Local opinion: In antisemitic perception, no daylight between Israel, Jews

and analysis of the writer:

When it comes to Jew-hatred, otherwise known as antisemitism, there is no longer daylight between public perceptions of Israel and Jews.

A week ago, Tucson Jews and allies were closing a chapter on hosting the JCC Maccabi Games and Access, a program that, through sports, strengthens unity and identity for Jewish teens. Nostalgia was settling in and was abruptly interrupted when a highly offensive opinion letter to the editor surfaced in the local newspaper — symptomatic of the lack of daylight.

Juxtaposed to a misguided interpretation about Israel and Gaza, the LTE’s author relayed that it was grotesque to see the smiling healthy faces of Jewish children, and he likened Jewish children to Hitler Youth. He concluded that the broader community should not welcome Jewish children’s togetherness because of what is happening in Gaza.

Suggesting Jews should disappear from public life in any way is nothing but hateful.

The lack of daylight is plain to see. Over the last year, scores of incidents have occurred in our backyard: A community member who wears a yarmulke was accosted for his perceived role in the terrible plight of the Palestinian people. Graffiti written on a Jewish house of worship said “End Apartheid Abolish Israel,” a call for the destruction of the one Jewish state and ancestral homeland. A college student wearing a Jewish star necklace was harassed and called “baby killer” and “genocide supporter” while giving a presentation during class. A young student was verbally harassed and told he “stole land” from another student when he revealed he was Jewish.

Nationally, we experienced two deadly incidents this summer, exemplifying no daylight. The murderer who shot two young people coming out of an event hosted by a Jewish organization in Washington D.C., and the murderer who threw gas and lit on fire a dozen people, killing a Holocaust Survivor as they were marching in Boulder, Colorado, to raise awareness about the hostages — these two bad actors didn’t shout about attacking their victims because they were Jewish — they shouted about Gaza and about freeing Palestine. But they carefully chose their victims and their locations because they thought they were Jewish.

There are hundreds of these antisemitic incidents, and they are happening every day around the world. The people attacked and the property harmed are not chosen specifically because they are Israelis or the property of the Israeli government — not that if they were, the actions would be any more justified or any less criminal. The point is there is no daylight. The intended targets were assumed Jews and Jewish buildings and Jewish activities taking place. This is contemporary antisemitism.

In a more academic sense, the hateful LTE about Jewish youth and the Maccabi Games presented classic and contemporary antisemitism, assigning collective blame to Jewish children for the actions of the Israeli government, employing Holocaust inversion comparing Jews to Nazis, and weaponizing Hebrew words to demonize Jewish culture. Opinions like this one demonize and provoke hatred and prejudice against Jews. Defining a group of people as evil over and over again dehumanizes that group of people and paves the way for others to mistreat them with impunity. This is one reason why, even though the Jewish community is less than 2% of the total U.S. population, Jewish victims are on the receiving end of more than 60% of all religious-based hate crimes. Though most antisemitic incidents do not rise to the level of a crime, they pave the way to it eventually.

And when the messenger is a leader in government or the head of a large company or in this case a retired judge with a platform of people who will pay attention specifically to his words, it is even more effective in spreading hate.

This lack of daylight is directly related to the anti-Jewish hate that has grown exponentially. The events of the war between Israel and Hamas have not only been mistold in a light that repeatedly blames only Israel and the Jews, but have been the excuse for a resurgence of Jew-hatred and contemporary antisemitism, as we saw here.

As we work to fight for safety and security in Israel, and for more humanitarian aid and a better life for Gazans under Hamas rule, and for all the domestic issues that matter to us, let’s not let hate expand and fester at home.