It’s Not The Politics: It’s The Antisemitism

Obsession with party over community MUST stop.

Recently, one of my articles was the target of some intensely negative feedback. The common thread through those reactions was basically “Most Jews are Democrats, so how dare you criticize Democratic Party?” Which is, in my opinion, very odd, circular reasoning. It is also very self-destructive. Things change. Whether the Democratic Party was, at one time, better for the Jews, has exactly nothing to do with whether their policies are good for us right now.

I get it. I grew up in a family that were all, with no exceptions that I know of, Democrats.

The purpose of my column, however, is, and always has been, to not only shine a light on antisemitism, but to do so honestly, WITHOUT regard to politics. That most of my recent criticism has been directed at the Democrats is a product of their increasingly obvious willingness to tolerate, and even facilitate, those who hate us. Each article is well sourced, so if you have a problem with the facts: provide alternative facts, don’t just act offended because your party was criticized. That is true for people on both sides of the political spectrum. We should all be open to the facts, and open to alternate interpretations of those facts. But our approach to fighting antisemitism must start with an acceptance of the new reality in which we live.

When Donald Trump met with Jew hater Nick Fuentes, I was extremely critical of his behavior. I was the first person among my circle of friends and associates who correctly named Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens as the antisemites that they are. Both are very prominent conservatives.

If we are going to deal effectively with antisemitism and antisemites, we cannot allow politics to determine who we vote for, and who earns our support as a community.

We also can’t continue to support a party merely because our parents, grandparents and great grandparents supported that party. Decades of being told in non-Orthodox circles that the central tenet of Judaism is “tikkun olam,” and that the tenets of that philosophy just so happen to line up with Democratic Party values (no matter what that means at any given moment) has made it legitimately difficult for some of us to see the line between what it means to be Jewish, and what it means to be a Democrat. Regardless, past support is not a reason to support a party that has been getting significantly cozier with Jew haters over the last decade.

I would absolutely say that if that party were the Republicans (and have many time before in the past).

The simple test is this: if you try to name prominent Republicans who are Jew haters you come up with Marjorie Taylor Green, the aforementioned Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens. You may want to throw in Donald Trump, but, at worst, his worst comments about Jews have been tactless or ignorant (or debunked, more on that later).

Just off the top of almost anyone’s head, the Democrat list would have to include: Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, and Pramila Jayapal, all of whom have made overtly anti-Jewish comments. They are the kinds of things that led directly to the shedding of Jewish blood in other eras (blood libels, Jewish conspiracies, Jewish cabals, etc).

What do you notice about the two lists? The former has one sitting United States congressperson, while the latter list is made up entirely of current, or very recent, members of Congress.

The Democratic Party tolerates, and even praises these people. That is not an opinion, it is a fact. Denying it is merely wishful thinking at this point. In fact, Tim Walz campaigned on Ilhan Omar’s behalf this very election cycle.

A potentially better indicator? In May of this year, 21 House Republicans voted against a bill that would crack down on campus antisemitism. Meanwhile, 71 Democrats voted against the same bill. All 92 are horrible people. The intelligent thing as a community would be to not support any of them, on either side.

That also ignores dozens of others who have publicly paid lip-service to opposing antisemitism, but also overtly or implicitly express support for antisemites and antisemitic actions.

It should be incredibly unsurprising that politicians try to play both sides of the fence. Except that now, one side of that fence is made up of people who want to murder us.

That also doesn’t include the fact that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have often stood in Israel’s way throughout the current war. Their insistence that Israel not invade Rafah may have cost the lives of six Jewish hostages.

It additionally doesn’t include the fact that in formulating his plan to “combat antisemitism,” Joe Biden, in a move that should have stunned us all, chose the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a known anti-Zionist, anti-Jewish group, as a partner in formulating that policy.

How can you not view that choice as anything but antagonistic toward our community?

The leader of CAIR had already said that he was “very happy” to see Hamas attack Israel on October 7 (which also didn’t stop Democrat Gavin Newsom from meeting with him last January). This is the same group that has advocated that public schools and libraries adopt a reading list for children that includes books that claim, among other things, that ALL of Israel is “Palestine.”

It is the same group that condemned the rescue of Israeli hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, as a “horrific massacre.” You read that right, rescuing Israelis held hostage by Hamas, and killing a bunch of terrorists along the way, is for them “horrific.”

Believe what they say. They mean it.

Most recently, they OBJECTED to an Los Angeles City Council proposal, in the wake of the Pico-Robertson pogrom, which would protect synagogue goers from anti-Israel/Jewish harassment.

That is the group that Joe Biden chose as a partner in formulating a plan to “fight” antisemitism. If you don’t question his motives just because he has a “D” next to his name, I need to ask you “why?”

Party aside, in what universe have we seen anything like any of this in the past? What did Donald Trump do that was analogous? And if that question offends you, I would ask you what Democrat president before Barack Obama did anything even remotely similar?

“Before Obama” because Barack Obama engaged in anti-Jewish actions which were previously unheard for Democrats and Republicans. He set the modern precedent, if not for hostility against Jews, but for its antecedent, open hostility toward Israel (I know that for some of you that is debatable-I disagree and that should be ok in our community). The worst presidents for the Jews before him, I would argue, were Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. One Democrat and one Republican.

However, that was a totally different era, the threats were not as dire, and the actions of any politician did not carry the same level of potential danger as today.

As for the question of whether all of this is politically motivated, I feel sorry for anyone who refuses to place party affiliation (far) below being clear-eyed about the multiple threats that face us right now; threats which are far more dangerous than most of us have seen in our lifetimes.

“Don’t for Democrats,” or at least some Democrats, does not equal “vote enthusiastically for Republicans.” It never has.

We live in a post-10/7 world where there is almost no room for error. We have seen, on nearly a daily basis, that antisemitism was a far more entrenched, and dangerous, problem than even the most pessimistic among us realized.

We have to live in the real world to effectively fight back effectively.

Which leads me to the subject that caused so much anger and resentment in my last article: Kamala Harris.

During the last Ramadan, the presidential nominee of the Democratic Parry said this: “During the blessed last 10 days of Ramadan, we celebrate our Administration’s incredible Muslim team.”

Who was being celebrated on that team?

One member was Nasrina Bargzie, who fought a lawsuit against Jewish students who were suing because of anti-Jewish harassment at Berkeley. It includes Mazen Basraw, who was Biden’s “Muslim liaison.” Basraw had attended a conference honoring one of the unindicted co-conspirators of the World Trade Center bombing, and whose appointment was applauded by Muslim Brotherhood groups (including CAIR). It included Brenda Abdelall, who has accused Israel of ethnic cleansing. She was assistant secretary for “partnership and engagement” at Homeland Security under the Biden-Harris administration. She also attended a convention where speakers had called for a caliphate ruled by Islamic sharia law and called for freeing Islamic terrorists.

That is a partial list. I can easily go on. Hopefully, you already got the picture.

But the most egregious recent example uttered by Harris was at the recent Trump/Harris debate.

Asked about Israel, Harris, as she usually does, first said that Israel has a right to defend itself (how gracious of anyone to conclude that we as Jews have a right to defend ourselves). However, it was followed by a comment that should only be described as “shocking,” in which she accused the IDF of not only killing innocent civilians, but specifically she said that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed; children, mothers.”

If you are ok with our politicians echoing Hamas’ rhetoric, that is your prerogative. I, on the other hand, am horrified that any major party nominee is echoing the lies of our enemies. That comment was designed as, and is, an obvious blood libel.

She chose “mothers” and “children” because those terms are far more emotionally resonant sympathetically than saying “scumbag, lowlife, murdering, rapist terrorists“ (who make up the bulk of who Israel has killed). Who, then, is her audience? Clearly, at the very least, she is trying to appease those who despise the one and only Jewish State.

Regardless, anyone killed in Gaza is not Israel’s responsibility but is fully, and exclusively, the responsibility of Hamas. Even the implication that Jews are responsible for the deaths of innocent civilians in this war IS a blood libel. It is one of many factors driving wave after wave of today’s antisemitism. Which is why going out her way to say “mothers and children” is so especially reprehensible. The effect of which, and this has been true since the Middle Ages, is marginalization/demonization/harm/death to Jews. Always.

In other words: this has always been the playbook of antisemites and their enablers.

There is no bigger change in American political life, for Jews anyway, than the increasingly casual way in which our politicians are allied with Jew haters.

And again, these are just a few, brief, examples. I’m keeping the article short to make the point.

Also repeated at the debate was one of the favored criticisms of Trump. The “fine people on both sides” comment, which supposedly referred to neo-Nazis. First, the “other side” in that case was ANTIFA. It is obviously absurd to think that Trump would refer to ANTIFA as “fine people.” That aspect of this ALWAYS gets lost in the mix. But aside from that obvious detail, even left-wing Snopes has debunked the claim.

So it’s not true. Stop repeating it. There is way more than enough real examples of politicians engaging in Jew hatred that we do not need to repeat fake examples (and that is true even if the engager is named Dondald Trump).

However, there is a certain vice-president, and presidential nominee, who DID effectively say the same thing about campus protestors, many of whom have expressed genocidal and nazi-like views, when she said that “they are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza.”

I am old enough (55) to remember when the vast majority of hard-core antisemites WERE right wingers. I’ve lived through the shift. As I have said for a very long time – the good guys and bad guys switch sides every few generations. We are living through just such a shift at this moment. Please don’t be blind to it. Our lives, and the well-being of the global Jewish community is at stake.

Antisemitism’s biggest enablers can be, and usually are, those in power. Historically, in America we were blessed to have a largely antisemitism-free, or inert, political class. That has changed. In the current moment, there is often no separation between Jew hatred and politics. Worse, the expression of those views has become increasingly socially acceptable, and often applauded. As I said in one of my earliest articles, Jewish unity is crucial, and while we do not all have to belong to the same political party, we must accept that we can no longer afford to support people who would destroy us (G-d forbid).

History will not forgive us if we can’t manage to place people far above party. That is true of all people, in each party.

Never give in. Never give up.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Joshua Namm is a longtime Jewish community pro, passionate Israel advocate, and co-founder/co-CEO of Moptu, a unique social platform designed specifically for article sharing, and dedicated to the principle of free speech.