With all the wacky wokey warriors spewing hatred for Israel and Jews on college campuses and city streets, one could be forgiven for not noticing the proliferation of anti-Semites on the other end of the political spectrum.
Like the masked neo-Nazi demonstrators who, on November 9, waved swastikas outside an American Legion Post in Howell, Michigan, where a community theater group was performing a production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
Or, a week later, the group of Nazi activists who marched through a Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood with similar flags, screaming racial slurs and white power slogans.
Or any of the literally hundreds (and I use the word “literally” entirely literally here) of similar demonstrations or marches by white supremacists in cities across the country over the past 18 months.
According to the ADL’s Oren Segal, “Almost every single weekend, white supremacists are rallying in some neighborhood.”
The groups are small, but the organizers purposely avoid publicizing their gatherings ahead of time, so as to avoid counterprotesters, choosing instead to just film themselves and then spread the wicked wealth by sharing videos of their activities with like-minded people on social media. And there are, it seems, many such like-minded people.
There was also a relatively large gathering, although it was in 2017, that brought together a Who’s Who of white power extremists, including militias, Klansmen, neo-Nazis and Richard Spencer. Namely, the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (at which Mr. Spencer gave a hearty Sieg Heil salute to the crowd).
But small “flash mob” turnouts are the repugnant rule.
Large or small, though, the demonstrations are noticed in the many dark corners the Internet offers, and, unfortunately, their messages are absorbed by people with too much time and too few scruples. “Lone wolf” white supremacists who heard and acted on such calls were responsible for mass shootings of Jews in recent years, like in Pittsburgh (2018) and Poway, California (2019); and, of other minorities, like at supermarkets in El Paso (2019) and Buffalo (2022).
Those who monitor cyber cesspools, like the social networks 4Chan, Telegram and Odysee, report that postings of anti-Semitic lies skyrocketed after the Hamas attacks, and have remained high ever since.
According to Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, “there’s just far more violent anti-Semitism on these platforms than we’ve ever seen before.”
She cites a 500% spike in anti-Semitic online animus in the 24-hour period after October 7; by November, that volume was still higher than pre-October 7 levels.
A cogent argument can be made that the more disquieting threat to Jews these days is from the wolves on the political left. And there is no doubt that legislatures host some open anti-Israel-ism (first cousin of anti-Semitism, as confrontations at Jewish institutions and shuls well demonstrate).
There is, reassuringly, still strong support for Israel and Jewish safety in Congress, not only among Republicans but Democrats, too. The strongest sane voice in the Senate is arguably that of John Fetterman; and, in the House, of Ritchie Torres—both Democrats.
But we also have the tired (and tiring) voices of people like Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And Bernie Sanders—“the Squadfather,” the New York Sun’s felicitous moniker (wish I had come up with that one).
Actual violent, murderous attacks on Jews, however, at least in the US, have come almost exclusively from right-wing zealots.
And even in Congress, where violence has pretty much been on the wane since the dueling days of the 19th century (when congressmen commonly carried pistols or knives when they stepped onto the floor), slimy sentiment persists on the right as well as on the left. Just last week, 18 House members from the right wing of the Republican Conference joined three Squadettes in opposing a resolution that expressed support for the State Department’s global guidelines on combating anti-Semitism (it passed 388-21).
But that’s bigotry lite. There’s no lack of the fully caffeinated version out there, far from Washington, DC. And it festers both to our left and to our right.
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