The oldest hatred in the world
During my childhood in 1930s Boston, anti-Semitism was as common as baked beans. Since then, I’ve not been surprised at sudden eruptions of the hatred of Jews, whatever the context. During the Connecticut Democratic primary contest between Sen. Joseph Lieberman and contender Ned Lamont, I was not, therefore, shocked by the emergence of centuries-old standard anti-Semitism.
As Lanny Davis, special counsel to President Clinton, and a Lieberman supporter, reminded us in the Aug. 8 Wall Street Journal, blogging anti-Semites had Lieberman in their sights back on the Daily Kos Web site on Dec. 7 from a contributor: “as everyone knows, Jews ONLY care about the welfare of other Jews; thanks ever so much for reminding everyone of this most salient fact …”
And on July 8 of this year, on the Huffington Post Web site: “Lieberman cannot escape the religious bond he represents. Hell, his wife’s name is Haggadah or Muffeletta or Diaspora or something you eat at Passover.”
Davis made the obvious point that “most Connecticut Democrats voting for Mr. Lamont are genuinely outraged at President Bush for his Iraq War policies” — and Lieberman’s religion was not at all their motivation for backing this George Soros-supported Lamont to replace him. But except for Davis, in all the coverage of this campaign for “the soul of the Democratic Party,” there has been very little notice of the vivid, though limited, obbligato of anti-Semitism.
Similarly, little noted during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses around the country is the occasional morphing of anti-Israel hatred into plain classic anti-Semitism. For example, waving in the California sun on a campus was the regret: “Hitler didn’t finish the job!”
These are not entirely rare instances. On April 3, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reported: “Many college campuses throughout the United States continue to experience incidents of anti-Semitism.?
In the 1990s, I was speaking at Michigan State University where there was mounting tension between some black and some Jewish students, resulting from Louis Farrakhan’s appearance on that campus months before. Jews, he had assured the students, “suck the blood out of the black community.”
During my talk there, I spoke of my friendship with Malcolm X, who had broken with Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam and — shortly before he was assassinated for his perfidy — Malcolm told me that there were whites he’d be willing to work with in the organization he was forming.
This did not go over well with a clamorous group of Farrakhan supporters in the audience who tried to shout me down — which is a hard thing to do. Simultaneously, there were Jewish students in that audience who spoke critically, as I had, of Farrakhan’s hatred of Jews.
Recently, I went to see my newest grandchild, Ruby, on her first birthday. She’s so full of life that she gave some to me. A Jew, she will be safe in America — unlike in some European countries, let alone in the rest of the world. The chances are that as her years increase, Ruby will become aware that she, too, is among people marked to be especially “chosen” and scorned by bigots who do not want to be her friend.
I’ll tell Ruby, if I’m still around, that you never get used to that, but this is America, and you can stand up to these haters.
At a college, in one of his last speeches, Malcolm X angrily interrupted a black student who was condemning Jewish “bloodsuckers.” Roaring, Malcolm said, “You’re doing what has been done to us for centuries!”
Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.