AIBU to post solidarity with the Jewish community here?

[RochelleMajerKrich]

I deleted my previous account (due to poor mental health) but I’m back.

Solidarity with the Jewish community.

Much love to you all.

I will always support you.

I watched this and he was brilliant!

(Trevor Phillips that is)

No faux naivety here - just your glaring disappointment that no one has brought up Gaza despite you baiting it twice.

If you assumed this thread was going to go the way of past threads (despite that clearly not being the case so far), why bother to start it? And why not just be pleased it hasn’t, rather than attempting to lead people into a conversation about Gaza, if that’s not what you wanted?

You’ve been praised by many for declaring your solidarity - I can’t fathom what more you wanted to come from the thread?

The best route out of this is love people unconditionally.

Zionism is a political ideology not Judaism.
A political ideology that is creating division, having heinous acts carried out in its name and, with MSM support, succeeding in conflating any challenge to those acts as an act of antisemitism.
Creating division and fear

Yes. And aside from the fact that this is a really reductive account of Theodore Herzl’s motivations for establishing a Jewish state, it’s a pretty damning indictment if we think the only way Jews can be safe is we send them all off to live separately from the rest of us!

Yeah, but it's not. HTH. This is about solidarity with the Jewish community and then suddently it's "oh,but it's just weaponised to shut us down". That's veiled anitsemitism.

And why exactly would you disagree with the right of the Jewish people to national self determination?

Thre are many left wing Zionist political movements which also oppose the actions of the current Israeli government.
Here's the platform of one such poltiical party - what do you disagree with?
https://meretz.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/English-Platform.pdf

This is why it's very hard to be anti-zionist and not antisemitic
EIther a) you don't actually understand what zionism is and conflate it with its extremist wing or b) you don't believe any nation has the right to self determinaton and there should be no nation-states. In both these cases, you're probably not anti-semitic. Otherwise, yep, antizionism pretty much overlaps with antisemistism.

It's not a question of "safe", that one has been answered over the last two thousand years. Jews are NOT safe living as a minority - of course, some places are safer at different points in time (not forgetting that they have been expelled from England before....) but certainly not everywhere all the time.

This isn't just about British Jews - the Jewish people are a nation spread throughout the world. During the Holocaust, for example, Britain slammed the doors shut (through its empire, including mandatory Palestine) to desperate Jewish refugees. The only people who can save Jews are Jews. If you don't like the idea of Jews having their own state and being able to save other Jews who need a safe haven, well, too bad. Two millenia of persecution, displacement and massacres have taught Jews very well what to expect.

Yeah, so you actually have no idea what zionism is. All it is is the movement for a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel. That homeland can take many different forms. How that creates division and fear is beyond me unless you are THAT opposed to Jewish self determination and prefer that Jews live as a helpess minority.
Interestingly, one of the reasons that Jinnah establishing Pakistan (with all the division and fear that caused) was because he didn't want Muslims in India to be like Jews....

Yeah, because no one has said that the rise in antisemitism is all because of Gaza.
And it's all Israel's fault actually because they say they represent Jews.

For a lot of commentators, supporting the Jewish community is somehow conditional on them distancing themselves from Israel. There are good Jews (usually one with one Jewish grandparent who rediscovered their judaism in order to declare themselves anti zionist) and bad Jews (the ones deserving of antisemitism).

What’s missing here is empathy for why Zionism exists. For many Jews, a homeland in Israel isn’t an abstract ideology. It is a response to centuries of persecution while living as minorities in the diaspora. Safety was repeatedly promised and then stripped away. That history is recent, personal, and still shapes how secure many Jews feel today.

You don’t have to support the Israeli government or excuse its actions to acknowledge this. But framing Zionism only as divisive or fear‑mongering, without recognising the fear it was born from, erases Jewish trauma.

No one is arguing that Jews ought to be separated from everyone else. Most families who have always lived their lives in the UK would probably rather stay, feeling safe and getting on with their lives. But some Jews do not feel safe, with good reason.

Dismissing why some Jews don’t feel safe ignores hard‑earned experience and history. Textbook antisemitism.

… if we think the only way Jews can be safe is we send them all off to live separately from the rest of us!

Patronising, much? Zionisim is also the belief that Jews have the agency to make their own choices about where they live. A Jew can choose to live in Israel or to live in any other country. You don’t get to send us anywhere, not even in the name of ‘safety’.

I’m sure you meant well, but think about your statement in the context of Jewish history: for 2000 years we have been repeatedly ‘sent away’ ie thrown out of countries where we were established, law-abiding, communities.

We will not be sent away any longer. Like any other citizens - we will choose for ourselves.

You asked how someone can be anti Zionist without being antisemitic, and I answered that question. Explaining the distinction isn’t the same thing as giving my own view on Zionism.

A person could (for example) oppose all ethno religious nation states consistently, or oppose nationalism generally, without harbouring prejudice against Jewish people. Whether you agree with that position is separate from whether it is antisemitic

No one here had said that - despite the OP desperately hoping they would. Twice.

Perhaps that is the thought of “a lot of commentators”. But that doesn’t mean those are the views of everyone and certainly no one here has expressed those views. If the OP wanted that conversation (again) they should have started a different thread.

It's really breathtaking.

Sure, Jews have generally been treated well in the UK (second time around at least). Yet the British government only allowed children on the kinder transports in 1938 - their parents were deemed to be too Jewish and were abandoned to their fate, mostly murdered.

And the winds can always change in the UK too. We see it happening.

So? It was inferred here (antisemitism has been weaponsied to stop protest....protesting what exactly?) and its been said (multiple times) elsewhere to try to explain away and dismiss antisemitism

Israel isn't an "ethno religious state".
But fair enough that if you oppsoe the existence of any nation state with any national or religious identity then, yes, youre consistent as i said

If you believe only Jews are not allowed self determination then yes you're anti semitic

So…if it wasn’t mentioned here - the OP (and you seemingly) are jus desperate for an argument that no one else wanted.

They supposedly just wanted to express their solidarity with Jewish people. Which for the most part was supported and sympathised with in the comments. With one poster noting that it felt performative (which is fine, people can have opinions can’t they).

To say “oh someone is going to bring up Gaza soon” when no one has, and then multiple comments later to say the same thing is just bizarre. Maybe someone will, maybe they won’t. But as things stood they hadn’t, so why try and derail your own thread which was supposedly only designed to show your support for a group of people having a tough time.

Oh good, well we agree then. You can be one without the other - as long as you’re consistent with your views.

OP whilst I appreciate the sentiment as it us lovely, I hate posts like this as they always bring out the jew hating MN brigade and also, end up about Israel

Sorry @beethecrackon24995 if I’ve made things worse. I am frustrated with the ignorance that these kinds of threads attract, whilst appreciating the kind sentiment of the majority.

as pointed upthread i had a practising Jewish grandmother, my mother and I have a Jewish surname but are atheist. My grandmother was Eastern European.
I actually think this thread and I await this comment to be removed, is disingenuous and actually a bath faith post wanting to target Zack Polanski.
I am politically homeless, have no skin in the game but the fact he is being called antisemetic for standing up for his beliefs regarding Gaza is insane. Why don’t people understand that opposing Zionism isn’t an issue with Jewish people?! Why can’t we oppose the death of Muslims in what is a live streamed genocide? Israel’s government have literally murdered premature babies. Hamas are evil. They do not represent Muslims. We know this. So why does Israels government who are complicit in evil represent Jews?! The things that if you fact check on independent sources the idf have done are some of the worst things I’ve heard of since the holocaust. Are you saying every member of the Jewish community who oppose this, of which there are 1000s, many who have and will continue to protest, are also antisemetic? The images the media are posting of Polanski which I would post but find abhorrent, are so racist I am glad my grandmother won’t see them. They’re some of the worst imagery of belittling features belonging to a Jewish person I have seen.
Once again, not a green supporter, no skin in the game but it’s madness how the only Jewish person leading a political party with a chance of getting in is being slated for antisemitism. Bullshit. Do you know what’s antisemitism? Young men trapped in the mansosphere thinking “Jews run the world and they’re the illuminati”. It’s denying the holocaust. It’s making Jewish people fear to leave their homes because someone wants to harm them for being Jewish. It’s little thugs who wear Norwegian black metal t shirts that read “support your local gestapo captain” in Norwegian looking at you funny inside a pub because one you went to school with tells his thug friend your surname is Cohen and they’re staring you out and laughing as they walk past you. By not allowing criticism of Israel, or pissing all over the only Jewish leader we have labelling him antisemitic that is actually eating into the disgusting stereotype of “self hating Jew”, this does not help anyone.
We should despise racism in all its forms and not make allowances for it simply because you dislike the Jewish person it’s being aimed towards. My Jewish aunt and uncle are the most conservative people I have ever met and Polanski’s politics would send their heads spinning, but I very much doubt they’d label him an antisemite because he disagrees with their stance on Gaza. Because to my family, antisemitism means something and isn’t a word we chuck around
to score points.
Of course this will likely be jumped on, removed of I’ll have backlash. But I am sick of disingenuous posts giving support to a community I’m a hell of a lot more able to have a say on than plenty others who do, when all it really is bad faith posting to dig at a Jewish man or support Isreal. You don’t care about the way Jewish people feel when a Jewish woman earlier up thread said we should be allowed to criticise the actions of a government without it watering down the genuine meaning of antisemitism.
I remember my grandma trying to teach me Hebrew, turns out I can barely speak English, I remember her cooking beautiful Jewish dishes her mother taught her, I remember her telling me that being evacuated to a boring place with no handsome men when her friends were all meeting soilders was heartbreaking for her. I will remember her stories of rations and telling me that when children in the street had a birthday, other families donated butter and eggs so each child in the street could have a slice of cake. She was my idol and I miss her and her stories but I am relieved that she hasn’t had to live through fear of antisemitism but also the pretence that is solidarity which is and clearly always was a reason to slate a Jewish person.

So the poster who was complaining that antisemtiism is being weaponised to stop protests was referring to which protests exactly? Trans rights?

I can’t speak to @RochelleMajerKrich’s motivation for starting this thread but the victims of the attack in Golders Green and the wider circle of people who it affects are on my mind. There are more pressing concerns around things like personal safety.

Wow, if you really genuinely believe that people recognise Polanski as being antisemitic because he ‘disagrees on Gaza’, you really need to inform yourself much more of what he’s doing, saying, allowing and encouraging within his party.

I’m not going to derail this thread by detailing it here, but you will find other current threads where you can be informed - if you want to be.