By Cllifford Jackson, Larchmont
Anti-Semitism has been a constant adversary for Jews around the world , and especially in this country, for centuries. It has a long history that I will go into shortly. However Anti-Semitism also applies to those who speak semitic languages such as Arabic, Aramaic and Amharic. Unfortunately this level of hate has been pigeon-holed to just mean a hatred of Jews. Palestinian Muslim and Arabs in general are also Semitic speaking people and can also be the victims of antisemitism, it is pure western colonialism and racism that seems to apply antisemitism as something that only European Jews are victims of.
Ask many Ethiopian ( Black Jews) and what they have experiencied in the so-called state of Israel as far as not just the racism from Israeli’s but from attacks on their judaism in that country and it is not viewed by some as anti-semitism. Notwithstanding Mazi Pilip an Israeli/Ethiopian Jew from Long Island who is totally colonized in her thinking and an absolute disgrace to Ethiopian Jews and People of color around the world. She is a white person in dark skin. A very typical malaise of western colonialism. That colonialism has also fostered anti-semitism in this country and throughout Europe for five centuries with all of the pogroms and displacement of Jews around the world especially in Europe.
Anti-Semitism goes back to the crusades where white Christians during the 11th 12th and 13th centuries, under Pope Innocent III , Pope Urban II and Pope Eugenius led violent conquests of Jerusalem and the holy lands slaughtering thousands of Muslims and Killing hundreds of Jews along the German Rhine. That violence of white Christians against Jews and Muslims continued with the Spanish Inquisition in the fifteenth century where anti-semitism towards the Sephardic Jews was at its apex where thousands were tortured for ” heresy” including ” water boarding” many were killed and expurgated. The same treatment was inflicted by these savage European Christians against Muslims in Spain. In 1614 there were a series of anti-semitic laws passed in Frankfurt Germany that led to Jews being persecutued. In 1789 another series of anti-semitic laws were passed in Romania leading to more violence and pogroms against Jews.
The Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935 after the taking over of the Reichstag in 1933 by Hitler and the Third Reich took away Jewish citizenship and led to the unlawful imprisonment of thousands of Jews. These laws were passed based upon nazi scientists who studied the laws of the American aparthied system in this country. Specifically the Racial Eugenics theories and practices of the American medical profession which helped support the efforts to maintain the purity and so-called superiority of the white race here in America.
Kristallnacht in November 1938 where there were violent anti-Jewish pogroms and Jewish businesses were decimated are all clear examples of the evil history and persecution of Jews around the world. The Nazi Holocaust which was the greatest HATE crime in Human history committed primarily against Jews leading to the death of 6 million jews, as well as 2 million Romani people (Gypsies) and tens of thousand of black Africans where Germany had a colonial control over south west Africa ( Namibia) . It was the greatest hate crime based upon Hitlers defining Jews as the bane of the worlds existence in Mein Kempf.
It was NOT the greatest crime in human history that has been committed by the white western world towards african and indigenous people as far as the absolute numbers killed from the slave trade, as well as five centuries of the European annihilation of indigenous peoples in the Americas.
Malcolm X on January 5, 1965 on a Canadian program called ” Front Page Challenge” acknowledged the persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union under Brezhnev.
What is not Anti-semitism and is morally repugnant is that when people are protesting against what Benjamin Netanyahu and his right wing thugs are doing in their slaughter, from the lastest casualty count, of more than thirty thousand Palestinian Men , women and children and their efforts at Genocide. When people around this country and around the world call this evil committed by the Israelis ‘ Genocide” they are calling it for what it is and those who claim that these people are anti-semitic are a categorical fraud as far as their judaism and make a mockery of real anti-semitism as all of my aforementioned examples make clear.
There are at least three hundred Holocaust survivors as of 2014 who condemn the Israeli occupation of Palestine and who today are calling what is happening in Gaza ” Genocide” and are in agreement with much of the world condemnation of Israel as well as the Findings of the ICJ(International Court of Justice} that what is happening to the Palestinians is Genocide. They are rejecting the racism and anti-semitism of Alan Dershowitz towards Palestinians when he says ” only listen to European Country’s when it comes to Israel”. Dr. Israel Shahak a holocaust survivor and professor of Organic Chemistry and a human rights activist said ” the Nazi’s made me afraid to be a Jew. The Israeli’s make me ashamed of being a Jew”.
The governor of NY, as well as the mayor of New York city and the mayor of New Rochelle and the Westchester County Executive are a bunch of mendacious politicians, who label those who call what is happening in Palestine ‘ genocide’ examples of anti-semitism. In the case of George Latimer’s run for congress an example of a whole slew of dishonest self-serving politicians falling in line and following the dictates of AIPAC. I used to have respect for Latimer I dont any longer. Support Jamal Bowman for Congress who has been to Gaza and saw first hand the evil being done to Palestinians and knows what real anti-semitism is.
Reject the racism of Eric Schoen who supports Latimer for congress and extols former Congressman Eliot Engel who said ” All cops are heroes”. Well maybe Mr. Schoen and Mr. Engels needs to review the Kerner Commission report of 1968, that Dr. King agreed with, that said the rioting especially in the northern cities from 1963 to 1968 were the result of many factors “including racist police violence and occupation of black communities and communities of color for decades”.
Zionism has hijacked Judaism and zionism is evil ! The racism of those in Larchmont and the surrounding communities including Jews who call anti-zionism and attacks on the brutal Israeli occupation anti-semitism make the Judeo-Christian ethic a LIE, and contravene the real meaning of Abraham Heschel, Martin Buber and what many of my Jewish brothers and sisters in this country and around the world fight for everyday supporting social justice in this racist society and western colonized world.
Clifford Jackson, Larchmont
