Anti-Semitism has sadly been a problem for Jewish communities for millennia. Here, Ophir Barak explains this in its historical context and asks whether and how anti-Semitism is often overlooked today when compared with other types of racism.
A Sovier Jewish prisoner of war with a gold star in August 1941, during World War Two. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-267-0111-36A / Friedrich / CC-BY-SA 3.0, available here.
“There are two sets of people who nobody has really wanted to challenge; Jewish and KKK but being in business for 20 years you start to understand why”.
This was one of the many of anti-Semitic tweets that British rapper Wiley took to social media with in the summer.
Such words, though only expressed in this very recent incident, epitomize the anti-Semitism that Jews have faced throughout history.
Indeed, anti-Semitism is just one of the many forms of discrimination and bigotry that have existed for centuries and unfortunately, continue to persist today. But in a clear discordance with other forms of discrimination, an end to anti-Semitism only seems to be truly sought after and pushed for by the Jewish communities around the globe that bear the brunt of its bigotry.
Today we seem to be in an era of heightened discrimination, where many people who aren’t part of the targeted minorities proclaim their support on social media for those minorities. This is especially the case with the Black Lives Matter Movement; as soon as news broke about the horrific murder of George Floyd, millions of people took to social media to proclaim their support for the movement. However, I’ve seen only very few non-Jewish people post or share anything on social media recently, that highlight their support for the Jewish communities, following Wiley’s tweets. It seems strange that people who aren’t part of targeted minorities and who have publicly claimed to be against prejudice of any kind have been silent following Wiley’s tweets.
And whilst this infuriates me, unfortunately it doesn’t surprise me, as this has been the case for centuries. Throughout history, there have been very few non-Jewish people who have fought alongside Jews to alleviate anti-Semitism.
Anti-Semitism in history
Anti-Jewish sentiment can be seen going back to the 3rd century BCE in Alexandria, where priests and historians would write scathing and nasty comments about the Alexandrian Jewish Community, regarding them as barbarians. This eventually sparked an attack on the Jews in Alexandria, where thousands were killed. These verbal and physical attacks mainly led to an outcry of protests and revolts from Jewish people, specifically the Maccabees, whom in 170-160 BCE initiated a revolt in Judea.
And of course, it wouldn’t be an article on anti-Semitism, if I didn’t mention the case of Nazi Germany. This political movement arose following WWI and incorporated anti-Semitic ideologies, expressed in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. These anti-Semitic ideologies spawned out of Hitler’s belief that the Jews were the reason for Germany’s defeat in WWI. Hitler’s first five years in power saw the implementation of mass violence against Jews, as well as the laws that dehumanized them. These brutal treatments culminated in the Holocaust, where between 1941-1945, Hitler and the Nazi regime systematically murdered six million Jews, through mass murders in concentration camps and gas chambers.
Whilst conducting research for this piece, I noticed a lot of resistance movements against the Nazis’ anti-Semitic ideas, were founded by and largely consisted of Jewish civilians. There were many fewer non-Jewish people who participated in rescuing Holocaust victims. According to Yad Vashem of Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Centre, just over 27,000 non-Jewish people participated in rescuing Jewish Holocaust victims, compared to over 70,000 Jewish rescuers. However, it is also important to bear in mind that rescuing Jewish people was extremely difficult due to the potential ramifications of siding with Jewish communities and the potential outcomes for any supporters of the Jewish cause.
A lack of support
These two historical cases of anti-Semitism along with Wiley’s tweets, illustrate a common theme that clearly seems to have existed throughout history - not enough non-Jewish people are talking about anti-Semitism or taking action against it. And for years I’ve been trying to understand why anti-Semitism seems to be among the forms of prejudice and discrimination that are less spoken of. To be honest even today I still don’t understand why.
So please, if you are someone who is Jewish or not and is part of a targeted minority and claim to be against prejudice and discrimination of any kind, then I encourage you to show your love and support for the Jewish community, especially in the wake of Wiley’s tweets. History and the present day have shown us that to truly inspire change, societies need to come together to push through reform. It can’t only be the targeted groups fighting for their own causes, rights and equalities. Wiley’s anti-Semitic comments serve as one the many discriminatory incidents that have sparked an outcry of messages and petitions from the public all over social media and if we’re to truly inspire change, Jewish people should not and cannot be an exception to the rule that systemic racism needs to be stamped out of our societies.
What do you think of the writer’s arguments? Let us know below.
Now, you can read Ophir’s article on the culture wars in Britain here.
Writer’s note: This is in no way my attempt at stating that Jews deserve more support from people than other targeted communities, or that Jewish communities have it worse than other targeted communities. I’m aware that Jews do have some privileges that other targeted communities may not have, but I am writing this out of a belief that people who aren’t part of Jewish communities can do a lot more in terms of supporting them.
Sources
https://metro.co.uk/2020/07/26/what-did-wiley-say-tweets-investigated-alleged-antisemitism-13039775/
https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/statistics.html
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002200949503000104?journalCode=jcha
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/jewish-resistance
https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/477384-as-non-jews-its-our-job-to-combat-anti-semitism
Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 394
