Combatting Anti-Semitism

Below is a guest opinion of almost 700 words that, with very few small differences, I submitted to the Daily Camera (Boulder's main paper) about four weeks ago. At this point it's not going to get published.

There are some things I'm going to clarify and offer some addendums below the essay following this introduction. Let me first say that I have heard of two other recent attacks in the last year or so and there was one more in London three weeks ago. Also, one thing I came across a few times in the last several months in articles on CNN.COM is prominent liberal or progressive Jewish-Americans saying that there ARE some problems with anti-Semitism on the university campuses Trump has been attacking, although these leaders make it clear that it's not as bad as Trump makes it out to be and that the President is not helping at all

 

Tom

 

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I’m sure I am forgetting 1-2 examples of this, but in the last eight years there have been some really significant anti-Semitic physical attacks. From the American Right there was the 2018 murder of 11 Jewish people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Right here in Boulder in 2025 one Jewish person (a Holocaust survivor) was killed and several were wounded and the number one suspect is a Muslim. At Bondi Beach last year in Australia 15 Jewish people including one Holocaust survivor were killed and the two (dead) suspects were a Muslim father and son. In January 2026 an anti-Semitic arson took place at an important synagogue and the number one suspect is a White, American (possibly fundamentalist) Christian. A few days ago a destructive attack was carried out at a synagogue and community center in Michigan and the dead suspect was an Arab-American man.

Some of this predates the Gaza War and most of it predates the Iran War. The common theme is anti-Semitism. I do have some connections to the Jewish-American community, and I am incredibly partisan (on one side) in the fight against anti-Semitism, but I go where the facts take me and I say what has to be said, independent of the politics (I have been a supporter of the Irish political party Sinn Fein since 1997, but 1999-2004 I criticized them very publicly three times because they strayed a bit from the path of opposing homophobia). Although this is greatly exaggerated by some political tendencies among Jewish Americans (such as the ADL), most Republicans including Trump, and an official part of the Israeli government, there IS some anti-Semitism among progressive supporters, Muslim supporters and Arab supporters of the Palestinians. I have encountered it in Ireland and in Boulder.

When I started my blog in 2008 I was very quick to add fighting anti-semitism to the list of official main topics. I’m not sure when I started thinking about it critically (probably about 25-30 years ago) but I have always been a fan, when looking at history, of what the Allies of World War II did. The Holocaust was one of the worst things to happen in this world’s history (a big part of my major was American Indian Studies and in some ways what happened to Native Americans may have been more destructive to humanity, but the Holocaust, overall, was way up there, too). One of the other reasons I made it a big part of my blog is that in my Sophomore year of college (1995-1996) I was mildly anti-Semitic. I don’t think I did any harm, and there were a lot of anti-Semitic things I did NOT do, but I believe in compensating for the tiniest possibility that I DID do some harm. Anyway, about half of why I was slightly but significantly hateful was the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

What can be done about anti-Semitism in the short-to-medium term? Some suggestions:

1) Supporters of the Palestinians who believe that because Jewish-Americans are not oppressed (AS JEWISH-AMERICANS) no effort should be made to avoid friction with that community need to understand that we’re all standing in a lake of gasoline called ANTI-SEMITISM and we need to, when appropriate, avoid creating sparks that could set it on fire.
2) Supporters of Israel need to be less trigger-happy with the accusation of anti-Semitism. I don’t have space here to go into any detail, but, for example, there is nothing inherently bigoted about the term “Israeli Apartheid.”
3) Sinn Fein, which is largely against anti-Semitism, needs to stop putting out (side-by-side) the following two statements: A) that there must be a boycott of Israel and B) that it was okay that the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany.
4) It wouldn’t hurt if supporters of Israel would speak about anti-semitism in their own ranks (I.e. The Rapture, and the anti-Soros stuff, and comparing reasonable things like COVID-19 public health measures and hostility towards Republicans in our society with what Nazi Germany did).

I AM a pretty solid supporter of the Palestinians, and for decades now I have believed that opposing anti-Semitism STRENGTHENS that movement, and that supporting the Palestinians STRENGTHENS the struggle against anti-Semitism.

 

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Some things to clarify and/or add:

 

1) There's a post partly about my sophomore year and anti-Semitism, here.

 

2) As far as my assumption that Jewish-Americans are not oppressed AS JEWISH-AMERICANS, I wrote a fair amount about that in mid-2020 here.

 

3) Why do I mention a "lake of gasoline"? There's a line in the 1991 movie "Backdraft" spoken by Robert De Niro, a line that for some reason I really like. It refers dramatically to a "lake of gasoline."

 

4) I don't know if this has been repealed since but at some point about 20 years ago an agency of the EU said that the term "Israeli Apartheid" is anti-semitic. I did a post that was largely about refuting that accusation. It's here.

 

5) After Bondi Beach I felt like I had to do something and I decided to weaponize a post on my blog about the problem with Sinn Fein that I refer to above. It went nowhere, for some reason or other. So I brought it into this. The post is here. 

 

6) Maybe the worst fit in this essay is suggestion #4. I did a post on my blog that is overwhelmingly about examples of anti-Semitism among SUPPORTERS of Israel. I think it's at least kind of relevant to this, but I'm not sure if I added it to this essay very well. That blogpost is here.

 

7) I am thinking of doing a fairly long essay that focuses on and substantiates and further develops the idea in the last paragraph of the essay above.