(Jewish Group) When the right and left fight over anti-Semitism, Jews are caught in the middle
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)
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We are not dealing with minor missteps that can be overlooked. We’re dealing, after all, with a person who, when asked what motivated Sen. Joe Lieberman’s vote for the Iraq war, boiled it down to a simple question: “Jew or Arab?” We’re dealing with a person who ran campaign ads stating that the opponent was “owned” by wealthy Jewish financial backers. When the representative was elected last November, we could no longer avoid confronting anti-Semitism from the elected officials in Congress tasked with representing our family.
I’m referring, of course, to Rep. Jim Hagedorn – a Republican representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District.
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The left self-righteously insists that it is saving its ammunition for combating the “real anti-Semitism” – but Jews have long seen that for too much of the left, cases of “real anti-Semitism” beyond the most obvious murderous varieties seem almost as elusive as O.J.’s “real killer.” Both sides are silencing Jews in the guise of allyship. Both sides need to step back and knock it off.
We need to break this pattern at its root. That means taking Jewish testimony seriously and resisting the impulse to dismiss efforts to combat anti-Semitism – including anti-Semitism related to Israel – as hasbara. And it equally means calling out those who purport to be allies in the fight against anti-Semitism, but in reality use anti-Semitism for political purposes while further marginalizing the Jewish community the moment we’re inconvenient to the ideological narrative.
In short, we need to have a conversation about anti-Semitism. But we also need to have a conversation about how, when we talk about anti-Semitism, we seem to always talk about Ilhan Omar and never about Jim Hagedorn.
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BAM!
