Anti Semitism in the UK

[Oakmaiden]

This is in the news a lot at the moment.

I have never, to my knowledge, heard anyone make anti-Semitic remarks. Anti Islam, yes. Anti "them Polish people coming over here and taking our very badly paid jobs", yes. Anti Semitic, no. Am I just very lucky/ sheltered?

I've been scared to post on this thread. DH didn't want me to write my last post as he doesn't want me sticking my head above the parapet.

cardamon your post is hugely informative and a lot in it will be new to some inc me so i think thats a good thing

noddy, john - thanks. There was part of me that was thinking, why was I so worried? Everyone's looked at it and gone, fucking hell that's too long to wade through, and made the (not entirely unreasonable decision) to not read it! If you want to be 'safe' be lengthy and verbose!

I think it would be good to ask them.

Great posts Maths. I agree with the revealing one is a feminist dynamic very much.

Cardamom, my DH is the same. :(

I tell him I'm on style and beauty. ;)

Great posts Cardamom and maths.

Noddy I'm sorry that you feel you are being used as target practice. I hate people feeling that way one here.

I think that there are some words and phrases that a lot of people find very offensive. For me, 'zionist agenda' is one such phrase. I also take issue with the term 'anti zionist'. I do hope believe that a lot of people using the term to describe themselves aren't actually calling for the destruction of Israel (maybe I'm misguided in that belief, I don't know.)

John - better not tell him how nasty those handbag threads can get!!

I have noticed that talks commemorating the Holocaust always try to contextualise it with other genocides. You do not often see this happening with african slavery or even the Rwandan genocide. I find this subtly antisemitic; the idea that the Jewish holocaust cannot be thought of in its own right, even on its memorial week.

larry - that's one of the reasons why I was never in favour of Holocaust Memorial Day in the first place. As far as I am aware, Jews didn't ask or campaign for it. We have our own dates when we commemorate and mourn - Yom haShoah, specifically for the Holocaust, and Tisha B'Av, which is destruction of the Temple, plus all the other crap that's been thrown at us over the millenia.

Larry -- nothing subtle about it either.

It is especially evident here on threads about Ukraine where there is one particular poster who does exactly that (Hitler v. Stalin). The massive suffering of people under Nazi rule in the east and the scale of death among civilians of all ethnicity is grossly underplayed, because apparently Hitler was doing the world a favour by attacking Communism. The Holocaust was referred to as 'tales from the past' by this particular poster.

I have a theory that the fall of the Berlin Wall ushered in a new atmosphere where those who feel that Germany was the ultimate victim of WW2 saw their pov vindicated and even celebrated. I think there was a merging of pro-German and pro-American thought, with the Soviet Union seen as the ultimate enemy and Germany ultimately on the side of the angels, a metamorphosis only possible with considerable mental gymnastics that involved downplaying of the Holocaust and the slaughter that took place in the east.

I'm another one who sees 'Zionist agenda' and 'anti-Zionist' and starts to twitch.

'Zionist agenda' has nasty echoes of the Protocols, and anti-Zionism, taken to its logical end, means the destruction of the state of Israel. Anti-Zionism (in the absence of objections to any other nationalism) also implies that the Jews, of all the nations of the world, don't deserve their own country: that sounds, to me, anti-Semitic.

Cardamom, that was a really interesting post. I think you may be right about how the 'evil Israel' trope makes it easier to deal with the Holocaust: it's always more comforting to blame the victim, than to accept that terrible things happen and that you might have no way of stopping them happening to you.

Yes you are sheltered or you just don't notice it because it doesn't affect you. I'm not Jewish but I have worked for a Jewish guy and it was only when I started working for the first one that i really picked up on it. There's a lot of low level anti semitism - i.e. comments about money (which in my experience is so untrue, my Jewish employer was the most generous I've had), referring to (as said above) "he's so Jewish" (usually in a lowered tone and always in a negative context.). Then there's the regular hate graffiti etc in Jewish areas, Jewish children on buses being abused verbally, and the largest percentage of racist attacks in this and many other countries is actually against Jews despite the fact that they only form 0.5% of the UK population. It's got worse sadly with the growth of Islamic extremist and the Left's love of Palestine. I have known quite a few Arabs too and many of them, although they accept Israel is here to stay, often have made comments about "F-ing Jews" rather than Israelis because they see them as one and the same.

Incidentally Jews historically became money lenders because they were forbidden from many other professions and Christians weren't allowed to lend money. The King could - and often did - cancel all debts owed to Jews and they were often left severely out of pocket. That, of course, is before they were booted out of the country.

Cardamom, great post and I am really sorry that you felt scared to post on here.

Anti semitism has never really gone away of course, it's just rearing its ugly head again and I think it's vital that all those of us who are not Jewish speak up very loudly in protest whenever we see or hear it.

Absolutely right Louise. And I am also sad that you feel nervous about posting here, Cardamom. Please do post: with more knowledge, non-Jews can better speak out against Anti-Semitism.

I didn't know that Holocaust Memorial Day was something Jews hadn't asked for. For ages, it seems the Holocaust was not really talked about. so perhaps better late and not in an ideal way, than not at all. I was born in 1959, and first learned about it when I was 17, through seeing photos of the liberation of Auschwitz in a book at school. No formal teaching about it at all. Very strange, looking back.

Great posts cardamom

Thanks so much Louise, Bear, crescent and Eugene . My specific fears were linked to when things were getting rather nasty and personal on Friday.

cardamom you have eloquently put what I think but can't write because I swear too much

It's unlikely that you swear more than I do in RL!!

More Jew hate in action;

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/02/police-alerted-planned-march-jewification-north-london-stamford-hill

I wonder if it will be allowed to go ahead. The article says they haven't yet been grated permission.

I don't know what I think. On the one hand, if it isn't allowed it will undoubtedly add fuel to this 'zionist conspiracy' crap that seems increasingly acceptable these days and will also float under the radar of people who think Jews are making a fuss over nothing.

On the other hand. Antisemitic rallies? No thank you. Also, permission would be essentially facilitating someone to break the law as the article points out.

As a one-off rally (as opposed to an ongoing effort within Stamford Hill to intimidate and threaten the Jewish population), this doesn't actually concern me that much. Not to say that it is in any way acceptable - clearly it isn't! But most 'normal-thinking' people will recognise this for what it is - the insane rantings of a nutter. It's recognised as racist.

What concerns me more is the 'acceptable' face of anti-Semitism. When Juliet Stevenson declares 'We are all Hamas now' to rapturous applause. When it is standard practice in anti-Zionist demonstrations to have banners featuring swastikas juxtaposed next to the Star of David. When people campaign for schechita (Jewish method of slaughter) to be clearly marked on packets of meat, presenting it as a threat to the values of society, ignoring the fact that the amount of kosher-slaughtered meat ending up in the 'mainstream' market is tiny and refusing to consider in the interests of parity and full-disclosure to mark all methods of slaughter on meat - electrocution, gassing, shooting, and the failure rates for stunning. When, in the immediate aftermath of the Paris terrorist attack, the BBC believes it acceptable to state to a Parisian Jew that Jews harm Palestinians and that this needs to be considered. This 'reasonable and acceptable' face of anti-Semitism worries me more. This is type of thing that Jews are told that we are responsible for and should alter our behaviour in order not to provoke. Few would consider that Jews are responsible for the ranting of a bunch of self-professed white supremacist nutters.

"When Juliet Stevenson declares 'We are all Hamas now' to rapturous applause."

Holy shit, where was that? That is despicable.

Major rally in London, maybe 5 years ago.

Kim - anti-Semitism (Jew hate) is the anti-Semites problem and they are the ones that need to seek treatment, deal with their issues. It would be like asking a rape victim how they can stop rapes but expect the victim to dress modestly and adapt her behaviour rather than challenging the behaviour/thought processes of the rapist.