The News & Topicality Thread

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Del
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Antisemitism

Post by Del »

Biff wrote: 25 Dec 2022, 14:07
Del wrote: 25 Dec 2022, 13:14
How Whoopi ever got a lead spot on an ABC News show.... defies explanation.
She's:
- Female
- Black
(sigh)

Well, if it's intersectional boxes that they care about.... Could they at least find someone who is less dumb and less ugly?
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Antisemitism

Post by Biff »

Del wrote: 26 Dec 2022, 03:29
Biff wrote: 25 Dec 2022, 14:07
Del wrote: 25 Dec 2022, 13:14
How Whoopi ever got a lead spot on an ABC News show.... defies explanation.
She's:
- Female
- Black
(sigh)

Well, if it's intersectional boxes that they care about.... Could they at least find someone who is less dumb and less ugly?
Probably not.
Here I stand. I can do no other. :flags-wavegreatbritain: :flags-canada:
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Antisemitism / Fascism

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+JMJ+

Survey finds ‘classical fascist’ antisemitic views widespread in U.S.

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A woman leaves a candle in front of the Tree of Life synagogue after 11 people were killed during a 2018 shooting in Pittsburgh. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

At points in the past half-century, many U.S. antisemitism experts thought this country could be aging out of it, that hostility and prejudice against Jews were fading in part because younger Americans held more accepting views than did older ones.

But a survey released Thursday shows how widely held such beliefs are in the United States today, including among younger Americans. The research by the Anti-Defamation League includes rare detail about the particular nature of antisemitism, how it centers on tropes of Jews as clannish, conspiratorial and holders of power.

The survey shows “antisemitism in its classical fascist form is emerging again in American society, where Jews are too secretive and powerful, working against interests of others, not sharing values, exploiting — the classic conspiratorial tropes,” Matt Williams, vice president of the ADL’s year-old Center for Antisemitism Research, told The Washington Post.

The study uses a new version of surveys the ADL has been doing in America since the 1960s in order to get at the specific nature of antisemitism, and what makes it different from other types of hate. Its new metric is centered on affirming or rejecting 14 statements, including whether Jews: “have too much control and influence on Wall Street,” “are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want,” or are “so shrewd that other people do not have a fair chance.”

The ADL’s center was created in response to a spike in the past few years of reported incidents of antisemitic violence and harassment, as well as a rise in antisemitic rhetoric from high-profile public figures.

[…]

It is difficult to assess whether antisemitic views have increased over time, given changes in the survey’s response options as well as how respondents were sampled. The survey was conducted in September and October among a national sample of 4,007 adults online through AmeriSpeak, a randomly sampled panel of U.S. households maintained by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Williams and some experts who helped review the study noted that it shows the views of Americans under 30 and those of Americans over 30 are very similar. Of Americans ages 18 to 30, 18 percent said six or more of the statements were true, while among those 31 and older, 20 percent did. Of younger Americans, 39 percent believed two to five statements, while among the older group, 41 percent did.

“It used to be that older Americans harbored more antisemitic views. The hypothesis was that antisemitism declined in the 1990s, the 2000s, because there was this new generation of more tolerant people. It shows younger people are much closer now to what older people think. My hypothesis is there is a cultural shift, fed maybe by technology and social media. The gap is disappearing,” said Ilana Horwitz, one of the survey’s reviewers, and an assistant professor of Jewish studies at Tulane University.

The “pervasiveness” of antisemitic tropes the study shows is what’s most interesting, Horwitz said. Even the fact that 3 percent of Americans say all of the original statements are “mostly or somewhat true” is alarming, she said.

[…]

The new research also delved into the differences between believing anti-Jewish tropes and negative sentiment toward Israel and its supporters.

“One of the findings of this report is that antisemitism in that classic, conspiratorial sense is far more widespread than anti-Israel sentiment,” Williams said.

The report highlighted that 90 percent of Americans agreed Israel “has a right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it” and that 79 percent agreed Israel is a “strong U.S. ally in the Middle East.” However, 40 percent at least slightly agreed that Israel “treats Palestinians like Nazis treated the Jews,” and 17 percent disagreed with the statement “I am comfortable spending time with people who openly support Israel.”

[…]


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Antisemitism / Fascism

Post by Del »


"Widespread"?

In the last 20 years, I have encountered exactly one young person (college age) out in the wild who holds such views.*


This sort of chatter is not tolerated on conservative news chat boards. "Group-identity" intolerance is probably more common on woke news sites, but I haven't checked.



*(Not counting Wosbald and Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib)
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Antisemitism / Fascism

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European Jewish Congress Shocked and Appalled by Russian FM’s Holocaust Reference

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(Source: EJC)

(Wednesday, January 18th, 2023) — The European Jewish Congress has expressed its shock and concern following comments today by Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov comparing Western governments’ support for Ukraine to Hitler’s Final Solution which resulted in the murder of six million Jews in the Shoah.

Lavrov claimed on Wednesday that the United States had put together a coalition of European states to solve the “Russian question” in the same way that Hitler had organised a Final Solution for Europe’s Jews.

“We are shocked and appalled by this shameful comparison drawn by Minister Lavrov between the actions of a coalition of democratic countries and Hitler’s persecution and murder of six million Jews in the Shoah,” EJC President Ariel Muzicant said.

“This is Holocaust distortion at its most basic level and we call on Mr. Lavrov to unequivocably apologise and withdraw these comments,” he added.

Mr. Lavrov claimed the West is “waging war against our country with the same task: the “Final Solution” of the Russian question.

“This is not the first time the minister has used Holocaust equivalence and Hitler references,” Musicant pointed out. “This must stop. As we mark in the coming days International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day that the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the memory of Holocaust victims must never be used in such an appalling manner.”


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Antisemitism / Fascism

Post by Del »

Serious question: Why do you think this is newsworthy?

I get why the Jewish officials protest and I can see why they sent out a press statement, but where are you on this? Why do you think that CPS should care?

So a Russian compared their enemies to Nazis. Everybody does that.

And Jews defend their well-deserved status as the victims of history's most egregious oppression. They do that consistently. Jewish groups protest when American pro-lifers call Democrats "Nazis" and liken their 60+ million murdered children to "Ten Holocausts." They do not want the tragedy of that unique genocide to be appropriated, and I don't blame them.

But how is this "topical news" in a thread that could be talking about Joe Biden's concentration camps on the border. Or his taking over $40 million from China to set up an office with carelessly kept Top Secret US intel where Chinese agents can have easy access?
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The News & Topicality Thread

Post by Hovannes »

I found a box marked Top Secret in my garage, next to the Model T.
Something about Austro-Hungary invading Cuba during WW1.
I was kind of hoping it was the microwave popcorn.
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Antisemitism

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+JMJ+

This looks to be interesting. Just a heads-up.

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Yair Rosenberg @Yair_Rosenberg | Twitter
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Antisemitism

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Antisemitism

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The Invisible Victims of American Anti-Semitism [Analysis, Opinion]

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(Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty)

If a hateful act doesn’t fit a preset political narrative, the public rarely notices it.

Last week, a gunman shot two Jews at close range as they departed morning prayer services in Los Angeles. The first victim was shot in the back on Wednesday. The second was shot multiple times in the arm on Thursday, less than 24 hours later. The attacks sent fear pulsing through the Jewish community of Los Angeles, as members wondered if their own place of worship would be targeted next. On Thursday evening, the alleged assailant was apprehended. Prosecutors say the 28-year-old Asian American man had a history of making anti-Semitic threats and possessed both a .380-caliber handgun and an AK-style rifle. It was a harrowing ordeal for America’s second-largest Jewish population. And yet, outside the Los Angeles Times and Jewish media outlets, the story went largely undiscussed on national front pages and cable news networks. The attacks never trended on social media. Which is why you might well be hearing about them now for the first time.

This is not an uncommon occurrence when it comes to American anti-Semitism. Here’s another disturbing story that has garnered little national attention: Over the past several years, local elected officials in New York and New Jersey have systematically worked to pass and impose laws with a single purpose — to keep Orthodox Jews out of their communities. The conduct of those officials was so egregious that the states’ attorneys general, Democrats Letitia James and Gurbir Grewal, respectively, pursued civil-rights lawsuits, alleging deliberate anti-Jewish discrimination.

In the case of Jackson Township, New Jersey, Grewal accused the local authorities of an array of abuses. These included “targeted and discriminatory surveillance of the homes of Orthodox Jews suspected of hosting communal prayer gatherings,” “enacting zoning ordinances in 2017 that essentially banned the establishment of yeshivas and dormitories,” and “discriminatory application of land use laws to inhibit the erection of sukkahs by the Township’s Jewish residents,” referring to the temporary huts built by religious Jews on their property to observe the holiday of Sukkot.

[…]

The story of New York’s Orange County follows the same sorry playbook. The region’s town of Chester is reputed to be the birthplace of Philadelphia Cream Cheese. But when Orthodox Jews began moving to the area, the residents saw not potential fellow enthusiasts, but a threat. In May 2020, James joined a lawsuit against local officials and accused them of “a concerted and systematic effort to prevent Hasidic Jewish families from moving to Chester.” In June 2021, Orange County and Chester settled with James and agreed to comply with the Fair Housing Act. “The discriminatory and illegal actions perpetrated by Orange County and the Town of Chester are blatantly antisemitic, and go against the diversity, inclusivity, and tolerance that New York prides itself on,” James said in her release announcing the settlement.

These long-running systemic efforts to outlaw Jewish life drew local news coverage, but scant notice in our national media and politics. For years, the same was true of the ongoing assaults on visibly religious Jews in the streets of Brooklyn, with some notable exceptions.

Why do some anti-Semitic incidents capture broad attention, while others languish in relative obscurity? What distinguishes comments made by leaders of the Women’s March from the actions of New York–township officials, or a synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh from one in Los Angeles?

In my decade reporting on such stories, I’ve come across many answers. Only one has consistently held true: Anti-Semitism is acknowledged when it conforms to one of two overarching partisan narratives that many journalists know how to tell and the public knows how to digest. On the one hand, there is the anti-Jewish bigotry that stems from white supremacists and neo-Nazis. This prejudice is right-coded, and typically attributed to conservatives. On the other, there is the anti-Jewish animus that results when anti-Zionism strays into anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel turns into vilification of Jews. This prejudice is left-coded, and typically attributed to progressives. Although these stories are simplifications, they should sound familiar because debates over them dominate our public discourse, not just in the press, but in the halls of Congress and the hothouse of social media.

What you’ll also notice is that all of the very real instances of anti-Semitism discussed above don’t fall into either of these baskets. Well-off neighborhoods passing bespoke ordinances to keep out Jews is neither white supremacy nor anti-Israel advocacy gone awry. Nor can Jews being shot and beaten up in the streets of their Brooklyn or Los Angeles neighborhoods by largely nonwhite assailants be blamed on the usual partisan bogeymen.

That’s why you might not have heard about these anti-Semitic acts. It’s not that politicians or journalists haven’t addressed them; in some cases, they have. It’s that these anti-Jewish incidents don’t fit into the usual stories we tell about anti-Semitism, so they don’t register, and are quickly forgotten if they are acknowledged at all.

In December 2019, two gunmen shot up a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, killing four people and injuring three. In the aftermath of the attack, Representative Rashida Tlaib posted a tweet alongside a picture of one of the Jewish victims, declaring simply, “This is heartbreaking. White supremacy kills.” When it became clear that the culprits were, in fact, tied to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, the lawmaker deleted the tweet, and did not post a replacement. In this, Tlaib is not exceptional but representative. When Americans do not have a convenient partisan frame through which to process an anti-Semitic act, it is often met with silence or soon dropped from the agenda. We understand events by fitting them into established patterns, and without them, we can’t even see the event.

To be sure, anti-Semitic incidents elude our attention for other reasons as well. If an anti-Jewish attack leaves its victims bloodied but breathing, as happened in Los Angeles, it is less likely to make headlines. What’s more, if there is no explicit violence at all, as in the townships of New York and New Jersey, there is often no news. Without a body on the pavement to illustrate the impact, such discrimination remains abstract. There is also the uncomfortable question of the perpetrator’s identity. When the victimizer comes from a victimized community, like the Asian American assailant in Los Angeles or Black attackers in Brooklyn, many observers lack the vocabulary to address the complexity and opt to avoid the conversation entirely. Likewise, when the victims are visibly different, like Orthodox Jews, some have trouble identifying with them. On the flip side, the involvement of a celebrity — such as Kanye West and Mel Gibson — can lend a story greater popular appeal.

But although these considerations have some explanatory capacity, they cannot match the power of partisanship, which regularly enables some acts of anti-Semitism to achieve escape velocity, even as others do not. After all, nothing is able to elevate even the most abstruse anti-Semitism to our attention like a Trump tweet about Jews.

Partisan pull explains how Americans process the problem of anti-Semitism. It is also part of the problem. As long as the frames through which we view anti-Jewish prejudice are narrow and politicized, we will tend to misapprehend its nature and overlook incidents we should not. This has real-world consequences. Just because something goes unremarked doesn’t mean it doesn’t leave a mark. When we lack the language to discuss an anti-Semitic act, we cannot develop a strategy to counter it or find a way to protect and comfort its victims.

Anti-Jewish prejudice is as old as Judaism itself and predates our modern political categories and ideologies. Before there were Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives, there were anti-Jewish bigots. Our response to the problem should acknowledge this fact, and make manifest the victims who have been rendered invisible by our own blinkered biases.


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