israel to one alleged anti-Semitic prejudice or another.