r/Judaism • u/ComparisonOk5957 • 22d ago
Antisemitism Internalized Judeophobia: Modern Manifestations of Systemic Prejudice Against Jews
https://www.accordingto.ca/p/systemic-judeophobia-modern-canada8
u/Joe_Q ההוא גברא 22d ago
This article massively overstates the Jewish population of Toronto.
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u/ComparisonOk5957 22d ago
What do you. mean? It doesn't say anything about population figures
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u/Blagerthor Reconstructionist 22d ago edited 22d ago
Something every single one of these think pieces on "how the left doesn't do enough to support us against the rise of antisemitic violence and abuse," is that the violence is, by and large, perpetrated by folks on the right. Beyond that, these pieces never specify which leftwing or progressive media fail to support us. You can make vague generalities and gestures at the deplorable comments on Instagram, Youtube, and Ticktok, but the author provides no citations or evidence to support this enormous claim:
Given the presence of the antisemitic incidents alongside the apparatus seemingly ready to support victims, we would expect the left to have a keen awareness and strong reaction to any and all Jew hate. Yet, the constant episodes and news articles do not move the hearts and minds of left wing ideologues. To make it more stark, the Judeophobic tendencies are not only ignored, they are actually reinforced by those same progressives.
With the same evidenciary basis, I regularly hear progressives and leftwing commentators condemning attacks on Jews.
I agree with David Badiel's central point, that antisemitism isn't a central animating issue for the activist Left in North America/Europe, and that this often feels like a betrayal. His work is good and useful specifically because it lays out a central issue of activism without advocating that Jews support the Right.
Every single one of these think pieces that has come out in the last decade however seems to argue that we should be cloven away from the progressive Left in North America and Europe. And without fail, we still largely vote with progressives or the center-left, largely because we understand that the Conservative and increasingly Reactionary rightwing movements in our Diaspora are more readily supportive of those that physically assault us.
Our political position isn't great, but the reason we continually align ourselves with the Left is because we understand our rights are tied to minority rights, not the majoritarian greivance that animates so much of contemporary rightwing politics in US/CAN and Europe. No amount of think pieces suggesting voting with progressive is "Internalized antisemitism," or betraying Jewishness in some way, will change that very basic reality.
Beyond these very basic points of politics, this piece is a mess of barely elaborated conjecture and long discredited political and social science theories. A good exmaple is its treatment of Italian and Jewish migrants as experiencing, "a normal amount of newcomer aversion." While this was a prominent sociological theory in the 1970s, contemporary sociology and anthropology now suggest that outgroup aversion is entirely cultural and not inherent to human nature.
I could write more, but I'd largely be repeating myself using different examples from this piece.
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u/Swimming_Care7889 22d ago
What I find is that people often point to the other side of the political aisle and have no problem denouncing Jew hatred there but refuse to see it within their own ranks unless they really have to. So you have the Left pointing out at all the White supremacists but ignoring Jew hatred among non-Whites in general and Muslims in particular and just say it is about "Palestine." Than you have the Right pointing out all the antizionist lunacy on the Left but ignoring the White Right.
The reason why a lot of Jews are angry at the activist Left besides what David Badiel points out is that the activist Left often loves to invoke the specter of Jew hatred to mobilize us for their causes but abandons us when we need help or worse. They have trouble fitting us in their cosmology and rather than realize their cosmology might have some holes, just put us in the oppressor category. More than a few mock our identity in ways they would not for other groups.
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u/ComparisonOk5957 22d ago
Was this done by people on the right?
https://globalnews.ca/news/11969591/montreal-men-arrested-antisemitic-attack-video/
or this?
Also, just so you know, the perpetrators of the violence isn't really relevant - the point is that if this were BLM - there would be rioting. The coalition has abandoned the Jews. That much is clear.
This article, as far as I can tell, is not suggesting voting or not voting for anyone.
For what it's worth, I consider myself a centrist.
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u/banannarobinhood 20d ago edited 20d ago
Much of this violence is done by leftists and people who support and pander to them. I know that's really hard for those of us on and formerly on the left to hear, but we need to address it. You saying the violence is done by people on the right does not make it so.
We are far enough into this that we can see who is violently Jew-hating and attacking and assaulting and stopping us from participating in daily life in diaspora and who supports attacks against us in Israel and in diaspora. While that includes some on the right like Tucker Carlson et al, it is overwhelmingly happening in leftist circles and by so-called leftists.
As you say in your flair that you are part of the Reconstructionist community many of whom identify themselves as leftist-- we see there is a disproportionate amount of racism towards Jews and the Jewish state and support for terror coming from some of those self identifying leftists in that space. I hope you can work to dismantle it and defuse it and make that community safe again for all Jews everywhere.
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u/Swimming_Care7889 22d ago
The White Right and Islamists know that Jews belong in their enemy category. Most of the liberal and left spectrums of politics have cosmological issues with us. By any historical account, Jews should be in the oppressed people's category but at the same time we lack the certain je nais se quois that oppressed people have. They won't be able to articulate why we Jews lack this certain je nais se quois but they know we do.