On Antisemitism

My wife, Lisa, and I recently saw, Giant, a play on Broadway, featuring John Lithgow, the American actor, playing Roald Dahl, the truculent children’s book author from Great Britain.  We had previously seen Lithgow recite by heart some stories by Ring Lardner while playing the roles of the characters in each story.  Quite a performance.  Lithgow performed admirably as the embittered Dahl adapting a British accent in playing this part.

The core of the play, written by Mark Rosenblatt, was an event that took place in August of 1983, when Dahl wrote a book review in reference to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon saying the following: “Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitied victims to barbarous murderers.” Subsequently, he underscored his comments in an interview with Michael Coren of the New Statesman when he stated: “I mean, there’s always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere, even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on Jews for no reason.”  Despite the fact that Dahl never apologized for his antisemitic comments, his books sold millions of copies during his lifetime.

  In approaching the age-old problem of antisemitism, I have begun my discussion with Dahl to illustrate the complexity of this issue.  Dahl was in Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II, had been married to the American actress, Patricia Neal, and had found fame and success as a story book writer for children.  He was educated and quite bright so why did a man of such background become not only anti-Israeli, but also by his own admission, antisemitic?

Of course, Dahl is only one person so he represents a mere microcosm to the vaster popular antisemitic tropes heard with much greater intensity presently.   Much of the current anger toward Jewish people started after October 7, 2023 when Hamas led an attack on Israel killing 1200 people and took around 252 hostages into the Gaza Strip.  This act resulted in subsequent bombings by Israel in an attempt to destroy Hamas.  What everyone was seeing on their television screens, however, appeared to be the deaths of many Palestinian civilians with little accounting of how successful Israel had been in wiping out Hamas.  The repeated broadcasts of Israel’s bombing the Gaza Strip resulted in world outrage and condemnation of Israel.

Particularly painful for many Jews like myself was that former progressive groups that many Jewish people had supported were now condemning Israel’s actions.  Younger people, such as college students, were chanting: “Free Palestine from the river to the sea.”   The meaning of this, whether understood or not by those that shouted it, meant abolish Israel as the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are the geographic locations encompassing Israel.  The irony of this, as I pointed out in an earlier blog, is that Israel more than any other country in the Mid-East treats women with respect and does not persecute those that people that are not heterosexual.  Suddenly, Israel along with being Jewish no longer received the support of young people that could be classified as progressives.

Although President Trump is not an antisemite, a reaction to his refusal to accept the election results of 2020 when he was defeated by President Biden, spawned conspiracy theories that some of his past followers have integrated into their thinking.  Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens are some high-profile people that have taken on far Right positions with their commonality being in denigrating Jews.  Many influencers of their ilk without any evidence to support their claim, believe that Jews were responsible for the murder of Charlie Kirk.  The consequence of all this is that both extremes of the Left and Right, although polar opposites, have come down strongly against Jewish people.

When it comes to antisemitism, social media has added gasoline to the fire spreading messages to their followers that don’t have a vestige of truth.  Podcasts say all sorts of things such as the Old Testament is about genocide and violence.  But going beyond social media, according to Yoram Hazony, in an interview with the American author and columnist, Ross Douthat, enlightened rationalists have dropped God and tradition that represent particularism.  They oppose the Jewish Bible in seeking out a universal truth that is accessible to everybody.

The distinction between being critical of Israel and being an antisemite is one of utmost importance.  Jews in both America and Israel are critical of the manner by which Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the Israeli government.  The view of Jewish congregations toward the conduct of Israel has been polarized pretty much throughout America.  I have witnessed this with my own two eyes.  But though many may detest Israel’s behavior, for the most part, they have not forsaken this Jewish Homeland.  But the reaction to these people is similar to Roald Dahl when he claimed to not only hate Israel but also to be an antisemite.  Here the disdain for a Jewish State, as manifested by Zionism, extends to anyone of the Jewish faith.  If one disagrees with Trump like so many do, that does not make that individual an anti-American.  Foreigners that dislike the way Trump is running the American government would be foolhardy if they were to hate all Americans.  But somehow that same type of judgment has created ill feelings by many, both from the political left and right, toward Jews.  Consequently, in various places from in the Western world, there have been attacks on individual Jews or their temples.  Unfortunately, this ubiquitous atmosphere of hate toward anyone calling him/herself a Jew has necessitated congregations in hiring security to protect the real possibility of an attack.  Those that belong to temples have incurred an additional expense, that of security, as part of their membership to these houses of prayer.

In his interview with Douthat, Hazony saw antisemitism is much more far reaching than Israel’s battles with its neighbors.  Hazony stated that antisemitism runs far deeper than foreign policy. Rather, foreign policy is one of the tools that antisemites employ to denounce those of the Jewish faith.  He told Douthat that a small group of people with a lot more influence than their numbers would indicate is an irritant to many people.   Foreign policy may have ignited the smoldering hot ashes but those ashes were there prior to the attack by Hamas that precipitated Israel’s reaction.  

Perhaps most disturbing about antisemitism is that it comes from both those that are educated as well as those that are not.  Mr. Dahl represented the educated when he made his disparaging remarks about Jewish people.  It did not appear to matter to Dahl that his British publisher, Tom Maschler, was the child of Holocaust survivors.  A recent article in the New York Times, pointed out that Jewish officials, whether supportive of Israel or not, throughout America have been confronted with a wave of antagonism.  Unfortunately, as the Times article stated:  “For some, the line between anti-Israel protest and antisemitism feels increasingly blurred.”