In this blog posting:
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Recent op-eds and letters to the editor related to anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
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A request that you write to our Members of Congress on two specific issues.
Don’t Miss Our Annual Membership Meeting Tonight – 7:00 p.m., Congregation Beit Tikvah
Good Luck to Zach Benjamin (executive director of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico) and his family in their new community – he has been a great Federation leader and pleasure to work with and helped SFMEW tremendously since our inception. We’ll miss him.
1. Recent op-eds and letters to the editor. Yasher Koach to all who wrote in the ABQ Journal or SF New Mexican recently:
Anti-Semitism is never acceptable or welcome
- Albuquerque Journal19 Jan 2019
AS THE LOCAL Women’s March nears, New Mexicans must address the national movement’s deep and troubling persisting history with antiSemitism. This is not to erase the real work and hard fights the Women’s March has led and supported. But to parrot a dear friend, “having an incisive view into one social injustice in no way insulates one against practicing another social injustice.”
Whether you are marching this year or sitting this one out, I ask you to reflect on how insidious antiSemitism is in this country. It is alive and well. The deeply uncomfortable reality is that anti-Semitism is just as at home on the left as it is on the right. Sometimes it takes the form of silence and complicity. Other times it comes in the form of explicit dog whistles such as Tamika Mallory’s tweet in response to folks calling out anti-Semitism from someone she celebrates and champions: “If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader!” Other times it takes the form of creating unity principles for groups like the Women’s March stemming from the mantra of inclusion and intersectionality and yet not including Jewish women in the long list of those who you will fight to “create a society in which all women […] are free”. An odd and troubling oversight.
Then there is the demand that all Jews must have both a singular view and an educated view on Israel, as if Jew and Israeli policy are one in the same, and the constant refrain of “but Israel” to halt any conversation about anti-Semitism or hypocrisy inherent in the ways intersectionality and inclusion are being championed.
“Growing pains of a new organization” or not, it is long past time the Women’s March atones and evolves. Anti-Semitism is never acceptable and should never be made welcome.
MELISSA GRIFFITH Albuquerque
COMMENTARY: A Christian response to anti-Semitism
- By Talitha Arnold Apr 18, 2019, New Mexican
Friday is the first night of Passover, the joyous celebration of God bringing the Jews from slavery into freedom. Today is also Good (or Holy) Friday, the Christian commemoration of Jesus’ death at the hand of the Roman Empire. For both Jews and Christians, this is a deeply holy day.
Tragically, the Christian Holy Friday has often been a time of holy terror for Jews. Throughout the centuries, the remembrance of Jesus’ suffering and death served as an excuse for Christians to inflict that same suffering and death on Jews. A Jewish friend recalls from his 1950s boyhood that he never went outside on Good Friday to avoid being beaten up by neighborhood boys because “the Jews killed Jesus.” Such beliefs are still prevalent. Recently, an acquaintance asserted, “Of course the Jews killed Jesus. The Bible says so.”
No, it doesn’t, and we Christians need to pay attention to how we tell the Good Friday story, especially in this time of rising anti-Semitism. Affirming our faith and seeking to follow in the ways of Jesus Christ should not lead to the prejudice and bias that fosters discrimination, fear and violence.
So how can we Christians tell the story of Good Friday? We can tell the truth that Jesus’ crucifixion was a Roman execution meant to strike fear and suppress opposition. Thirty years before Jesus’ death, the Roman Legion crucified 3,000 Jews to stop a rebellion in Galilee. When Christians tell Jesus’ story, we need be clear that the religious leaders of Jesus’ time were responsible for the well-being of their people, living under the shadow of a brutal and oppressive regime. Many were justifiably concerned with anyone who put their people in jeopardy by challenging that regime.
We can affirm that Christian scriptures were written over decades to different audiences with varying degrees of familiarity with Judaism and different relationships with the Roman Empire. When we speak of Jesus’ last days, we can tell the truth that the Gospel writers were trying to establish a new religion and therefore sometimes disparaged or vilified those who opposed them.
We can also underscore that the Gospels don’t agree in their portrayal of that opposition. As noted above, some Jewish leaders understandably feared Roman retribution, not just for themselves but for their people. Some opposed Jesus for theological reasons and believed he was undermining the faith that had given their people hope for generations.
Still others opposed Jesus for less virtuous reasons. In Jesus’ time, as in ours, unholy and unhelpful alliances existed among political, economic and religious leaders. Jesus’ advocacy for the poor, the vulnerable and the outcast — which was deeply rooted in his own faith as a Jew — may have been welcomed by some leaders and by the people, but it put him at odds with many in power, especially those at the top.
Moreover, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke often distinguished between the religious establishment and the people. Their Gospels also acknowledged diverse opinions toward Jesus among the leaders themselves. In contrast, three decades later, John’s Gospel was written primarily from a “you’re either for us or against us” perspective.
Hence, John spoke only of “the Jews” with little distinction between leaders and people or recognition of the diversity among the leaders. John also absolved the Romans of almost any responsibility for Jesus’ death. In Mark, Pontius Pilate turns Jesus over for crucifixion because he wishes “to please the crowd.” In Matthew, he literally washes his hands of the situation. But in John, the Roman imperial governor pleads Jesus’ case — an odd perspective, given the Roman Empire’s brutal response to religious resisters.
Because John’s Gospel has been the main text used in many Good Friday traditions, Jesus’ death often has been framed solely as the result of the “old Jewish religion” resisting the “new (and better)” Christian faith. From there, it’s only a small step to the “bad Jew, good Christian” thinking that’s often permeated Christianity from its beginning.
Yet as scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan observe, if the Jews as a whole wanted Jesus dead, why do Mark and Matthew state that the leaders needed to arrest and kill Jesus “by stealth” or that they were worried about a “riot among the people?” Perhaps the real opposition to Jesus that led to his death was rooted less in religion than in the leaders’ fear of losing power or status. Such fear is a human trait, not limited to any particular religious or ethnic group.
As Christians, we need to tell the truth of the Good Friday story. The story of Holy Week is not about the inherent evil of a particular ethnic or religious group. It is simply the all-too-human story of vested power (political and religious) that is threatened and then responds with force and violence.
The Jews didn’t kill Jesus. Fear and hatred did. Neither is the sole domain of any particular religious group or faith tradition. The question isn’t “who” killed Jesus but “what.” We Christians need to remember that this sacred week.
The Rev. Talitha Arnold is senior pastor at United Church of Santa Fe. She wrote this for the Interfaith Leadership Alliance, and 17 Christian members of the alliance signed on to the commentary.
MY VIEW: Anti-Semitism in the U.S. is growing
- By Manny Marczak May 11, 2019, New Mexican
Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews as a people, a race, an ethnic group. Anti-Zionism is objection to a country, a nation, a state. Anti-Semitism is a virus that mutates so the new anti-Semites can deny they are anti-Semites at all, because their hate is different from the old. In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion. In the 19th and early 20th century, they were hated for their race. Today they are hated for their nation-state, Israel.
There is a connection between Jews as a people, Judaism as a religion and Israel as a state that goes back more than 3,000 years. Jews are the only people who ever created a nation-state there. That is why anti-Zionism, denying Jews the right to their one home by misrepresenting Judaism, is the new anti-Semitism.
Social media needs to regulate the right of free speech when it becomes toxic hate that lead to acts of violence. Recently, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza fired 700 rockets at Israel. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., slammed the New York Times headline as being initiated from Gaza.
There is nothing wrong with making policy concerns about Israel or thinking others in the political process are wrong. The pattern of using specific language that marginalizes and stigmatizes others’ participation in the political process that is creating any unsafe climate is a legitimate concern.
Their remarks have been criticized by leaders of the Islamic faith for their lack of condemnation of Hamas’ actions. Imam Mohamad Tawhidi, president of the Islamic Association of South Australia, called Rep. Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., “absolute frauds and Islamists who promote hatred against the Jewish people. Ilhan does not believe that the Jewish people or the Jewish nation has a right to exist.”
Mohammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, secretary general of the Muslim World League, will join CEO David Harris of the American Jewish Committee to visit Auschwitz in January for the 75th anniversary of its liberation. On April 31, they signed a memorandum of understanding that “codifies the commitment to further Muslim-Jewish understanding and cooperation against racism and extremism in all its forms.” Al-Issa further stated, “I will encourage Muslims and non-Muslims to embrace mutual respect, understanding and diversity.”
We need to ensure that anti-Semitism in America does not become normalized. We need to condemn the offensive and vile memes and the stereotypes that prevail across the internet. We need to ensure our children learn to love and accept people of all races, religion and creeds; to teach our children that everyone has a right to have different views. We need to raise children who will grow to build bridges, not walls. It is our duty as parents bringing up the next generation to rise above and defeat hate.
Look into your child’s eyes and envision the world you want to remember. Hate has no place in our society.
Manny Marczak lives in Santa Fe.
MY VIEW: A new anti-Semitism is spreading
By Ron Duncan Hart May 18, 2019, New Mexican
We are confronting a resurgence of anti-Semitism and violence in our days from Charlottesville, Va., to Pittsburgh, from Jewish kids being bullied in schools and colleges to anti-Semitic comments heard with increasing frequency in the street. Jews are being blamed in anti-Semitic tropes that range from the rhetorical use of Israel as a euphemism for “the Jews” to suspicion against Jewish people of being a “hidden state” that controls international politics and commerce and even the old accusation of “blood libel.”
Anti-Semitism is not one seamless phenomenon, but a spectrum of expressions of stereotyping Jews. Judeophobia, the hatred of Jews; anti-Judaism, being against the religion. Anti-Jewishness is the bias or persecution of Jews as a social group; anti-Zionism, the opposition to Jews living in their traditional homeland; and anti-Israelism, the opposition to Israeli government policies. Anti-Semitism suggests Jews are a race. The fact that so many words are required to define the various nuances of this phenomenon gives an idea of how deep-rooted it is in our society.
Attacks on Jews are coming from two directions in this contemporary wave of anti-Semitism: white supremacist movement on the right and the conflation of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism on the left. In American society, anti-Semitism has historically been linked with prejudice against other minority groups, from African Americans to Muslims and Hispanos. These are the pillars of American bigotry, and where one starts, the other will follow. The massacres and attempted massacres at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Chabad of Poway in Southern California go along with the Charleston church shooting and recent attacks on Muslims. Over most of its history, the United States has been a safe haven for Jews, and these attacks are not only attacks on Jews but on the openness of our society.
The movement of anti-Israelism based on the accusations of apartheid and exploitation, the discourse of North and South, challenges us to think critically about the conflated assumption that if an Israeli government has a policy that is seen as flawed, then Israelis are flawed and Jews are flawed. Palestinian independence is a real and as-yet unsolved challenge that so many of us want to see resolved. Historically, Israel is the only country that has actually given self-rule to the Palestinians, and the challenge now is finding the next step.
Why didn’t the British give Palestinian independence when it was within their control to do so? Why did the Arab leadership reject the United Nations Partition Plan of 1948, thus denying the Palestinians a nation-state of their own? Why didn’t Abdul Nasser and King Hussein give independence to the Palestinians when they had respective authority over the Palestinian territories? Why have Arab leaders repeatedly blocked Palestinian self-determination since 1948? Even today, the leaders of Sunni Arab nations do not want an independent Palestinian state because of the prospect of it becoming a client state of the Shi’ite axis of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Have Israelis made mistakes? Of course. But blaming only the Israelis for the wrongs in the Arab-Israeli conflict is an oversimplification of that international conflict, and it too easily turns into a stereotypical view of the Jews being the problem.
Although it seems unthinkable that it could be happening, anti-Semitism is looming once again. The unequivocal rejection of bias and racism in our liberal democracy all too often falters when it comes to the “other” in our society. If we blink when Jews are attacked, what will we do when Muslims, African Americans and Hispanos are attacked? Or, when you are attacked?
Ron Duncan Hart, Ph.D. anthropologist, is director of the Institute for Tolerance Studies and president of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.
Ongoing tragedy (Letter, New Mexican May 24, 2019)
The film, 1948: Creation and Catastrophe, was shown at the Center for Contemporary Arts recently. The film depicts events surrounding the formation of the state of Israel. In a time of war, when terrible things happen to both soldiers and civilians, the film focuses in emotion-gripping detail on bad things that affected only Arabs of the region. It highlights personal suffering only of Arabs, hundreds of thousands of whom fled or were expelled. Suggesting that they should be allowed to return to the homes of their grandparents, the film never mentions persecution of the 600,000 Jews, 125,000 from Iraq alone, who were forced from their ancestral homelands throughout Arab North Africa and the Middle East, whose property was confiscated and who arrived penniless in the new Jewish state.
When people come to see themselves as victims, that all but guarantees they will do nothing to better themselves. The Jewish refugees went to work. Many Arab refugees and their descendants are still waiting in refugee camps. History cannot be unwritten. Those who seek justice in the Middle East and elsewhere should realize that it is achieved through initiative, and build for themselves better lives.
Stuart Cohen, Santa Fe
Kudos to Rep. Luján (Letter, New Mexican May 24, 2019)
John S. Gordon (“Maggie’s the one,” Letters to the Editor, May 16) claims “House Resolution 246 … seeks to intimidate and criminalize the free-speech rights of American citizens. …” One wonders, did Gordon read the resolution? It states that the U.S. House opposes the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as being anti-peace, anti-Semitic and bad U.S. foreign policy. It has no limitation on free speech and no criminal penalties.
Gordon may engage in Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions activities without fear of being sanctioned or arrested. But if Gordon does support BDS, then he would need some self-honesty, as he’d be putting himself in bed with warmongering anti-Semites who oppose the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. I thought Santa Feans were for peace.
Does Senate candidate Maggie Toulouse Oliver take a pro-BDS stand? I don’t know. Given Gordon’s misreading of H.R. 246, I wouldn’t trust his word of her views on this complicated issue. Kudos to Rep. Ben Ray Luján for supporting our ally, Israel, and taking the right stand.
Halley S. Faust, Chairman, Santa Fe Middle East Watch
Here is the letter from John S. Gordon:
Maggie’s the one (New Mexican May 15, 2019)
Thanks to Milan Simonich for pointing out the shameless hypocrisy of Rep. Ben Ray Luján (“Please, just the facts, Ben Ray,” Ringside Seat, May 10), whose record of mediocrity in Congress makes him wholly unqualified to fill Tom Udall’s distinguished seat in the U.S. Senate. Luján is the only Democratic member of New Mexico’s congressional delegation to co-sponsor House Resolution 246, an extraordinary, unconstitutional bit of right-wing mischief that seeks to intimidate and criminalize the free-speech rights of American citizens who dare to question the policies of Israel’s current extremist government.
Fortunately, New Mexicans have the opportunity to send Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver to the U.S. Senate — a candidate with the integrity, vitality and judgment to carry on Udall’s commitment to thoughtful, respectful national governance and honorable leadership in the community of nations.
John S. Gordon, Santa Fe
2. Take a moment to write to our Members of Congress (contact information can be found here):
Writing to your MOCs in your own words is effective. They need to hear from us, both thanking them when they vote our way, and expressing our disappoinment when they don’t. This will only take a few minutes, but your voice is important. Send an email – the key aides in each office and the chiefs of staff should hear from you. Contact information is readily available on our website: http://www.sfmew.org/elected-officials-contact/.
In the House:
- Thank Ben Ray Lujan for co-sponsoring H. Res. 246 (which opposes efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel), and H.R. 1837 (which makes improvements to certain defense and security assistance provisions authorizes assistance for Israel, and for other purposes), and for signing onto the bicameral letter to the president supporting strategies that ensure the US stands with Israel in trying times, and assures Israel has the tools it needs to defend itself against violent terrorism like that unleashed by Hamas earlier this month (700 rockets indiscriminately fired into Israel proper).
2. Ask Deb Haaland and Xochitl Torres-Small to co-sponsor H. Res. 246 and H. R. 1837
In the Senate:
- Ask Senators Udall and Heinrich to co-sponsor S. Res. 120, which does the same thing as H. Res. 246: opposing efforts to delegitimize the State of Israel and the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement targeting Israel.
- Express your disappointment to them that they did not vote for S. 1, Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act of 2019, which passed the Senate by a vote of 77 – 23.
SFMEW is a beneficiary organization of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.