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How to Recognize Real Allies on Anti-Semitism
Late last night the mayor of Jersey City announced that the shootout at a Kosher supermarket initially reported as simply a “bodega” was motivated by the occupants of the establishment.
Based on our initial investigation (which is ongoing) we now believe the active shooters targeted the location they attacked. Due to an excess of caution the community may see additional police resources in the days/weeks ahead. We have no indication there are any further threats
— Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) December 11, 2019
This morning we learned more about the attack, which left six dead:
Oh no… A suspect involved in the Jersey City shooting published anti-Semitic and anti-police posts online. Per @nytimes, "investigators believe the attack was motivated by those sentiments."https://t.co/wgRTTDudy9
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) December 11, 2019
This was an anti-Semitic massacre of Jews on American soil, and unlike what we saw in Pittsburg, the killing has elicited bland statements, it has been met with mostly crickets now that we know that the perpetrators weren’t wearing MAGA hats.
Compare this muted response to the apoplectic rage that met the announcement of an Executive Order the President will be signing today to address the real scourge of anti-Semitism on college campuses and it becomes clear Trump, not anti-Semitism, is the ultimate offense to critics of the President.
The few who are making strong statements about the Jersey City killing are describing the incident as an isolated occurrence outside of the Trump construct, as New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio is doing,
This tragically confirms that a growing pattern of violent anti-Semitism has now turned into a crisis for our nation. And now this threat has reached the doorstep of New York City.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) December 11, 2019
This is the same Mayor who has silently watched as Hasidic Jews in his city have been the target of violent anti-Semitic for months in New York City. The perpetrators haven’t been wearing MAGA hats, and thus, their victims weren’t worth mentioning or defending. Now that Jews have died and some media is calling, suddenly deBlasio is on “high alert.”
.@NYCMayor refers to Jersey City attack as 'clearly a hate crime' and says NYPD is on high alert pic.twitter.com/s4nwruVqHh
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) December 11, 2019
Up until today, the Mayor was willfully ignorant of anti-Semitic violence because it couldn’t be pinned on his political or ideological enemies. And he’s not alone, and there are of course some who want to pin even a shooting by Black Israelites on the President:
After another murderous anti-Semitic attack, in Jersey City, is it really too much to ask President Trump to stop opening the White House to those who broadcast anti-Semitism? https://t.co/pw93Sl4Ler via @timesofisrael
— Dana Milbank (@Milbank) December 11, 2019
With friends like these, you know that tomorrow there will be a return to same silence they’ve been marinating in, unless a hook can be found to continue an ideological assault on the President and his administration. Mayor de Blasio and his ilk are the fair-weather friends your mother worried about; when an attack on Jews can land him on Morning Joe he’s Johnny on the Spot, but when the vicious attacks against Jews walking the streets of Brooklyn continue, don’t expect to see any de Blasio leading solidarity marches or meetings with the NYPD.
Anti-Semitic terror attack in Jersey City wasn't by white supremacists, and can't be blamed on Trump; it was by black Hebrew Israelites, a fringe non-Jewish group that sees actual Jews as fake Jews. This means no "national conversation" on anti-Semitism.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 11, 2019
For anyone actually concerned about the scourge of anti-Semitism across ideological lines, the New York Times op-ed writer Bari Weiss has written the definitive book on the subject (my husband reviewed it for his magazine, the Washington Examiner). Unfortunately, there are few interested in using Jews as anything more than a political football, and as a result, more killings are an eventuality.
Published in General
The murderous antisemitism in the US is coming from the Left and Muslims, the Red/Green alliance. Not exactly Trumps core support.
Recommend the Tikvah podcast on the attacks on Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Even there they skirt around the issue of Islam and mention the President. And with Muhammad trending as one of the favorite names for boys in America, less and less attention will be paid to anti-Semitic attacks except to worry about the ‘backlash against Muslims.’
I can’t describe this in a way that is persuasive, but in my heart I know I’m right. There is some sort of “permission effect” that Malcolm Gladwell described in The Tipping Point in the context of the contagion of suicide that operates as powerfully with persecution.
I stumbled upon an interesting story years ago that I cannot find this afternoon. When the computer viruses were first introduced into the world of the Internet, the targets were always Microsoft software-driven computers, not Apple. Apple did not experience any attacks at first. This rash of attacks on Microsoft software coincided with the press’s relentless persecution of Bill Gates.
It is really important to stand up against anti-Semitism whenever and wherever it occurs because it if is allowed to take root and grow, the nutcases out there will act on it. It is a matter of life and death to stand up against it consistently. We all must do so.
There are some things in nature that explode uncontrollably–particular weeds, vines, bacteria, and viruses–that provide tangible examples of what happens with some intangible persecution movements. Anti-Semitism is a type of persecution that quickly gets out of control for no apparent reason. That’s why it has to be watched and destroyed whenever it is noticed. We debate endlessly as to the causes of this wild growth, why this type of persecution grows this way while others don’t, but the debate as to its causes must not stand in place of eradicating it.
Other types of prejudices do not today–although they certainly did in the past as in the Ku Klux Klan lynchings–stir up society’s nutcases in the same way. Anti-Semitism, in contrast, has the power to result in people being killed for their faith alone.
Let us isolate this particular strain of persecution as being more virulent than others. We don’t know why, but we know it is.
I’m not sure about how to react to this post.
If I’m following the reporting correctly, there was an attack on a kosher grocery store in Jersey City. It appears that the two murderers killed one cop, prior to the attack on the store, at a different location, a cemetery, when he approached them in connection with a prior murder. The murderers apparently then drove to the kosher store and killed three innocent people. The murderers were then killed in an extended gunfight — with two additional cops wounded, though it appears that their wounds were relatively minor.
This is a preliminary report, so things may change. All of this happened yesterday, December 10.
Bethany’s complaint seems to be that there was not an immediate identification of this as an anti-Semitic hate crime. The title of the post seems to suggest that anyone who hasn’t immediately leaped to this conclusion is an anti-Semite, or at least something like anti-Semite adjacent.
I think that we need to calm down, and let the investigation progress. The motivation is not as obvious as in the synagogue shooting, though even such a shooting may have other motivations.
For example, the worst mass-shooting at a place of worship in modern American history was at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, with a death toll of 26. It was a largely white Christian church, and was not attributed to anti-Christian or anti-white sentiment, but to a domestic dispute between the murderer and his mother-in-law, who sometimes attended the church (though not on the day of the murders).
It seems quite possible that the Jersey City murderers were motivated by hatred of Jews, based on information that we have thus far. They had killed a cop, and perhaps decided that shooting up a Jewish store fit their twisted idea of going out in a “blaze of glory.” But perhaps not. From what I’ve seen so far, there were unspecified anti-Semitic and anti-cop posts by one or both of these bad guys, without any reporting on the timing — were they this weekend, or 5 years ago, for example?
Shapiro’s tweet links the attack to the Black Hebrew Israelites. I’m not sure whether or not this is premature. The NYT reported that one of the murderers had unspecified connections to the Black Hebrew Israelites.
Interestingly, if I recall correctly, it was some Black Hebrew Israelites whose hate-mongering was behind the Covington kids story in January.
So I don’t understand the OP, really. The killers are dead, and the police are investigating. Let’s let them do their jobs, before reaching a conclusion about motivations.
It’s a terrible indictment of modern discourse that whenever a mass shooting takes place people on various sides secretly hope that the killer is of a particular colour, religion or political background.
In very current discourse the first reaction of a large demographic is to find an angle to blame a President Trump-“he may as well have pulled the trigger”. The Pittsburgh Synagogue massacre took this to extremes and there was plenty of it online last night.
Another law which is almost immutable by now is that the longer it takes to give personal details of the murderer(s) the more likely it is that the facts won’t suit the dominant narrative. So sure, let’s everyone agree to no longer rush to judgment, but that must cut every way.
Is he referring to the same “anti-Semitic” Trump who moved the American embassy to Jerusalem in spite of heavy opposition and criticism from the Islamic world? Sheesh . . .
That is correct.
As soon as I heard the words “Kosher grocery,” my heart sank.
The two shooters were associated with the Black Hebrew Israelites. This group is a Black Nationalist organization that is both anti-Semitic, as well as anti-police. They are confrontational as the students of Covington Catholic found out in Washington DC. Sometimes these people gravitate to other groups, especially when they believe that things are not moving fast enough for them.
They were well armed, and were suspects in another murder. The van they were driving was associated with the first murder and the detective that was shot and killed was aware of that when he approached the suspects.
The kosher bodega was targeted. The population of the New York metro area is about 20.1 million people. Of all the businesses, churches, and synagogues in a metro area of that size these two rabid animals found one. That was no accident, to pretend otherwise is nonsense. Unfortunately they could not be put down before they murdered innocent human beings. To pretend that they were not targeting Jews is also nonsense.
Doug, you may be right, but I don’t yet know the details. Do you know more?
For example, as I pointed out in my comment above, the terrible events started when the two murderers killed a cop at a different location, when he approached them in connection with the investigation of another, prior murder. I haven’t seen any evidence suggesting that, coincidentally, this particular cop happened to approach them while they were en route to the kosher grocery.
I don’t think we should be that passive about it. One way to put pressure on them, and more importantly, on the other information gateways between us and the police, is to go public and jump to conclusions – angry, tentative conclusions. There may also be other methods that are better. But just waiting passively? No.
@jerry, there is rarely, and I mean rarely, anyone in a Kosher Butcher shop/grocery store but a Jew. To pretend you don’t know all the details yet is shabby. They made a bee line from a dead police officer to a Hebrew grocer. So please, don’t play ignorant.