NEWS
A New Definition of Antisemitism, and Some of the Old-Fashioned Kind
by Yitzchok Roth
We always knew that the Holocaust of the Jewish people was a unique event. History is full of fighting and killing and suffering, but the Holocaust was something different. This was the first organized genocide against a helpless people, in an attempt to wipe them off the face of the earth. There is nothing that compares to it in all the sad annals of human history.
Survivors, some of whom are still alive, are horrified to hear the destruction of European Jewry compared to other murder and mayhem. Perhaps the last person expected to make the comparison would be the foreign minister of the State of Israel. But that is what happened at the recent 7th Global Forum on Combating Antisemitism.
Foreign minister Lapid, son and grandson of Holocaust survivors. spoke at the forum and said, "Antisemites weren't only in the ghetto in Budapest. The antisemites were the slave traders who threw chained slaves into the ocean. The antisemites were the Hutu tribe members in Rwanda that slaughtered the Tutsis. The antisemites are those Muslims who have killed more than 20 million fellow Muslims in the past decade. The antisemites are the Islamic State and Boko Haram."
He continued, "Antisemitism is racism, so let's talk to all those who oppose racism. Antisemitism is extremism, so let's cooperate with everyone who is afraid of extremism. Antisemitism is hatred of outsiders, so let's recruit anyone who was ever an outsider and tell them: This is your fight too. If you don't help us fight against anti-Semitism today, someone could look at your child in the future and say to themselves, 'I hate him, I want him dead.'"
Certainly these words were pleasant to every antisemite throughout the world. If antisemitism is not especially hatred of the Jews as it was expressed in persecution throughout the history of the Jewish people but rather just another chapter in man's cruelty to his fellows, then what are we complaining about? If there is nothing special about our suffering consistently for thousands of years, then we have been mistaken for decades. Lapid broke sharply with the official policy of the State of Israel since its founding. His remarks betray a shallow understanding of the history of the world and of the history of the Jewish people.
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But lately we have been witness to a lot of the old-fashioned antisemitism, that sees the Jews as responsible cause of all that ails the world. Only now this has been transformed and transferred to the chareidim and the rest of the Israelis. Amos Biderman is a cartoonist for a prominent Israeli paper. When the latest wave of the corona pandemic began to gather strength, he drew a cartoon of chareidi Knesset members talking about spreading the virus, even though all indications are that the variant was brought to Israel by non-religious tourists.
Just yesterday he published another cartoon showing the Kosel with big crowds as two policemen are talking. "Is it okay for them to stand so close together?" says one. "It's ok they got a special permit for Tisha B'Av," answered the other. This is not at all funny. It is pure antisemitism. Even though nothing about the current Delta variant is even remotely tied to the chareidi community, they are not confused by the facts. The chareidim are at fault.
Of course the one of the leading antisemites is the current Treasury Minister. He concocted a plan to deny subsidies to chareidim by introducing a new rule that both parents must work in order to be eligible for subsidies. Even though it is a firm principle that children are entitled to be helped regardless of what their parents do, since they do not choose them. Even though the rule makes not economic sense since it makes it that much harder for women to work. Even though MK Rabbi Uri Maklev said that no economist has offered any economic justification for the new initiative.
Professor Avi Barelli, not known as a special friend of the chareidi community, was shocked by the latest regulations.
"MK Kushnir from Lieberman's party explained that the emergency rooms are overloaded because of the need to take care of chareidim... In the most recent election campaign Leiberman said that if he got into power he would send all the chareidim to the garbage heap. ... It is not surprising that his colleague Lapid seems to have become confused about the scope of antisemitism and warped it beyond recognition.
"Lieberman's party is not only pugnacious but it is also corrupt. This is clear from the recent convictions of prominent members of the party for past misdeeds. ... And now Leiberman has gotten the entire public treasury into his hands, with the Treasury department and the Knesset Finance committee from which he will be perfectly placed to express the two most prominent features of his party: controversy and corruption. ... Children, all children, should not suffer from the behavior of their parents. They have the full right to health services, education and social services. Leiberman has the gall to make the children suffer in order to get at their parents."
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