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The exhausting, never-ending job of debunking antisemitic conspiracy theories
(JTA) — A few days after the comedian Dave Chappelle appeared to justify the never-ending appeal of Jewish conspiracy theories, this sentence appeared in the New York Times: “Bankman-Fried is already drawing comparisons to Bernie Madoff.”
I’ll explain: Sam Bankman-Fried is the 30-year-old founder of FTX, the crypto-currency exchange that vaporized overnight, leaving more than 1 million creditors on the hook. Bernie Madoff, is, of course, Bernie Madoff, the financier who defrauded thousands of investors through a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme and died in prison.
It’s a fair comparison, as a former regulator tells CNN: “Bankman-Fried, like Madoff, proved adept at using his pedigree and connections to seduce sophisticated investors and regulators into missing ‘red flags,’ hiding in plain sight.”
Nevertheless, seeing these Jewish figures lumped together, I braced myself for the inevitable: Nasty tweets about Jews and money. Slander from white supremacists. Plausibly deniable chin-scratching from more “mainstream” commentators.
What comes next is a familiar script: Jewish defense groups issue statements saying conspiracy theories traffic in centuries-old antisemitic tropes and pose a danger to the Jews. Jewish news outlets like ours post “explainers” describing how these myths take hold.
It’s exhausting, having to deny the obvious: that a group of people who don’t even agree on what kind of starch to eat on Passover regularly scheme to bilk innocents, manipulate markets or control the world. And it often seems the very attempt to explain these lies and their popularity ends up feeding the beast.
Chappelle’s now notorious monologue on “Saturday Night Live” is a case in point. At first pass, it is a characteristically mischievous attempt to both mock the rapper Kanye West for his antisemitism, and to push boundaries to explain why a troubled Black entertainer might feel aggrieved in an industry with a historic over-representation of Jews. Jon Stewart certainly heard it that way, telling Stephen Colbert, “Look at it from a Black perspective. It’s a culture that feels that its wealth has been extracted by different groups. That’s the feeling in that community, and if you don’t understand where it’s coming from, then you can’t deal with it.”
That is a useful message, but consider the messenger. Chappelle appears to disapprove of West’s conspiracy-mongering, but never once discusses the harm it might cause to the actual targets of the conspiracies. Instead, he focuses on the threat such ideas pose to the careers and reputations of entertainers like him and West. The “delusion that Jews run show business,” said Chappelle, is “not a crazy thing to think,” but “it’s a crazy thing to say out loud.” He ends the routine by ominously invoking the “they” who might end his career.
That’s what critics meant when they said Chappelle “normalized” antisemitism: He described where it’s coming from, explained why his peers might feel that way, and only criticized it to the degree that it could lead the purveyors to be cancelled. It’s like saying, “You don’t have to vaccinate your kids. Just don’t tell anybody.”
This week I worked with a colleague on an article about how the “Jews control Hollywood” myth took hold, and at each step of the way I wondered if we were stoking the fire we were trying to put out. No, Jews don’t control Hollywood, we reported, but “nearly every major movie studio was founded in the early 20th century” by a Jew. Those moguls rarely used the movies as a platform to defend Jewish interests, but per Steven Spielberg, “Being Jewish in Hollywood is like wanting to be in the popular circle.”
A documentary shown Thursday night at the DOC NYC festival here in New York teeters on the edge of the same trap. “The Conspiracy,” directed by the Russian-American filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin and narrated by Mayim Bialik, uses 3-D animation to explain how conspiracists ranging from a 19th-century French priest to American industrialist Henry Ford placed three Jews — German financier Max Warburg, Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and falsely accused French soldier Alfred Dreyfus — at the center of a vast, contradictory and preposterous scheme to take over the world. It connects age-old Christian animosity to the Jews to centuries of antisemitic paranoia and fear-mongering that led to unspeakable violence at Kishinev, Auschwitz and Pittsburgh. “This myth has plagued the world for centuries,” Pozdorovkin explains.
Or at least that’s the message you and I might have gotten. But I can also see someone stumbling on this film and being seduced by the rage and cynicism of the conspiracy-mongers — who, I should note, are quoted at length. Part of the problem is the film’s aesthetic: a consistently dark palette and a “camera” that lingers on ugly examples of antisemitic propaganda. Even though these images are seen on a creepy “conspiracy wall” and connected with that red thread familiar from cop shows and horror films, I can well imagine an uninformed viewer asking why members of this tiny minority seem to be at the center of so many major events of the 19th and 20th centuries.
I was reminded of a joke by the Jewish comedian Modi, ridiculing the ritual of inviting celebrities accused of antisemitism to visit a Holocaust museum. “Which is the stupidest idea, ever,” he says. “You’re taking someone who hates Jews into a Holocaust museum. They come out of there [saying] ‘Wow! Oh my God, that was amazing! I want a T-shirt!’”
The poet and essayist Clint Smith, whose cover story in next month’s Atlantic explores the meanings of Holocaust museums in Germany, makes a similar point. After visiting the museum in Wannsee documenting the infamous meeting in which the Nazis plotted the Final Solution, he wonders: “Might someone come to a museum like this and be inspired by what they saw?”
The makers of “The Conspiracy” (oy, that title) obviously intend the very opposite. In an interview with the Forward, Pozdorovkin agrees with the interviewer’s suggestion that those “who most need to see this film might be the least likely to be convinced by it.”
“My hope is that this film has a trickle-down effect,” he explains.
The fault lies not with those who seek to expose antisemitism but with a society that relies on the victims to explain why they shouldn’t be victimized. As many have pointed out, antisemitism isn’t a Jewish problem; it’s a problem for the individuals and societies who pin their unhappiness and neuroses on a convenient scapegoat. Ultra-nationalism and intolerance are the soil in which conspiracies take root.
But as long as scapegoating remains popular and deadly, the victims have to keep explaining and explaining the obvious — that, for instance, the fact that Sam Bankman-Fried and Bernie Madoff are Jewish is no more significant than the fact that Henry Ford and Elon Musk, two people who founded car companies, are gentiles.
The question is, who is listening?
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The post The exhausting, never-ending job of debunking antisemitic conspiracy theories appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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At the Vatican, two elderly men — one Jewish, one Catholic — exchange gifts and mutual admiration
On Wednesday, two senior citizens, Robert Zimmerman, 85, a Jew originally from Minnesota, and Robert Prevost, 71, a Catholic of Chicago, had a brief meeting at the younger man’s office in central Italy.
Sources on the scene report that Zimmerman was in town for business and Prevost, who goes professionally by Leo, had recently cited Zimmerman’s work in the preface to a book about nuclear disarmament.
Both men dressed in uniform, looking a bit Spy Vs. Spy, with Zimmerman in a black hoodie and Prevost in white with a small white skull cap. The confab was brief, a bulletin from Prevost’s workplace reported, consisting of “greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges.”
Prevost gifted Zimmerman with prayer beads, and Zimmerman presented Prevost with a copy of his memoir, published under his pen name, Bob Dylan.
While Zimmerman was raised in a Jewish home, he had, for a time in the late 1970s to early 1980s, converted to born-again Christianity, confounding many.
The post At the Vatican, two elderly men — one Jewish, one Catholic — exchange gifts and mutual admiration appeared first on The Forward.
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The Michigan Senate race showed the exact wrong ways to fight antisemitism
The campaign against Abdul El-Sayed was example after example of how not to fight antisemitism—a display of conflation, double standards, and bigotry that we need to learn from and reject if we hope to ensure Jewish safety and security in a pluralistic society.
El-Sayed won his election Tuesday with 52.5% of the vote. He won despite an ugly campaign that alleged that he was not only critical of Israel but antisemitic, and that he does not care about or consider Jewish safety, and in which he was repeatedly asked to prove his sincerity on Jewish safety while also being attacked for running for office while being Muslim.
El-Sayed is not above criticism and questions from Jews just because he is a Democrat and most Jews vote for Democrats. It is right and appropriate that Senate candidates have to answer questions about antisemitism. El-Sayed did campaign with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker in the primary, and Piker did liken Zionists to Nazis, and many Jews in Michigan and elsewhere are Zionists; it is appropriate for El-Sayed to be asked about that.
It is also fair for a candidate who is vocal in his criticism of Israel to be asked how he’ll work to ensure the safety of his Jewish constituents, since we know that there is at least a correlation between anger at Israel and violence directed toward Jews. After West Bloomfield, Michigan’s own Temple Israel was attacked, El-Sayed did say, “hurt people hurt people,” and though he was referring to a specific event—the perpetrator’s family was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Lebanon—it is understandable that he was called upon to explain his own remarks to upset Jewish families in his state, whom he is also charged with representing in Congress.
From this point, however, the campaign against El-Sayed developed in several ways.
For one thing, when critics make demands of politicians, they need to actually allow those politicians to meet them. Yet despite distancing himself from Hasan Piker (“a Twitch streamer,” as he repeated to reporters), speaking repeatedly about how and why he took the safety of Jewish Michiganders seriously, and apologizing at length for his “hurt people hurt people” comment, El-Sayed was treated in the media and by his political opponents (and by some Democrats) as suspect and insincere.
These same questions were not asked of his opponent, Republican Mike Rogers, whose student outreach team included someone who defended a Young Republicans group chat praising Hitler.
If El-Sayed had to speak repeatedly about Piker, why did Rogers not have to answer whether he accepted the view of the U.S. president—who like Piker, joined his preferred candidate on the campaign trail—that any Jew who voted for El-Sayed was crazy and should be ashamed of themselves? (This was not a one-off missive, but the latest in the long line of Trump comments insisting on American Jewish responsibility to be loyal to Israel by voting for him, Donald Trump.)
Why wasn’t Rogers grilled on what he made of comments by Ohio’s U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno implying that senators should have to believe in Jesus, a remark that if rendered policy would impact El-Sayed and also, say, every Jew in public office?
The discrepancy suggests that reporters, pundits, politicians, and Jewish leaders do not take antisemitism seriously from all corners, and in fact that they consider it worse and more suspect from a Muslim American who criticizes Israel than a Republican who doesn’t.
Worse, still, is that that Republicans trafficked in vile anti-Muslim hate throughout the campaign. Rozina Ali, author of Seasons of Fury: Four Families and the Rise of Islamophobia in America, wrote on X on Tuesday, “Islamophobia appears to be on the ballot in Michigan, in an unprecedented way.” These tropes weren’t new, Ali explained, but they were at a fever pitch this election, with El-Sayed dubbed a “jihadist leprechaun” by a sitting Senator. The vice president of the United States said El-Sayed has “zero attachment to this land.”
Too often, Jewish leaders and institutions met this rhetoric with silence, or even encouragement. As I argued last week, dual loyalty narratives against one population just make the voting public more comfortable with the trope being used against other groups, including Jews. Moreover: Silence is not going to build solidarity from non-Jews, and Jews — just 1.4% of voters in Michigan and two percent of this country — are not going to fight antisemitism on our own.
Finally and troublingly was the willingness of El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Haley Stevens, to claim that it was Jewish safety that motivated her public questioning of El-Sayed (notably over an ad that his campaign did not put out) and her eventual flip to campaigning and voting for Rogers. Stevens is a staunch supporter of Israel and was backed by AIPAC. However, she is not Jewish (though she said she is considering converting), and yet spoke repeatedly as if she had authority on what Jewish voters in Michigan wanted to hear from El-Sayed. But she was not an emissary from Jewish voters, who are not a monolith — and 60 percent of whom, per one exit poll, voted for El-Sayed.
What can we learn from this race? First, conflating criticism of Israel and calls for more challenging policies toward Israel with attitudes toward Jewish voters needs to stop, even or especially while understanding that anger toward the country can be channeled against the people here.
Candidates of both parties, regardless of their positions on Israel, need to be held accountable with demands for real answers on what they will do for the well-being of all of their constituents, including Jews, and including when those stumping for them challenge the idea of full Jewish participation in civic life.
Jewish voters need to reject the idea that Islamophobia and antisemitism are somehow at odds with each other, and that it costs us something to call out hatred of Muslim Americans when in fact, so often, we are on the same side of racist hatred. (On Tuesday night, X was filled with posts blaming Jews for El-Sayed’s victory and bemoaning what it meant for American culture.)
And reporters, pundits, politicians, Jewish leaders, and for that matter Jewish voters need to stop speaking about Jewish voters on antisemitism and Israel as though all of us understand the intersection of these issues in the same way or want to hear the same things about them from politicians.
Since Abdul El-Sayed will be in the Senate starting in January, we will soon have ample opportunity to put these lessons into practice.
The post The Michigan Senate race showed the exact wrong ways to fight antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump’s midterm defeat changes the equation for Netanyahu and Israel
The Republican rout in the U.S. midterm elections may have consequences far beyond America’s shores. The most immediate impact could be in Israel, where the struggle to translate Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral defeat into a change of government is entering its decisive stage.
In the week that has passed since the Israeli election, there was much anticipation that Trump might intervene to rescue his longtime ally. He endorsed Netanyahu, suggested that Israel’s security depended on his continued leadership, and hinted that renewed war with Iran depended on his victory (seeming to believe, perhaps falsely, that Israelis yearn for this). There was speculation that he might pressure opposition leaders into joining a unity government headed by Netanyahu, reversing the political meaning of Israel’s election.
Now the American electorate may have changed the equation.
The Democrats’ sweeping gains, which enabled them to seize decisive control of both houses of Congress, represent a substantial repudiation of Trump’s administration. The president retains enormous authority over foreign policy and national security – but in January he faces a hostile Congress, increased scrutiny of his decisions and a political environment even less hospitable to another Middle Eastern military adventure.
There is a counterintuitive possibility, of course: Trump might conclude that the period before the new Congress takes office offers a final opportunity to strike Iran. A weakened president is not necessarily a restrained president, and yet another unpopular war, especially one suspected of serving Netanyahu’s political interests, could deepen the backlash against Trump at home as Republicans are already looking fearfully at 2028.
It’s reasonable to think that many of them would not want to be associated with a strong-arming of Israel’s opposition in order to rescue Netanyahu, who is, fairly or unfairly, scarcely less toxic in the United States these days than Vladimir Putin.
The larger point: Trump’s political leverage has diminished. His presidency has an expiration date, and the American political system is already beginning to look beyond him. This will offer headwinds to those Israeli politicians who argue that a government that could serve for years should be cautious about treating the preferences of a politically weakened American president as decisive.
That is an especially potent thought on Wednesday, as Israeli President Isaac Herzog begins consultations with Israel’s newly elected parliamentary factions.
Israel’s election produced a clear numerical result: Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while parties opposed to his continued rule secured 67. The opposition has a parliamentary majority, although it is struggling to form a governing coalition.
Under Israel’s system, the president consults representatives of the elected parties, who recommend a candidate to form the government. Herzog must then decide which lawmaker has the best prospect of assembling one. The recommendations are politically important but not legally binding, and the president is not required to select whoever receives the most endorsements, though this is the tradition.
If former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot receives recommendations representing 67 seats, that would establish the breadth of parliamentary opposition to Netanyahu. Eisenkot would likely be tapped, and then he would face the central difficulty: what to do about Israel’s Arab parties.
Of the 67 seats held by Netanyahu’s opponents, 19 belong to Arab parties, whose electoral success reflected a remarkable increase in Arab turnout – which at around 85 percent exceeded that of Israel’s Jews. Several Jewish opposition leaders promised during the campaign not to rely on those parties to establish a government.
Eisenkot himself has said that he would demand any coalition partners agree that Hamas should be removed as a military and governing body in Gaza, which the Arab parties have not yet done. Polls show that a majority of opposition voters favor finding a way to form a government, even if it’s dependent on the Arab parties.
Indeed, many are arguing that this is a test of Israel’s democracy, and that for the opposition to stick to its refusal to rely on the Arab parties would strengthen enemies of Israel who argue that it is not a true democracy.
Here, too, the American midterms offer an intriguing counterpoint.
According to a voting breakdown in The New York Times, Republicans received 51 percent of the white vote, compared with 48 percent for Democrats. Would anyone seriously argue that the Democratic congressional victory is illegitimate because it depended partly on Black, Hispanic and Asian voters? Should Republicans retain the House speakership because they performed better among white Americans?
Of course not. Yet Israel faces an argument with a disturbingly similar implication.
If a parliamentary majority cannot govern because some of its members are considered unacceptable on ethnic or national grounds, the damage to Israel’s democratic reputation could be immense.
Under Israeli parliamentary rules, a government can win confidence through a majority of those participating in the vote. Abstentions or outside support from Arab lawmakers could therefore make a minority government possible.
With 48 seats for the non-Arab opposition parties, all Eisenkot would need would be the more moderate of the Arab parties, Ra’am, which has eight seats, to show support. The new coalition’s 56 seats could outvote Netanyahu’s 53 to win Knesset confirmation, even with the 11-seat Joint Arab List abstaining. That means Eisenkot does not necessarily require 61 affirmative votes to take office.
The obstacle is Avigdor Lieberman, head of the seven-seat Yisrael Beitenu party. A nationalist West Bank settler, he has fallen out with both Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox allies, and has been counted as part of the opposition. This week he reiterated his vow not to support a government dependent on Arab parties. But he also ruled out rejoining with Netanyahu, and described a repeat election as the worst option.
So while the outcome is clear now in the United States, in Israel the guessing game continues.
The post Trump’s midterm defeat changes the equation for Netanyahu and Israel appeared first on The Forward.
