After the massacre of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in late October, people flocked to social media and to the streets with messages of unity and collective opposition to the anti-Semitism behind the killing.
It didn’t take long, however, for the forces of racism and reaction to turn their outrage on the main people capable of mobilizing opposition to the rising tide of anti-Semitism: broadly speaking, the left and the social movements.
After the 2017 neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which anti-racist protester Heather Heyer was murdered, people around the world responded with horror to Trump’s comment that there were “good people on both sides.”
The left argued — rightly — that it is unconscionable to equate whatever violence might take place on the anti-fascist/anti-racist left with the violence of a movement rooted in calls for ethnic cleansing and genocide. But people in the political center were taken aback by Trump’s apologia for white supremacy.
Yet after last month’s shooting, much of the mainstream response was cut from the same cloth as Trump’s.
Less than two weeks after the shooting, the Los Angeles City Council was already trying to weaponize Jews’ pain and deploy it against the Palestine solidarity movement — by calling on UCLA officials to cancel the National Students for Justice in Palestine conference planned for mid-November at the UCLA campus.
Thankfully, grassroots pressure from students successfully pressured the university stand up to this blatant attack on free speech.
At the same time, right-wing and not-so-right-wing hit pieces, most notably in the New York Post, have argued that the biggest threats to Jews today are left-wing activists like Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour — who have both been asked to step down as co-chairs of the Women’s March.
In Britain, the war against the anti-Semitism supposedly…