Despite the multiple examples of anti-Semitic attacks — some verbal, some violent — upon Jews in America and in Europe from either extremist Muslims, leftists, or some who are both leftist and Muslim, like Congressman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), many in the left-leaning media have chosen to blame everyone else, instead, including President Donald Trump.
Newsweek even ran an opinion piece last week entitled “Anti-Semitism in Trump’s America Now Deadlier Than It was in Russia.” Time magazine chose to interview and favorably pass along the views of a University College, London, professor, Michael Berkowitz, who blamed anti-Semitic attacks in the United States on the “combination of a gun culture, conspiracy theories, the extreme right-wing and white supremacy.” Berkowitz has chosen to blame those on the Right for these attacks, citing “anti-Semitic conspiracies.”
Whatever the source of the rising tide of violent acts against Jews, it is a documented fact. The Kantor Center has recorded an astounding 70-percent increase in physical assaults on Jews in Germany. Anti-Semitism has a long, ugly history, but Jews have historically found a refuge in the United States, dating back to colonial days when large numbers settled in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1790, George Washington wrote a favorable letter to the Jews of Newport, and American Jews celebrated the passage of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment the following year. While American Jews have faced some discrimination focused upon their Jewishness, it has been much rarer than what the Jews have faced in Europe and the Middle East — and certainly much less severe.
But in October of last year, a terrorist burst into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and murdered 11 during a Saturday morning service. Then, on the last day of Passover this year, another attack took place at a synagogue near San Diego — the Chabad of Poway. This time one person was killed, and three were wounded. After that deadly assault, many insinuated that President Trump was somehow responsible for creating an environment of anti-Semitism in the United States.
Blaming Donald Trump, as the Newsweek op-ed did, for the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States is particularly unfair. Trump’s daughter and son-in-law are both very prominent persons within his administration, and they are both Jewish. It was Trump who finally obeyed a directive from Congress, passed during the Clinton administration, to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He has openly and repeatedly voiced support for both the Jewish people and the state of Israel.
In the recent California synagogue attack, Yisroel Goldstein, a rabbi, was one of four worshippers attacked by a gunman during a Saturday service. Goldstein lost an index finger in the attack. He told reporters on Sunday that President Trump called him to offer his condolences on behalf of the American people. Goldstein said of the Trump call, “We spoke about the moment of silence. And he spoke of his love of peace and Judaism and Israel. He was just so comforting. I’m really grateful to our president for taking the time and share with us his comfort and consolation.”
Yet, the Left blames the Right — with special venom for Trump — in the recent rise in anti-Semitic violence and rhetoric in the United States.
The truth is that anti-Semitism has a long, sad history. What is particularly disappointing is that many of the recent left-wing insults against the Jews have been either defended, excused, or covered up by mainstream-media outlets, and socialists such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
In the past, the same type of leftist attacks played out. Jesse Jackson, during his 1984 run for president, called New York City “Hymie Town.” Karl Marx, the author of the Communist Manifesto, was a strong atheist who argued that the Jews had corrupted Christianity.
“What is the worldly cult of the Jews?” Marx asked, answering, “Huckstering. What is his world god? Money.” He even wrote an anti-Semitic tract, A World Without Jews. Another time, he complained that a town was “full of Jews and fleas.” His words sound quite similar to the anti-Semitic rantings of Louis Farrakhan’s comparison of Jews to termites — something any homeowner wants exterminated.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin used rival Leon Trotsky’s ethnic Jewishness against him in their power struggle, and when he was able to, purged practically all Jews from the top echelons of the communist dictatorship. In England, Fabian Socialists George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and others were notorious anti-Semites. Shaw said he viewed the Jews as the “real enemy,” dismissing them as an “oriental parasite.” (For more on the Left’s historic hatred of the Jews, see my March 4, 2019 article in The New American, “The Continuing Scourge of Anti-Semitism.”)
Even history’s most infamous anti-Semite, Adolf Hitler, was a man of the Left, not the Right. Hitler’s political party, was the National Socialist Party — Nazi is just the shortened form. It would be much like calling the Communist Party the Commie Party. It should never be forgotten that the Nazis were strongly anti-Semitic, but also it should also never be forgotten that they were socialist, not conservative.
This effort to shift the blame from actual anti-Semites, such as Representative Omar and her leftist allies, to President Trump is certainly despicable. But it does illustrate how willing many on the Left are to libel their opposition on the Right, in order to achieve their nefarious goals.
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