From college campuses to talk shows to local coffeehouses, a national discussion about racism and bigotry has spread throughout the United States. One bigotry often left out of this conversation is anti-Semitism. Despite perceptions to the contrary, anti-Semitism is far from dead and deserves to be part of the national conversation about bigotry that is occurring.
As of 2013, 26 percent of the American public believe that “Jews were responsible for the death of Christ.” When 26 percent Americans believe the deicide charge against Jews is accurate, anti-Semitism has numerous avenues to flow from. After all, if someone believes that Jews killed the man that they see as the son of God, nothing will stop them from any further anti-Semitic thought or action, since a charge of deicide, by its nature, must be the highest charge possible.
College campuses have become a large source of anti-Semitism, which is abysmal given the role of college students in fighting bigotry. At UCLA, Rachel Beyda was almost denied an appointment to the Judicial Board due to her Jewishness and ties to the UCLA Jewish community. At California-Berkeley, a restroom in March 2015 was spray painted with “Zionists should be sent to the gas chambers,” while swastikas were painted earlier in the year at Berkeley, as well as at Stanford, Vanderbilt, and George Washington. Other anti-Semitic instances have taken place at universities throughout the country, from the University of Chicago to City University of New York, where “Zionists” were blamed for high tuition levels. Meanwhile, the alliance of Students for Justice in Palestine, a group with ties to the BDS movement and its wish to be the “euthanasia” of Israel, and No Red Tape, an organization attempting to fight rape and sexual assault at Columbia University, is particularly insulting. Sexual assault is appalling, and must be fought tooth and nail. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has absolutely nothing to do with rape in the United States, which raises the question, why this alliance? The only logical answer is that somebody had the idea to link support for a Palestine based on a single-state solution with fighting rape. All groups, including Jews and Zionists, can be raped. Attempting to mix an issue like this and Middle Eastern politics, and thus paint one side of the Israel-Palestine debate as pro rape, is simply beyond the pale of reason. No wonder three-fourth of Jewish American and Canadian university students “described experiencing anti-Semitism.” Anti-Semitism, like any bigotry, is appalling in any form, but when one of the largest sources is the very same pool of people trying to fight bigotry, it is a cruel blow indeed. Until college students and other constituencies against bigotry acknowledge anti-Semitism and any other ignored bigotry, they lack any moral legitimacy, no matter how right they may be on certain issues.
Even the U.S. government has been involved in anti-Semitism, as it has targeted Jews on grounds of questionable loyalties (sound familiar?), thanks to the actions of an extremely small number of Jews. To the credit of the U.S. government, the FBI has recorded hate crimes in the U.S. and unfortunately, hate crimes against Jews and Jewish institutions make up a majority of religious-based hate crimes.
No form of bigotry, whether against blacks, Latinos, Jews, Muslims, the LGBT community, or anyone else, is acceptable. Until America wakes up to the existence of anti-Semitism in its midst, everyone is for the worse. After all, as the old saying goes: One for all and all for one.
Matthew Wallack