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On NR’s (Several) Disgraceful Swipes at Jews
Several days ago, National Review ran a news item about the rise in anti-Semitism in the tri-state area. It had this bizarre quality of trying to give both sides of the situation, but here’s the problem: on one side of the “issue” are Jews getting massacred and on the other, people who call those same Jews “locusts.” The piece intended to give “context” to the rise in tensions, but it operated under a false pretense: there is no excuse for anti-Semitism, Jews are not to blame for Jew-hatred. The writer, Zachary Evans wrote,
The ultra-Orthodox population is also a heavy user of government resources such as Medicaid and food stamps. This is due to the perception that many of the men either don’t work or make low salaries, choosing instead to devote their time to studying religious texts.
“Many in the community look at the Hasidim as locusts, who go from community to community . . . just stripping all the resources out of it,” said a Jewish, but not ultra-Orthodox, resident of upstate New York. The resident, who vociferously objects to ultra-Orthodox development and asked not to be named for fear of retribution by the ultra-Orthodox community, added that “nobody here doesn’t like them because they’re Jews. People don’t like them because of what they do. Rural, hardworking people also want to live our lives too.”
The entire premise was moot considering the assailants in Jersey City and Monsey; they weren’t neighbors of Jews concerned about “overdevelopment” or any other issue bigots across the tri-state area have clung to in order to explain their anti-Semitism against Hasidic Jews. The attackers in both the Jersey City and Monsey attacks drove from out of town to perpetrate their crimes; they weren’t motivated by anything but hate.
In this bizarre news item, the victims of these attacks are portrayed as crooks, moochers and “locusts” and the bigot using this kind of language is protected because he’s afraid of retribution.
It was victim-blaming and incendiary at a time where Hasidic Jews are under attack daily across the New York and New Jersey area.
Online, conservatives and liberals lit the piece on fire. Editors at NR got calls, emails and even an in-person visit from Jews concerned about how the publication allowed the victims of a spike in hate crimes to be portrayed. In response to this outrage, NR ran a bizarre follow-up note on the piece with the original author explaining,
This quote has attracted controversy. My decision to include it obviously does not constitute an endorsement of its language or its argument. Throughout the article, I quote multiple other people who label similar rhetoric, and the attitudes underlying it, as anti-Semitic. My intention in this article was to present a picture of what is happening in the counties surrounding New York and to convey the feelings of all residents of the area, amid a housing boom and the thankfully growing awareness of New York’s anti-Semitism problem (which I have covered before).
This is a complicated subject that can veer into exceptionable territory. It is extremely vital to understand what people in the area are feeling in order to defuse any misunderstandings or ill-will among observant Jews and their neighbors. It is my hope that the reader will come away from the article with a little more knowledge of those attitudes.
Here’s the issue with the quote, spelled out: Jews are not responsible for Jew-hatred. Let me repeat that. Jews. Are. Not. Responsible. For. Jew. Hatred. This kind of exercise, trying to use logic to explain it, only excuses it. The attacks aren’t about overdevelopment in Monsey, Jersey City or Brooklyn. They are about hate. When those saying it are black, conservatives don’t seem to have a hard time understanding that. But the same reasoning applies to a writer for National Review, yes, even if he served in the IDF.
In response to all of the outrage, Kevin Williamson decided to weigh in. And here’s when NR really, really steps in it. He writes,
I don’t think most people who read the news are too stupid to understand the news. I think they are too dishonest.
I am frankly embarrassed that we’ve found it necessary to append a note to Zachary Evans’s report on anti-Semitism to emphasize that quoting a person to illuminate his sentiments does not constitute an endorsement of those sentiments. That’s obvious. Every mentally functional adult is able to understand as much. But because there are people who want to smear National Review for political purposes, they pretend that an article about anti-Semitism written by a veteran of the Israeli military is itself an exercise in anti-Semitism. I have a hard time believing that is an honest error, because people dumb enough to make an error like that, and make it honestly, can’t read.
Here’s the thing: You don’t have to agree with my original assessment that the piece never should have run. But the fact is there were plenty of Jewish conservatives (and a few non-Jewish ones too) who expressed horror at the way Hasidic Jews were characterized. That doesn’t make them stupid. It doesn’t make them dishonest. It doesn’t mean they were motivated to “smear National Review for political purposes.” They saw a piece that attacked the victims of a wave of hatred and they expressed their anger at it.
It’s times like these it’s interesting to see who really means it when they decry anti-Semitism. When attacks happen or when the New York Times or the Washington Post write something stupid about Jews, there are plenty of conservatives ready to pounce. But when it’s one of our own, like National Review, calling Jews concerned about how Jews are portrayed dishonest and acting in bad faith, there’s an awful lot of silence. And that silence speaks volumes.
Published in General
I was wondering if there was an actual rise in anti-Semitic violence, given that in general violent crime is down. It seems there is not a rise in anti-Semitic violence, nationally. But perhaps there is in certain enclaves? I don’t know, just wondering. Just like the left talks about gun violence as some national problem, when we really know that violent crime, with guns or not, is really just a localized problem in some places.
There’s no evidence for the captivity or the wandering.
There is a wealth of evidence for the Babylonian captivity on the other hand, which goes a long way towards explaining how Hebrew scribes concatenated the majority of what became the Torah.
One would have to ask the people who live around the Amish to get a better idea as to how it is to live amongst them. Hard to get an idea of what interactions are like from afar. There is almost always a tension between groups who live in close proximity. Take any group and find out who they can’t stand, usually, it’s the group that lives closest to them.
I agree with Bryan on this point. I think that he was using the Amish, a generally respected group, as an example of how a certain group’s attitudes or practices can lead to a free rider problem, which is a legitimate concern and will cause some resentment. Diversity has its downsides.
Accusing someone of being an evil hater, for raising legitimate concerns, is a good way to lose friends and alienate people.
Val, I do not direct this last comment at you — you did not accuse Bryan of being evil or hateful. I am commenting upon how accusations of racism, or anti-Semitism, or similar epithets, when deployed in response to legitimate concerns, will lead to further frustration and resentment.
We need to be able to have honest, civil discussions about such difficulties, without being accused of advocating another Holocaust or trying to re-institute slavery.
When small town Ohio celebrates Veterans’ Day and the Amish workers on the roof along the parade route turn their backs on the flag? Yeah, there’s some resentment.
Seriously? That happens?
Guess I’m adding the Amish to the list of ingrates.
True. And, of course, there is a disagreement about what constitutes riding free. Everyone contributes in a different way than does everyone else!
Yes, it happens. Not all the Amish, but enough are disrespectful of our government/military to make a show of it. We’re all a mixed bag, though. That’s why I try to take people as they come individually, and not by their group identity.
Spin, thanks for the response. I’ve tried to include an important caveat in my comments on this issue. Crime statistics are necessarily reported in arrears, so it is possible that there could be a significant increase in anti-Semitic violence, very recently, about which we will not have accurate data for 12-18 months.
However, the information presented on the other side is very misleading, as it does not make any attempt to solve this problem. One example was news reports of 8 assaults (not necessarily aggravated assaults) against Jews in NYC in the week before Christmas. Well, there are about 30,000 aggravated assaults in NYC each year, about 575/week, and Jews are about 13% of the NYC population, so anecdotal accounts of 8 assaults do not demonstrate the existence of a problem — beyond the background problem of violent crime generally which is, thankfully, down quite significantly.
I used to live around the Amish (Lancaster PA) I don’t recall any overt problem on the other hand I was just in 4th through 7th grade so I’m sure there is a lot I missed as a kid that now as an adult I would be able to pick up on. But, still whatever it was wasn’t so bad that a 5th grader would notice.
I’d characterize the Amish as inward-looking. It seems very unlikely that, as a whole, they’d ruffle any feathers. The NR article suggests that the Orthodox in question are promoting development and seeking political power. Although I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that, it’s different in kind from the Amish.
Even this is very tough to clearly define. I work with accountants all the time. It is a profoundly… um… creative profession.
Doubt me? Look at how Boeing defines cost and expenditure for aircraft programs. If they end up relying on a bailout, their accounting practices will be accused of being criminal.
None of that would be necessary if the corporate rate were zero (as it should be.)
Much creative energy is squandered in tax avoidance, but what I’m referring to is “income transfer payments” which are means-tested.
Afternoon Val and Shawn,
The Amish do not take their Social Security payments or use Medicare. I had not known this until a local prof started playing pickle ball with us. She has studied them for 11 years and is writing a book on the relationship of the Amish to technology. You can have a phone, but there are many stipulations, like the phone may be in a booth by the barn with an answering machine and you can use it only for business, like quilting, clothing, furniture. So maybe they are free riders concerning defense, but they are not for any of the safety net government programs. Considering all of us have spent all the money we put in Social Security within 10 years and then start on our childern’s contributions, I would guess that the Amish are less free riders than most of us geezers (like me).
The Amish also do not go to school past 8th grade, so some savings there and never live in subsidized housing.
The Jewish population of world is ~17.8 million (call it .018 billion.)
The Christian population of world is ~ 2.4 billion
So there are approximately 133 Christians per Jew, which would make the per capita rate of anti-Christian approximately about three times that of anti-Jewish killings.
Meanwhile,
Why?
Maddow, Schiff and Nadler, just to name a few.
Trump’s August 2019 statement:
It looks like he viscerally doesn’t get how American Jews can be disloyal to Israel and the Jewish people. He’s asking a good question; if you ally yourselves with people who want to kill your relatives, can you be trusted to be loyal to the US?
Mind you, the answer isn’t always “no.” I went to school with a bunch of Nisei and Sansei kids whose fathers were US Army combat veterans. But the question then is, “are your relatives seriously up to no good and need to be stopped?” Jews who ally themselves with Tlaib answer “yes,” and consider themselves as heroic as the White Rose, except that they don’t eschew violence.
Calling their judgement into question isn’t anti-Semitism.
Shawn, you are a smart guy – but you are woefully ignorant in (at least) this area.
Boeing’s accounting is not done for tax avoidance purposes! It is done to avoid showing Wall Street the cost of investment in new programs.
There are infinite ways to game a complex system, and the system has many drivers besides taxation. Many of those drivers are internal KPIs and cross-purposes between departments allocating doing cost accounting.
This is why something that seems simple like “transfer pricing” is so complex that the determination one way or another ultimately comes down to sticking a thumb in the air.
I don’t have a lot to say on the underlying topic that hasn’t already been said by @arizonapatriot
Personally, I find Kevin’s personality grating and unlovely. He is not, however, an anti-semite nor is he providing cover for anti-semitic sentiment. Now, it is perfectly acceptable to question the original article and how it was written but to fly into hysterics on Twitter and tell Williamson to F off. It’s childish and vapid. What an embarrassment for Ricochet but more importantly for the OP herself.
Fair enough about Williamson. Personally, I rather like his blunt style, but I understand that this may be a case of one disagreeable grouch liking another.
That’s illegal. I said taking advantage of all legal deductions. I never said anything about hiding income.
Right – and this is the situation we find ourselves in with some of the Hasidim, who live lifestyles which are somewhat out of proportion to their reported incomes… if their tax forms are to be believed.
The LA Times article I linked a couple of pages back has details.
Sure there is. Contained in the very scrolls that detail it. Not to mention, recently unearthed archeological evidence that points to a time when the Ark wasn’t in Hebrew hands.
That’s the same as saying that the evidence that the Archangel Gabriel did speak to Mohammed is right there in the Koran. What, you don’t find that convincing? What’s the matter with you; are you some sort of skeptic?
There is no credible evidence that a million people or a hundred thousand or even 10,000 people wandered in the Sinai for 40 years – if they did, where are the grave sites, the camps, the kitchen middens and the other artifacts of a Hebrew civilization? It can’t be found and the Israeli antiquities authority has gone over the Sinai with a fine-toothed comb by this time.
There’s also no evidence of their presence in Egypt as an enslaved population either and the Egyptians were not shy about bragging of the peoples they’d conquered and enslaved for purely propaganda reasons. Curious that they neglected to mention such a large population building their monuments.
Yes. Exactly
Where is the garbage. Archeology is mostly the study of garbage. The Torah has great wisdom in its stories. That is not reason to take them as pure actual history
Here is a timeline of events as I see it.
I would offer one addition. The person who made the quote is described as a non-ultra Orthodox Jew.
And I imagine if that article had been written and received similar reaction from a Bethany Mandel analogue, KDW would have been just as annoyed. I’m OK with criticism of the article as insensitive or ill timed (although I note that the pro forma conservative position is to characterize those sorts of criticisms as “snow flake”) but not the suggestions that the author was somehow excusing, allowing to be excused or implicitly endorsing the excusing of Jew hatred on the basis of quoting someone and reporting that certain views exist.
Well, the whole Exodus wasn’t a success story for the Egyptian. Societies tend not to talk about their failures, particularly such spectacular ones. Well, except for the scrolls that detail the failures of the Hebrew people.
Wouldn’t have been much. The clothes didn’t wear out, according to the same scrolls.
KayDeeDub sounds like one of those guys who is serious all the time and no fun to be around. You aren’t like that, are ya AP?