To think that antisemitism now needs to be tackled in the strongest possible way?

[LucyWestenra]

The Bondi thread in chat was eye opening.

Forty pages and a lot of it whataboutery, excuses and vile antisemitism.

It’s disgusting.

It needs to be called out. It needs to be rooted out.

I feel so sorry for the Jewish communities everywhere. How can they possibly feel safe?

And if it doesn't mean to them "kill Jews" but merely 'protest against Israel', why would they argue in favour of being able to chant it when it is obvious that there are people who do use it to mean 'kill Jews'?

It's like the 'oh, from the river to the sea just means stop killing Palestinians' when there are many, many instances of people, including on British marches, chanting it meaning 'let's eradicate Israel'.

When you find out that people are really chanting 'kill Jews and eradicate Israel', why would you continue to march alongside them? Or argue that they are peace marches?

But then I've had someone try to argue with me on here that 'Death to the IDF' wasn't actually calling for people to die.

I didn't realise that you had left Britain so recently. I'm really sorry about your experiences.

The group chanting 'Khaybar Khaybar....' were doing that in 2021 too. They were found not guilty by a jury last week, so the justice system hasn't improved in the meantime.

Think of how Jews now live in many (all?) Western countries. Very high security for all community buildings, no visible signs of Jewishness in public for fear of attack, many members of the community actively discussing emigration. If any other community had to live like this it would be a massive issue. But somehow when its Jews we don't massively care TBH, do we? I think we just don't know how to talk about it. Everyone knows where the threat actually comes from, but its another (very assertive + currently fashionable) minority community so absolutely everyone to the left of Reform just dances around the issue (and I say this as someone who really doesn't like Reform).

Oh and there isn't a single Muslim majority country where religious minorities (including often Muslim minorities) aren't treated badly, sometimes extremely badly, but no one feels the need to quiz every individual British Muslim about that.

I heard a commentator yesterday make an interesting and powerful point (sorry no link). He basically said ‘why is it that there aren’t lots of attacks on Russians despite Putin’s awful behavior? Yet ordinary Jews get punished for the actions of the state of Israel?’
he concludes that anti semitism is the difference. We can separate the actions of Russia and Russians. But not Israel and Jews.
im not Jewish but have a Jewish DiL so have been in plenty of synagogues which had security well before Oct 7

And let's not forget 'Israel is a terror state'.

No. Jesus was Jewish. Almost all his early followers in his lifetime were Jewish. The New Testament I read every day as a Christian was written entirely by Jews. From my point of view as a Christian we all - the whole of humanity - 'killed Jesus', in that our wrongdoing necessitated his death, to reconcile us to God. When the NT was written most followers of Jesus were still Jewish and would have considered themselves as such - they just thought of themselves as followers of the Jewish messiah promised in the Old Testament. They were actually relatively unsure about accepting non-Jews into their community - the argument about that runs right through the post-gospels New Testament. Its terrible that some passages which were written in the context of Jews arguing with other Jews then became fuel for awful persecution in later centuries.

I don't particularly have a problem with that one. Nor Netanyahu is a war criminal. Nor 'Israel is committing genocide'. Because those to me are criticisms of Israel that while some people might consider them overblown or offensive, they're not inherently antisemitic. Unless I have missed something.

I would have a problem with 'Israel is committing a Holocaust' and 'Netanyahu is a Nazi'. Because if there's one thing antisemites love, it's comparing Jews to Nazis.

This is true. To take one example, there are Russian Orthodox Churches in many UK cities. The Russian Orthodox Church's leadership has been absolutely dreadful in cheering on the invasion of Ukraine, but no one is harassing their churches here.

What I think is that we're not going to stop people believing the most negative reading of those slogans by banning marches against actions that are an abomination (whatever you want to call them), or blasting Israeli pop music and shouting 'You're on the wrong side of history' at them.

I think that when people see Jews asking Israel to be called to account on its actions like any government should be (including Hamas for 7 Oct), maybe we can change the minds of people who might be thinking 'Why aren't Jews saying anything about this?' or worse 'These Jews must really hate us, they must be cheering on Palestinians being killed' The sense I got at the marches as a Jew was not eagerness to hate Jews, but a sense of relief and gratitude from people who really don't want to hate us and are glad to see Jews speak out too.

There is no future unless we stop being so damned scared of one another.

Its similar with attacks on Mosques or ordinary Muslims in response to acts of terrorism by radicals. The prejudice already exists.

What I do find particularly frustrating with Antisemitism is when people, usually on the left, can recognize and condemn prejudice and retaliatory violence in every other context, but find the need to qualify or contextualize in relation to Jewish people.

The reverse it also true, mind, in that a lot of people who quickly (and rightfully) object to shoehorning Israel into conversations about violence of Jews worldwide, will happily smear other groups of people based on the actions of a few.

I hate that this conversation seems to arise every single time there's an act of hate, too. It feels extremely disrespectful to the victims.

Echo I can hear what you are saying, but I don't agree at all
You make the point here - "The sense I got at the marches as a Jew was not eagerness to hate Jews, but a sense of relief and gratitude from people who really don't want to hate us and are glad to see Jews speak out too." - to me this is very heavily leaning on the good/bad Jews trope. As long as Jews speak up and hold the same opinion as us we won't hate them. No one should be looking for reasons not to hate us in the first place.

I don't hate Muslims. I don't need to see examples of good people like Ahmad-Al-Ahmad not to hate Muslims- why would I need a reason not to hate? It's not hard to separate out my rage at the actions of Hamas, and terrorists, and their supporters, and hold them personally accountable for the actions.

Slogans like globalise the intifada and Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahoud can only have one interpretation. I can fully accept that you have not witnessed that on the marches you have been at, but they have been a feature of many of the marches over the last two years.

Well said @EllaDisenchanted

I strongly and respectfully disagree. I see no need to prove my worth to anyone. And whether or not I am a Zionist or a Netanyahu supporter I still don’t think my children should be shot on a beach in Australia. I don’t have to be a good Jew to deserve to be protected.

Absolutely this 100%

There are crash barriers around Christmas markets for a reason, tell me again why we shouldn’t be scared of those that would do us harm.

It’s just the same old hatred reforming itself. When people say of course it’s awful but Gaza is the explanation, I just think do you rationalise the Nazis anti-Semitism in the same way? What was the ‘cause’ of that? What was the cause of Oswald Mosley and the black shirts? The cause of the Russian pograms? What was the cause of the Jews being expelled from England in the thirteenth century? What was the cause of the massacre at Clifford’s Tower in the 12th century? People can find a ‘rational’ explanation, but it’s the same hatred that underpins and runs through it all.

This made me really sad to read. I'm sorry anyone might be scared enough by antisemites to feel compelled into marching alongside them to prove they're the right kind of Jew.

The idea that there are people who really don't want to hate us but will be eager to do so unless sufficiently appeased by a Jew saying and doing all the right things is abhorrent. That the Not Like Other Jews is different to all those scary, incorrectly opinionated Jews who must hate 'us'- who's 'us' in this context? I don't need to hate anyone to hold people accountable for their actions, nor do I require gratitude or approval, particularly not from those who don't consider me worthy unless I put on some sort of display to prove my fealty.

To the people whose minds need to be changed (newsflash: those people will not be changing their minds) there's apparently no middle ground for Jews between joining the people gleefully calling out offensive, violent and antisemitic chants or cheering on Palestinians being killed- you're saying we must do one to prove to people who really don't want to hate us that we're not the other. No thank you.

This is so true. Persecution, and scapegoating, follows the fashion of the time. The old iterations remain, layered over by the most recent version of the lie.

I agree, the vast majority of people on that thread were condemning the terrorist attack and saying anti semitism needs to stop if it's the one I'm thinking of?

Maybe because I don't live in London/ near big Jewish communities but I've not observed any anti semitism myself, we tend to get lots of anti immigration rhetoric/ protests here. I have read some awful stories on here though and my heart goes out to people who feel threatened just going about their day to day lives.

@Echobelly you always say how you never saw any antisemitism on the marches. There are many, well-documented instances of antisemitism on those marches, so what do you think of the antisemitism you didn’t personally see?

And what do you think about people dismissing these problematic marchers with ‘the marches are fine, there are Jews there who don’t have a problem with it’?

This brought tears to my eyes.

I’m so sorry. 💐

I have only just read the first page of that thread from 2021 and I have to admit to my shame that I am shocked things were so bad back then already. I had no idea.

I’m so sorry you had to leave.

💐

I absolutely 100% agree we need to vigorously tackle anti semitism, which is a horrific form of prejudice and hatred. I equally vigorously refute that protests against barbaric indefensible Israeli action in Gaza is anti semitic. These two beliefs that I hold do not contradict each other.

Why does Gaza always have to be mentioned?

On every single thread?