Trump has no credibility to pledge "Never again"

It has been reported that President Trump will address Tuesday's "Yom Hashoah" Holocaust commemoration at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition to Holocaust exhibits and documentation, the Museum very consciously houses the Committee on Conscience and the Center for the Prevention of Genocide.

Today, addressing the World Jewish Congress via video, he pledged, "We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found." And finally, months after his White House denied the need to mention Jews in connection with the Holocaust, he did mention Hitler's six million Jewish targeted victims. But his rhetoric is very thin on anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and ignores his administration's consistent refusal to act in support of contemporary victims of mass killings and of racial and religious persecution, even while he and his aides routinely appeal to Islamophobia and other forms of xenophobia here in the United States.

Unless he announces that he's abandoning the border wall, dropping the arbitrary ban on refugees and certain Muslim states, and firing the "Alt-Right" white supremacists and the second-generation card-carrying Nazi working inside his own West Wing, anything he says there can be nothing more than a desecration and betrayal of the memory and lessons of the Holocaust. Singling out Jews for special recognition and protection, while actively sowing fear and hostility toward so many other minorities, does us no favors.

Trump reaffirms fight against anti-Semitism

I was pleased to see President Trump explicitly condemn anti-Semitism this morning. Hopefully, my earlier post will be proven wrong over the duration of the President's White House tenure.

Hopefully, this won't be the end of the story: 

• Ideally, he will follow it with actions, as his predecessors did.  
• Condemning, monitoring and combating anti-Semitism should reopen the door to addressing other forms of xenophobia, including Islamophobia, as it did previously in Europe and the United States.
• The Prime Minister of Israel might come to accept that -- while his top priority is to advance Israel's national interests -- this this doesn't obligate him to excuse negative trends affecting Diaspora Jewry, just to please his hosts.

The President was responding to a reporter's question while out and about, and -- despite his claim that he condemns anti-Semitism at every opportunity -- this appears to be his first time since being elected President. We'll have to see if the Administration will take real initiative and convene consultations, coordinate response by law enforcement, and promote respect for minority rights across the country and around the world. 

This is a cause in which the President clearly deserves our full support and encouragement.

Addressing 'anti-Semitism' just ain't gonna be a Trump priority

So that's it??? It looks like our new President just won't be explicitly acknowledging any kind of hatred targeting Jews, whether past or present. As with the prospect of releasing his tax returns, establishing a real blind trust or finally assuming a responsible, Presidential demeanor, calling anti-Semitism by its name probably won't be something he does during his tenure. If he were going to do so, last week's visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- the self-proclaimed "representative of the entire Jewish people" -- would have been the time...not that Netanyahu even seemed to care.

The White House belatedly issued a statement today condemning unspecified "actions", which in this case involved repeated bomb threats against Jewish community centers across the country. No mention of Jews or anti-Semitism. Likewise, our Tweeter-in-Chief has yet to even mention last month's mosque massacre in Quebec, even with the recent visit by Canada's Prime Minister. 

On a base political level, it's clear President Trump attracts his strongest support from the so-called "Alt-Right", what we used to call the white supremacist movement. His chief White House strategist, Stephen Bannon, used to run Breitbart, which he proudly labeled "the platform for the Alt-Right." 

Trump's core demographic hates Jews, Muslims and Latinos, as well as the Catholic Church -- especially under Pope Francis. Trump shares their animosity toward the latter groups. He happens to love Jews, especially his daughter and her family, and he seems to genuinely love Israel. But he also clearly understands the political convenience of not condemning his most fanatical followers. By leaving out mention of Jews, even from his official statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day, that should be sufficient to appease those supporters -- it's not like they're going to defect to the Party of Obama. 

Aside from legitimizing -- by default -- acts of hate within the United States, Trump's silence also undercuts the global fight against anti-Semitism and other forms of hate and xenophobia. The United States has been the locomotive for this cause and still sets the tone for international discourse. And on a practical level, we won't have credibility admonishing other governments to do better. Hopefully, the work we have accomplished with key governments and multilateral institutions during the past 25 years has become part of the legal and political cultures, and of law enforcement protocols... but this won't be pretty.

The inconvenient Beilis centennial

One hundred years ago this week, a jury in Kiev acquitted Mendel Beilis of ritual murder in the death of a Christian child. Half the jurors were literally card-carrying anti-Semites, members of the infamous Black Hundreds, and still they could find no plausible evidence to convict this Jewish man. The trial was followed around the world, and 20 years later, 4,000 people attended Beilis' funeral in New York.

Jay Beilis addressing diplomats and Ukrainian officials

Last month in Kyiv (note the Ukrainian spelling), we commemorated the Beilis centennial within the context of fighting anti-Semitism, with full participation by the Government of Ukraine and many other countries. As a consultant to the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, I had the opportunity to help facilitate. As Jay Beilis pointed out to us, countless thousands of Jews are alive today because his grandfather refused to confess to a crime he didn't commit, and the highly publicized trial inspired a new mass emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe years before the Holocaust, and before the mass-murder at Babi Yar, which occurred just the other side of town from our conference.

I believe the fact that neither Israel nor the United States is hosting any major event for this centennial reflects our own politics and mythology. In Israel, they already have the earlier Dreyfus Affair and Theodor Herzl narrative. In the States, the Jewish community is largely defined (and self-identified) as a post-Holocaust community -- even though most of us are descended from pre-War arrivals. And if there's a centennial to mark here, it will be the Leo Frank trial, which ended in the lynching of an Atlanta Jewish community leader and is popularly linked to the founding of the legendary Anti-Defamation League (which was also among the cosponsors of the Kyiv conference).

Ironically, U.S. officials were precluded from participating in the Kyiv conference due to the federal government shutdown. Even The Forward, whose Yiddish-language forerunner The Forverts at the time promoted Beilis as the trial of the century, was unavailable to participate in or report on the Kyiv commemoration. 

As a culture, we choose our heroes or they are chosen for us, and then we choose or invent new heroes when it's convenient. This may be something America and Israel have in common, as new (or renewed) societies.

At least the record has been honored where it was set. 

Does Israel get to define "anti-Semitism"?

A true Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism should not be sponsored by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which understandably has its own agenda -- and limitations -- regarding the fight against anti-Semitism. The Israeli Government's priority has to be promoting and defending the State of Israel, which explains why Prime Minister Netanyahu's video greeting stressed anti-Semitism as the motivation for criticism of Israel, including the common claim that Israel isn't pursuing peace; he barely mentioned anti-Semitism as a phenomenon targeting Diaspora Jews.

With Senator (then-Rep.) Ben Cardin
at OSCE's 2004 Berlin Conference

A true Global Forum should be sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and Simon Wiesenthal Center, with local Jewish communities and national governments, including Israel. Multilateral organizations, especially the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Organization of American States (OAS), ought to facilitate. 

Politicians should attend and deliver opening remarks, but only bonafide and relevant experts should present. This means people with credentials in research and polling, media, law enforcement, education, and human rights training. The role of community leaders and lobbyists should be to get people in the room, respond to the presentations with real-life concerns, and help implement the best practices which emerge from the proceedings.

When it comes to anti-Semitism, Israel hardly has all the answers, and it carries a clear conflict of interest -- its national interest. It's not a bad idea to have periodic assemblies devoted to ensuring effective hasbara ("explaining" or promoting Israel). But that's a far cry from the nuts and bolts of overcoming anti-Semitism. If Israel owns the "anti-Semitism" brand, then it will ultimately be about Israel and hasbara, not about combating anti-Semitism on the ground. And in our real world, that makes it far less appealing to the very governments we need on board. We can't fight anti-Semitism and defend the State of Israel in the same place at the same time, and expect to succeed in both, or perhaps either one.

Egypt takes a break

Though not entirely surprising, accounts of the operation to rescue Israeli personnel from Israel's Embassy in Cairo are both gripping and sobering. Even if Egypt-Israel relations survive the transition from Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship, it will be a rough road.

Where does this hatred of Israel and Jews originate? Certainly, many Arabs and Muslims have a visceralresentment of the Jewish State along with garden-variety anti-Semitism. But let's not forget that it was Hosni Mubarak's propaganda machine that tolerated or forced the newspapers and TV channels to propagate the most vicious anti-Semitic images and distortions.

While he was promoting Egypt's role as the Arab gateway to Washington and peace with Israel, Mubarak was staving off domestic resistance to his military dictatorship by feeding red meat to his dear subjects. This included repressing all opposition parties except the Muslim Brotherhood, lest Egyptians ever think there was an acceptable alternative to Hosni Mubarak and his cohorts. And it included fanning the flames of anti-Semitism.

Mubarak was one of the military leaders under Anwar Sadat, and not personally implicated in the audacious peace initiative that restored Sinai to Egyptian control. Whoever ends up running Egypt will be in a similar position -- legally and economically bound to honor the terms of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty -- and with much less connection to the assassinated Sadat and his perceived perfidy.

Since Mubarak was both an ally of Washington and a grudging collaborator with Jerusalem, attacking the Israeli Embassy is a perfect way to exact symbolic retribution. Whoever gets elected President of Egypt will be held in check by the same corporate military staff that backed Mubarak all those years, but will find it easier to maintain popular support by appealing to anti-Semitism and finding ways to show defiance to Israel. On the hopeful side, Egypt-Israel relations have survived that precarious balance before. But this time, it may take more than hope.

Crown Heights - too early to celebrate

When I hear the word "pogrom", I think of a populist and systematic attack on Jews and their property, instigated by political interests and enabled by official negligence and neglect, appealing to the basest emotions of greed and anti-Semitism, with the stated goal of killing Jews. 

Twenty years ago this month, a mini-riot following a fatal car accident led to such a pogrom in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The simmering racial tensions were hardly one-sided, but it's the Jews who were systematically attacked, and it was a young Jewish scholar -- Yankel Rosenbaum -- who died after a brutal gang attack. It was the authorities who took their time and tried to understand the anger of the perpetrators rather than protect the innocent. It was mainstream Jewish organizations that did not do enough, quickly enough. 

If a tabloid falls in a (Norwegian) forest...

I'm not going to compare ANYONE to the Hitler Youth. But if anyone deserves what's coming to them, it isn't the Norwegians -- we should support them in their collective and personal grief. Whether they support Israel or not, whether they're too friendly with The Muslims or not... #gimmeabreak.

No, if anyone deserves what they're getting, it's Team Murdoch. The phone-hacking of murder victims and the families of fallen heroes was an outgrowth of the Murdoch empire's objectification of humanity, and the idea that salacious details are a public commodity to be traded for fun and profit. The tragi-comic collapse of Rupert Murdoch's media enterprise is what consoles me as I watch the pathetic clips of FoxNews (I can't stomach watching their shows in full) and its alumni trashing Norway and Europe and liberals and Muslims and so many other presumed threats to civilization.

It's nice that the Murdoch media outlets have stood up for Israel along the way, and it's disappointing that so many Norwegians have fallen short on Israel (but not to the point of full-blown anti-Semitism). Yet, all this seems irrelevant to either the predicament in which the Murdochs have landed themselves or the horrible tragedy visited upon the Norwegians, who at the end of the day are fundamentally decent people -- politics and Jewish grievances aside. Murdoch has taken great pride and power by diminishing the value and dignity of human life, and I bear him neither anger nor pity. Just desserts.

Yale reneges on anti-Semitism?? Never mind...

"All this time I thought he didn't want to get married. But, the truth is, he didn't want to marry ME." - When Harry Met Sally

Last week, Jewish organizations were lining up to decry Yale's decision to end its Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism. Yale was allegedly buckling under pressure from left-wing anti-Israel groups intent on quashing YIISA's focus on Muslim anti-Semitism and Iran's genocidal threats against Israel. Today, it turns out Yale is launching a more scholarly program to study anti-Semitism within a more academic framework. [Full disclosure: I heartily agreed to join the advisory board for YIISA's independent predecessor some years ago, though I was never actively involved.]

This all reminds me of the Starbucks decision several years ago to close its few shops in Tel-Aviv, except that back then major Jewish organizations jumped to Starbucks' defense when accusations went viral that Starbucks was boycotting the Jewish State. Turns out, Starbucks had tried to get off the ground in Israel, but its business model was poorly matched to Israel's cafe culture.

This time, several organizations expressed "concern" at the same time that others were all but calling Yale anti-Semitic. Now most of the groups are expressing measured support.

There is plenty of room for advocacy on important issues like Israel and anti-Semitism, but a prestigious research university that did adopt a start-up initiative as its own should have the latitude (and benefit of the doubt) to hold to its own standards of peer review and scholarly impact. Yale's mission is to advance knowledge, not to stop genocide or achieve nuclear disarmament or ensure Jewish continuity.

If the field of anti-Semitism studies is to have a future as a credible academic discipline on a par with Judaic studies, we can't impose community standards on it. And we can't afford to jump in with knee-jerk reactions that only undermine that credibility, and our own.

It's not all about us, and maybe that's a good thing.

Fear is no recipe for Jewish continuity

Hypothetical: A philanthropist commits $100 million for Jewish summer camps to promote Jewish identity. She commissions a consultant to propose a curriculum, and the result offers four pillars; the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Iran, and Palestinian terrorism.

The good news is, for several generations already, Jewish summer camps have been infusing their immersive environment with with positive, and mostly intrinsic, Jewish energy. For those who haven't been there and done that, a new study reports that adults who attended Jewish camp as children are 45% more likely to attend synagogue at least once a month, 55% more likely to feel very emotionally attached to Israel, 30% more likely to donate to the local Jewish Federation, etc. 

If Jewish camps can pull this off each summer without resorting to guilt, fear and paranoia, our community as a whole should reconsider our year-round messaging to young Jews across the board. Do we really expect that Jews who did not have the advantage of Jewish camp or other holistic identity-building will want to affiliate Jewishly if we love-bomb them with a legacy of persecution and imminent threats to Jewish existence? 

Any Jews who are moved to affiliate in response to such negative appeals -- and we all receive the letters each autumn and December warning us of imminent Jewish destruction if we don't send cash ASAP -- end up skewing our communal consensus of priorities and challenges once they're inside the tent. Honestly, the same goes for people who accept God's existence after realizing that every 50th letter of the Torah spells out some convenient formula uncovered by algorithms. 

If we're serious about Jewish continuity, we need to take some lessons from what works in the long run, not just what pulls in a few quick bucks or boosts attendance at a singles mixer. And if we're serious about a Jewish future, we need to think more seriously about how to make all this continuity worth the effort. Forcing our communal leaders to spend a summer in Jewish camp might be a good way to start. 

CWB quote of the day

What if they called a pogrom, and no Jews showed up?

Government Actions to Combat Anti-Semitism in the OSCE Region (delivered at U.S. Helsinki Commission hearing, June 16, 2004)

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to appear before the Commission. I also wish to recognize Representative Cardin as the Ranking Member, and your fellow Commissioners from the Senate and House. Although this is my first time testifying personally, NCSJ’s relationship with the Commission goes back to before the Commission’s founding. Mark Levin, NCSJ’s Executive Director, wanted to be here today, but is at this moment participating in a celebration in New York marking 40 years of activity on behalf of Soviet Jewry. Just as the Soviet Jewry movement – yourselves included – changed the nature of U.S. foreign policy and European diplomacy, and motivated the establishment of the OSCE, it also profoundly affected the American Jewish community. Our latest challenge has been to marshal European leaders and institutions to defeat the monster of anti-Semitism on the European continent – the first serious effort in history, 60 years after World War II.

 

The Commission’s leadership has been instrumental in pulling together the multi-disciplinal U.S. team. I could easily spend my allotted time describing the important role that the Commission and each of you, and your staff members have played, but fortunately NCSJ has had many opportunities to do just that. However, I will note that the Commission effectively launched the OSCE track on anti-Semitism through a similar hearing over two years ago, just before the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly met in Berlin. It was the leadership of the Commissioners that mobilized your colleagues from European parliaments to adopt the OSCE’s first stand-alone document on anti-Semitism, which was used as a model for the 2003 Maastricht Ministerial Declaration and – ultimately – for the April 2004 Berlin Declaration. At every step, and in every consultation and strategy meeting, your role has been pivotal.

Read full testimony at csce.gov.

50 years after the Night of the Murdered Poets (originally published Aug. 12, 2002)

Fifty years ago, on August 12, 1952, 13 prominent Jewish intellectuals were murdered in Moscow on orders from Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Although the world learned of this travesty in March 1956, reports had filtered out during the prisoners’ extended incarceration that something was amiss. The Jewish world, and no less the world at large, did little at the time to investigate their status or protest their incarceration.

The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, created by the Soviets to promote U.S. support during World War II, was a group of Jews loyal to the Soviet cause and was by all accounts a success. Two of the Committee’s organizers – Isaac Fefer and Solomon Mikhoels – conducted a seven-month American tour in 1943, speaking to mass audiences including a packed rally in New York’s Polo Grounds, and gaining warm receptions from leading politicians, entertainers, and intellectuals. Later, as the aging Stalin consolidated his post-war power, he saw the Committee’s international work as a threat, and its Jewish flavor offered a prototype and pretext for stepped up persecution of Soviet Jews. Fifteen Soviet Jews were arrested in connection with the Committee from 1948 to 1949, with their interrogation and trial lasting until July 1952.

Fifty years ago, the lessons of the Holocaust were still raw and the lessons of the Soviet Jewry movement were yet to be claimed. Yet Itzik Fefer, in the chilling transcript of the secret trial [reprinted in Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov, editors, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, Yale 2001] answered the presiding officer’s challenges with no expectation of reward – quite the opposite. When asked, “Were the Jews really the only ones to suffer during the Great Patriotic War?” he replied unapologetically, “Yes, you will not find another people that has suffered as much as the Jewish people. Six million Jews were destroyed out of a total of 18 million – one-third. This was a great sacrifice. We had a right to our tears, and we fought against fascism.”