Jews are feeling increasingly afraid and unwelcome. Last week, girls on the basketball team of a Jewish private school in suburban Hartsdale, New York, were jabbed and hit with antisemitic slurs by players from Yonkers’ Roosevelt High School. “I support Hamas, you f—ing Jew,” a Roosevelt player snarled. The game had to be called off in the third quarter, and the Jewish girls needed school security to help them leave.
Antisemitic incidents were already on the rise in 2021 and 2022. Now they are up nearly 400% year over year since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt explains, “I am not talking about, you know, stores producing IDF T-shirts. I’m talking about a coffee shop on Long Island, an ice cream parlor in the Bay Area, a restaurant in Chicago.” It reminds him of his grandparents’ barbershop, which was vandalized by the Nazis in Germany. “I can’t believe this is happening in our country today.”
Believe it.
The mainstream media choose to downplay it and the Democratic Party is, at best, divided. Antisemitism has often come from the Right, but it appears now to be coming from the Left.
When the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania caused outrage by saying at a congressional hearing in December that calls for Jewish genocide don’t necessarily violate campus policy — “it depends on the context” — Democrats’ reactions were mixed.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) had no problem with moral clarity. “There is no ‘both sides-ism’ and it isn’t ‘free speech,’ it’s simply hate speech,” Fetterman said. It should be “reflexive” to “condemn antisemitism.”
But former President Barack Obama, the titular head of the party, had a different response. He reached out to Harvard and made a behind-the-scenes effort to save President Claudine Gay’s job.
On Dec. 13, the House of Representatives voted on a resolution to condemn antisemitism on campuses and demand the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and MIT for tolerating it. Democrats split, with 84 supporting the resolution and 125 opposing. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) called it a “gross overreach” to tell colleges whom they should hire.
Sorry. If the discrimination had been against black students, the vote would have been unanimous, and Democrats would have clamored to pull federal funding from the colleges. But Jewish students can pound salt.
Jewish hostages, too. The public’s indifference to the eight American Jews captive in Gaza, the media’s silence and President Joe Biden’s tepid efforts to get them released, are telling.
Recall that during Jimmy Carter’s presidency, 52 American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and endured 444 days of captivity.
During that ordeal, Americans tied yellow ribbons around trees and Walter Cronkite announced on the nightly CBS news how many days the hostages had been captive. Carter’s failure to get them out contributed to his landslide loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
That’s unlikely to be a factor this November because this time, so few Americans care.
Granted, there are only eight hostages, and they were not serving the U.S. in an official capacity when they were taken. Even so, the silence is troubling.
In 2014, First Lady Michelle Obama made it a cause celebre when 200 Nigerian school girls were abducted. They weren’t Americans, but she said, “In these girls, Barack and I see our own daughters.”
Prominent Democrats today are not holding signs saying “Bring Back Our Hostages.” Families of the American hostages released an ongoing TV ad on Jan. 7 to fill the void and build awareness.
Over the centuries, hatred of Jews has come from many directions. The latest wave appears linked to progressive opposition to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, according to a study done by Arie Perliger, director of security studies at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. All Jews must bear the guilt, the thinking goes.
By failing to condemn antisemitism, politicians, academics and their media allies are doing our enemies’ bidding. One week ago, ISIS released a 67-minute diatribe calling for the destruction of Jews worldwide to avenge Israeli strikes against Gaza. The message was “kill them wherever you find them.”
Meanwhile, Jewish families privately talk at the dinner table about Anne Frank, hiding in attics, and where this new wave of antisemitism could lead.
It’s time for all Americans to denounce it.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM
When I first reached voting age (entirely too many years ago!) I registered as an Independent. It wasn’t long before I switched to Republican not that I was so impressed with them as I was ticked off at what the Democrats were doing! I wondered why they were such control freaks like they were a bunch of lousy Nazis or something. Now with all the numerous examples of their party’s Antisemitism I realize I had actually stumbled onto the truth back then. They really are a bunch of lousy Nazis after all!
Although it ended in disaster, Carter at least TRIED to rescue American hostages. Today’s Democrat leaders don’t do dick: Mogadishu, the USS Cole, Benghazi, Afghanistan withdrawl, Hamas… a history of Do Nothings. Harvard already was outed for Asian discrimination. 2020 saw “mostly peaceful protests” with few arrests and virtually no convictions (and these are the same ANTIFAS scumbags waving Palestinian flags). Now we have millions of illegals running around… America is being destroyed.
In the article, it says “Antisemitism has often come from the Right”. I would like to see an example. Some falsely believe that NAZIs were on the right. Those folks likely don’t know that NAZI is an acronym for National SOCIALIST German Workers Party. You would be VERY hard pressed to come up with a more leftist name than that. And they were, indeed, socialists. They may have been accused by their closest enemy, the Russian Communists of being ‘right wing’, and they MAY have been slightly to the right of the commies. But who, with even half a brain, would believe anything a communist says?
They are persecuting God’s Chosen People. Where there is EVIL, there WILL be judgment and it won’t be pretty. Many protestors and sign bearers are paid-for activists who have NO IDEA what this is all about.
Unfortunately, Antisemitism will continue to rise in our nation as well as the rest of the world. The Jews have emigrated from the north, east and south back to Israel. There has not been a great deal from the west but it will begin in the near future. Everything will be by the Creator’s agenda.
Jewish families at the dinner table better start talking about getting firearms training and arming up. They need to get over their reflexive liberalism and realize their safety is up to them. Cops will only arrive after a crime. They cant protect anyone save by deterrence. The treason party is working feverishly to dilute that effect into nothingness.
The kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls hass been ongoing for over 2 decades now, Obamas nentio it ONCE,
The Extremes are the same whether the far left or the far right. My father taught Civics, Government, Amer. & European history, in the public schools & years ago said, “If you go far enough left you come back on the right,” as he made a big circle in air. The left has labeled regular citizens as far right, but that is not true. Regular people are not far right or left, they are just regular people. It is the left that has gone full circle just as my father said it does. And the left has moved to such as extreme that it is now fascist, right-wing. This is revealed by the hatred against the Jewish peoples. Hitler is considered right-wing because of his hatred–racism against the Jews who he did not consider white enough and now the left has turned it around. Both extremes, both left and right are evil as they invert reality.
Amen! The only thing the Left cowtows to is their own twisted ideological power grab. We all will face our judgment day. Eternity is infinitely longer than our time on His creation.
NO HONEST AMERICAN SHOULD EVER SUPPORT ANY MUSLIM OVER GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE, THE JEWS PERIOD!
Racism overall continues to grow due to Progressives constantly dividing citizens based on our ethnic backgrounds. Why Jews and Americans of color continue to support the Democrat Party is beyond understanding.
I dont see how anyone could be angry with a people merely for the mass slaughter of thousands of women and children……oh and lets not forget about the elderly in Palestine.
I mean, like the Israeli government stated……they are merely dirty animals.
Gods chosen people? Seriously?
To generally attack folks for some probably imaginable connection to the Nazi like regime in Israel is inexcusably wrong. It is the equivalent of cursing the blind when the sun goes down.
Now, as for the British established pseudo nation of Israel. Every member of the current ruling party there should be either imprisoned for life or executed after a Nuremberg type kangaroo court session. What Netanyahu’s party is doing is NO different than that other final solution about which we all have to endure Jewish Whine.This article mentions the little Jewish girls feeling frightened……….how would they feel if they were blown to bits as Israel is doing to Palestinian children by the thousands?
Direct the anger to the appropriate parties and leave the little girls alone. DON’t ACT LIKE ISRAEL!!……