Is anti-Semitism on the rise? Does anyone care?
Its been a bad 2017 for Jews. During the month of January, 48 bomb threats were called in to Jewish community centers across the country. Also last month, a neo-Nazi made national news by promising to hold a march in Whitefish, Mont., to intimidate the towns small Jewish population.
It was thus unsurprising that two reporters were moved to ask President Donald Trump at Thursdays news conference about a rise in anti-Semitism and that many of us were aghast at Trumps rude dismissal of the first reporter, an Orthodox Jew, and Trumps unwillingness to take the question seriously.
But heres the thing: As bad as 2017 has been for anti-Semitic incidents, 2016 wasnt great, either. Nor was 2015, when the Anti-Defamation League reported 90 anti-Semitic incidents on campuses, twice as many as the year before a slow drip that has continued into this school year.
A journalist could stay very busy writing about anti-Semitic graffiti in higher ed and not at right-wing Christian schools, but at ostensibly liberal ones. Last August, students at Swarthmore College, the progressive Quaker college outside Philadelphia, found two swastikas painted on a stall in a bathroom of the main library. A week later, they found another swastika on a tree in the schools woods. There have been reports of anti-Semitic incidents at Oberlin College, the University of California at Los Angeles, Brown University and Northwestern University.
You may not have heard about any of this or, for that matter, about the multiple cases of anti-Muslim vandalism on campuses last year. Indeed, given how frequently students come across hateful graffiti, to merit widespread media attention the provocations have to be particularly crass, or committed by fraternities or soccer teams.
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Excellent fucking question, especially given the "president's" recent lack of remarks.
byronius
(7,392 posts)It's a deep emotional issue for me. Stuck my head inside the oven at Dachau when I was ten, and now I've grown up to hate all things anti-Semitic.
I tried to warn one of my Trump-leaning (and Jewish) vendors that he was anti-Semitic, but he wouldn't accept it until much later in the campaign. Now he swears he never supported Trump. And I'm just going to let that slide on by.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)Trump's election has made it that anti-semitism has gone from "Being anti-semitic is unacceptable." to "Being anti-semitic is brave."
It turned from a serious topic to the latest fad for wannabes and attention-hungry provocateurs.
Example:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/pewdiepie-youtube-anti-semitism-felix-kjellberg-death-to-all-jews-video-posts-jokes-a7585251.html
Youtube-star Pewdiepie tricked people into doing an anti-semitic video because he thought it would be funny.