Trump Has Unleashed a Wave of Anti-Semitic Hatred

[demmiblue]

Source: Newsweek

As a middle-class, white Ashkenazi Jew living in California in 2016, I’ve been privileged to avoid the systemic, cultural and interpersonal racism faced by many Muslims, immigrants and people of color across the U.S. today.

However, my uncle was not as fortunate. He was a Holocaust survivor who saw his entire family killed in front of him in a concentration camp. Although overt, violent anti-Semitism is largely absent from the United States and has not been part of my experience, I’ve begun to see a shift in the past six months.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has forced me and thousands of other American Jews to face anti-Semitic threats for the first time. Throughout the election cycle, Jews have used a hashtag created by Bend the Arc Jewish Action, #WeveSeenThisBefore, as a reminder that Trump’s rhetoric and bigotry echo demagogues of the past.

After a national anti-Trump rally organized by Bend the Arc in June made the hashtag viral on social media, anti-Semitic white supremacists got hold of it and twisted it to spread hate on Twitter, specifically targeting Jews like myself who were organizing against Trump.

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The least-hurtful attacks spoke of big noses, bad hair and “going back to Israel,” but then came the explicit threats of violence. In my case, I was bombarded with horrifying Photoshopped images of my face in a cartoon gas chamber, with Trump pushing the button.

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/trump-has-unleashed-wave-anti-semitic-hatred-516656


One of the more horrifying aspects of Trump's campaign is that he brought the alt right out of the shadows and gave them a sort of legitimacy.