Reviving Hate: America is Not Immune to Canards Against Jews
By Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
This article originally appeared in the Chattanooga Times Free Press on
December 7, 2003
A Holocaust museum is torched by an arsonist. Jewish institutions are daubed with swastikas. A religious leader's anti-Semitic tirade is resoundingly received. An elected official says Jews can stop the war in Iraq. A mainstream columnist feeds into the canard of Jewish control. A poet laureate blames Jews for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
With the explosion of global anti-Semitism, you would certainly guess the incidents cited occurred overseas. Not so. Unfortunately, America is not immune to hate and to those who act out their hatred.
America has come a long way in rejecting intolerance. We have worked hard to educate Americans that our diversity is our strength and that respect and understanding is the American way. Our democratic values are unique in the world. Yet, the virus of anti-Semitism dies hard.
The classic canards of "Jews control," "Jews are responsible" and "Jews are not loyal" continue to be peddled in America. While anti-Semites have usually been on the fringes of our society, today we find they and their views have made it into the mainstream.
The hateful lie, disseminated by the Arab/Muslim world, that Jews had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks inspired the poet laureate of New Jersey to write a poem on the subject. Using his official platform, Amiri Baraka went to schools and community groups trumpeting the big lie in verse.
As America was moving toward a confrontation with Saddam Hussein and Iraq, the "Blame the Jews" phenomenon took on a new life. U.S. Rep. James Moran's notorious statement that "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this," previously had been heard only on the margins of the debate. But Moran's statement moved "blaming the Jews" into the political and media mainstream.
Who were the purveyors of this anti-Semitic charge? Mainstream journalists and columnists who claimed the war was engineered by a group of neoconservatives -- Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, David Wurmser -- who are all Jews. No mention of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell.
Today, as debate swirls around America's role in Iraq, the same names are resurfacing. Even in America, where Jews are more at home and secure as equal citizens than anywhere else in 2,000 years, the unsettling fact is that fully one-third of Americans still accept the notion that Jews have "dual loyalties." This was apparent in the Anti-Defamation League's recent survey of anti-Semitism in America, which also found that 20 percent of the American public agrees that, "Jews have too much power in the U.S. today."
We have full faith that Americans, whether they are for or against the war, will reject this anti-Semitic conspiracy charge. Yet that charge reminds us that anti-Semitism has a life of its own when crisis and anxiety erupt.
The "Jews control" charge recently resonated from a respected columnist, New Republic Senior Editor Gregg Easterbrook. By injecting religion into his criticism about the film industry -- he identified Harvey Weinstein of Miramax and Michael Eisner of Disney as Jewish -- Mr. Easterbrook summoned up classic stereotypes that Jews are greedy, money-grubbing and morally deficient. His column fed into the classic canard of "Jewish control" of Hollywood, a charge that has led to blaming Jews for contributing to the general decline of society through their "control" of popular culture.
Sadly, instead of making a clear apology and a rejection of anti-Semitic stereotypes, Mr. Easterbrook claimed he "wrote poorly" and was misunderstood. His comments reflect either absolute ignorance or total bigotry. It is hard to fathom that he could have no knowledge of the hateful canards about greed and Jewish moneylenders that have contributed to 2,000 years of persecution against the Jewish people.
Addressing worshippers at Chicago's Mosque Maryam on Nov. 23, Minister Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, condemned Jews as "masters of Hollywood" who "publish the filth that is published daily feeding the minds of the American people and the people of the world ." Getting a strong supportive response from the audience, Farrakhan, a longtime anti-Semite and racist, preached that Jews tampered with the Bible -- "But what you have in the Bible has been added to and taken away from by the Jews . The Jews have altered the word of God out of its place."
As a Jew and Holocaust survivor, I know the power of words. Jewish tradition teaches us not to speak evil. The crematoria at Auschwitz did not begin with bricks, but with words, ugly, hateful words. And hateful words lead to hateful actions.
Not in Berlin, but in Terre Haute, Ind., on Nov. 17, a Holocaust museum was destroyed by an arson attack. The loss of the CANDLES Museum, a place dedicated to educating people from Indiana and Illinois about the Holocaust and the dangers of unchecked hate, was a tragedy. A hate-filled anti-Semitic extremist left a note venerating the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh.
Not in Istanbul, but in Beverly Hills, Calif., anti-Semitic graffiti defaced Jewish institutions during the High Holy Days this year. Not in Moscow, but in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, congregants coming to services found their synagogues spray-painted with swastikas and a sukkah (religious enclosure) torched.
Until we develop a vaccine against the virus of anti-Semitism, our only antidotes are education and for good people to stand up and say no to hate and anti-Semitism. From the bully pulpit of the president to the classroom, the boardroom, the schoolyard, the community and religious institutions, we must all be leaders. We must all say that there is no place for hate here in America. I believe there are more good people than there are haters, so we can prevail. We must
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
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