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American Jews and BLM: Antisemitism Must Sharpen Focus on Jewish Alliances
A poster from a protest in London linking Black Lives Matter movement to the situation facing the Palestinians. Photo: Apartheid Off Campus via Facebook.
Speaking in somber, contemplative tones, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently delivered a 40-minute floor speech on the current rise of antisemitism in the United States. “Not long ago, many of us marched together for black and brown lives,” Schumer said nostalgically, “out of the recognition that injustice against one oppressed group is injustice against all. But apparently, in the eyes of some, that principle does not extend to the Jewish people.”
Schumer’s invocation of the Black-Jewish solidarity that characterized both the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the post-George Floyd racial upheaval of 2020 hearkened back to the American tradition of coalition-building around shared civic values.
It also summoned the doctrine of intersectionality, which holds that minority categories are interconnected and that systems of oppression overlap. This feeling of empathy for African-Americans was on full display in the Jewish community when more than 600 Jewish organizations hastened to sign a letter contained in an August 2020 New York Times ad in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM).
“The Black Lives Matter movement is the current day Civil Rights movement in this country, and it is our best chance at equity and justice,” the letter read. “By supporting this movement, we can build a country that fulfills the promise of freedom, unity, and safety for all of us, no exceptions.”
But despite the rosy optimism of the Jewish organizational letter, there have indeed been exceptions to the promise of safety for all groups — namely, the American Jewish community, represented by the more than 600 organizations that signed the ad.
Antisemitism is exploding on university campuses and in urban centers in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli defensive military operation. And the response from BLM chapters? Support for the terrorists.
The BLM D.C. chapter accused Israel of apartheid, while casting doubt on the veracity of Hamas atrocities. The Chicago chapter posted an image of a terrorist paragliding into Israel to attack civilians, along with the caption, “I stand with Palestine.” And the BLM Grassroots division justified the Hamas attack as a response to “75 years of settler colonialism and apartheid.”
A BLM Phoenix social media account declared that Hamas terrorists were “freedom fighters.” A BLM Detroit account bizarrely demeaned Israeli hostages by asserting, “The few Israeli ‘hostages’ are in fact Israeli soldiers and Israeli army generals who are responsible for keeping Palestinians hostage in the world’s largest open air prison.”
American Jews often have actively worked to support the plight of an African-American community that suffered centuries of slavery and segregation and still struggles for equality today. The awareness of this history may have caused Jews to sometimes temper their responses to antisemitism, out of a deferential sense that there may be worse injustices that merit greater attention and outrage.
But the current explosion of antisemitism in the United States begs the question of why the world’s oldest and most persistent social illness merits less opprobrium than offenses against other marginalized groups. Moreover, it prompts one to ask why other communities that have felt the sting of bigotry themselves resist the obligation to defend Jews against the greatest of all hatreds.
Some of this undoubtedly is due to the lingering conception of Jews as a white, privileged group undeserving of victim status, even following the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, in which white supremacists carried tiki torches and chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”
Another contributor is the revisionist history of Israel as a white, colonial settler project whose central aim is to displace an indigenous people, notwithstanding the fact that the Jews originated in the Land of Israel and that many of them subsequently lived in Arab and Muslim countries from which they were forced out in the 20th century. Furthermore, more than 50% of Israeli Jews would be considered BIPOC in America today.
But the eagerness of Jews to find common cause with other oppressed minorities, and to gain acceptance from such groups, has led to costly mistakes. Jewish organizations that signed the 2020 pro-BLM New York Times ad prioritized racial justice in the wake of the George Floyd killing. But it is possible to commit oneself to racial justice and the principle that Black lives matter without issuing a full-throated endorsement of a movement that never has confronted the antisemitism in its own ranks.
The experience of the 2020 BLM endorsement and the disappointment that followed it suggest that Jewish groups should cultivate allies that will reciprocate the respect Jews have shown for the civil rights of others. The Jewish community should demand that activists and organizations that profess to support civil and human rights reject not only terrorist groups such as Hamas, but the extreme ideologies that paint Jews as colonial occupiers deserving to be extirpated from their homeland.
Black lives will always matter, and the cause of racial equality must always be a priority for Jews and other Americans. But combating antisemitism and acknowledging Israel’s obligation to defend itself must never again take a back seat in the search for democratic allies.
Rabbi Eric Fusfield is B’nai B’rith International’s Director of Legislative Affairs and Deputy Director of its International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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