When anti-Semitism is just a click away
The quotes inside this article are real. They were written within the past few months by people who believe they are true. They are quotes from hateful blogs and Web sites. Antisemitism pulses, alive and well, on the Internet.
By The Forward and Jordana Horn Tags: Israel news anti-Semitism"What's the difference between Jews and Nazis? The Jews are guilty of the crimes they're accused of."
The boldfaced quotes are real. They were written within the past few months by people who believe they are true. They are quotes from hateful blogs and Web sites - some written in America, some abroad. Antisemitism pulses, alive and well, on the Internet.
As a freelance journalist, I wrote two pieces on Quentin Tarantino's movie "Inglourious Basterds" (a fictional fantasy about American Jewish soldiers killing Nazis in German-occupied France). My Google Alerts, which finds Web sites that mention my name and sends them to my mailbox, showed me how my stories (one for the Forward, one for The Wall Street Journal) were used as jumping-off points for hate groups and white supremacists. Quotes from those sites, delivered like valentines to my inbox, are interspersed here. The movie is a fantasy. So is the idea that antisemitism and virulent hate are things of the past.
"It's nice knowing none of it ever happened. Just like the phony Holocaust."
When I was about 10 years old, I first read Anne Frank, who famously said all people are good at heart. At the time, I believed that too. Her words were immortalized in pen and ink on the pages of a flimsy diary. As I hoped mine would be, her words were published, reaching an audience beyond any expectation. The thin journal and her words survived the war, while she, along with more than 1 million other murdered children, did not. The lesson: The world seems to have more affection for dead Jews than for live ones. And this: Words are more durable than people.
I watched countless Holocaust movies and read countless Holocaust books, as a good suburban American Jewish girl should. I was appropriately horrified. But as a fourth-generation Jew in the United States, I felt comfortably separated from the death camps by impenetrable buffers of oceans, time and circumstance.
No member of my family would step on the grounds of Auschwitz until some 50 years after the Holocaust had ended. At that point, my parents paid to send my sister and me to Eastern Europe, to see the death camps.
So I walked through long-defunct gas chambers and, unsurprisingly, came out alive to return home. At home, I told my family how I had recited the Kaddish in front of a pile of human ashes two stories high at the death camp of Majdanek. A Polish man had watched me and my yarmulke-wearing, obviously Jewish teen group. With no expression on his face, he lit a cigarette and took a drag from it. He made sure we were watching him. Then he flicked the smoking butt onto the pile of human ash.
"The moral relativism of Jews is the same as that of the criminal - what they want (pleasure, money, power, sex) is more important than you or your life. Jews are the spiritual meta-criminals of the world. We are objectively the moral ones."
I didn't have to travel to the other side of the world to encounter hatred or ignorance. "Of course the Jews killed Jesus," my New Jersey eighth grade English teacher said in class one day, with an exasperated sigh. "That was why they deserved the Holocaust." That "they" that he was talking about, that he was so wrong about, I realized that day - that was me.
"["Inglourious Basterds"] could also be a metaphor of what they're doing to us already with our economics and our banking system". No guns' just behind desks wearing suits and ties."
Holocaust deniers have been trumped by law, common sense and historians time and time again - and yet they keep coming back for more. Some attempt to hide. To avoid protests, longtime denier David Irving is conducting his current United States book tour in secret. Other forms of antisemitism are openly aired: Antisemitism and anti-Zionism are mixed into a nonsensical stew of hatred and anger (see Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres, swiped with a Hitler moustache, in a poster held in Brazil that calls him "Shimon Hitler").
Antisemitism is a relentless force defying reason and history, leaving its mark through pogroms, discrimination and ubiquitous cartoons. Caricatures of Bernard Madoff came almost directly from the Goebbels playbook. Other manifestations can be evocative yet more subtle, to the point where you're not sure even if it's really there. Rolling Stone called Goldman Sachs - a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,- evoking centuries of antisemitic bloodsucking imagery with impunity.
In a series of letters exchanged with Albert Einstein in 1932 about the nature of war, Sigmund Freud noted that people are driven by an inexorable aggressive impulse. Despite all evidence to the contrary, however, Freud was optimistic about human nature. He voiced the hope that Macht (might) would be trumped by Recht (right), and that law would serve as a mechanism to tame human violence. But in the context of the unaccountable Internet, both Macht and Recht can conveniently absent themselves.
"The real Holocaust - Jews had their stolen goods taken away and were forced to do real work for the first time in their lives."
In one generation, the internet has refashioned the world. Facilitating communication both fosters relationships and expedites idiocy. One hundred and forty characters of tripe or brilliance can appear instantly on the screens of thousands (or, in Ashton Kutcher's case, millions). Thanks to Facebook, we have friends that we hardly know, who helpfully proclaim to the world that they hate Mondays. We have itchy e-mail and text trigger fingers. We disclose thoughts best kept to ourselves. Many of these thoughts are boring or mundane. Others are virulent.
As a writer, I know that words have worth and words have power. Our children will grow up in a world where words are ever easier to broadcast, but may seem to have no visible ramifications or consequences.
Hate is consequential and is readily accessible. It can be lucid or incoherent. It can be prosecuted or ignored. The constant waterfall of information over the Internet, however, doesn't drown out the human quest for what is real. If anything, the excess of words makes finding what is true and worthwhile even harder.
Yes, words are more durable than people - but people determine which words are worth saving.
"All most of us on this forum are is [sic] ordinary people who can't share their thoughts anywhere but here."
Good.
Jordana Horn is a lawyer and writer at work on her first novel.
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
Anti-semitic feelings are no different today than they were 'yesterday'. We just 'see' them more today because of the internet and we 'see' how much of it there is, more readily...but it was always there. Whatever the psychological condition is, that causes anti-semitism (which defies all other forms of prejudice, for some reason) it will continue. If all the Jews lived in Israel in total peace and never harmed a fly, they would be blamed for the world's woes. Its a sad fate to be burdened with but we must do what we've always done: ignore, confront it when its in our face, but always continue to rise above it, progress, press forward and excel while maintaining our cohesive nature with each other.
I entirely agree with `Jake in Jerusalem` and Alan-NYC responses! People don`t seem to understand that right from toddlers arab children are taught to hate the Jews, in school, (watch videos on YouTube). The children even boast of being suicide bombers when they grow up! It is truly shocking! The quran is to blame, it is an evil book that teaches death and hatred to the Jews and instructs its followers to behead and subjugate unbelievers in Islam. It also tells its followers that it is fine to lie and deceive to further the cause of their false god `allah`. They plan to islamize the whole world and turn it into an Islamic Caliphate! God forbid, it would be hell on earth! There is now so much lies and deception, distortion of facts by the palestinia media and people believe the lies even when the made up allegations against the IDF are found to be false as in the Cast Lead war etc. The Jews had to reluctantly go to war after years of enduring daily rocket attacks!
Think of all these 'anti-semetic' websites and comments in newspapers etc. as a FEEDBACK mechanism. We don't like what YOU people are up to. So we tell you. You stop it... we'll stop it. Use your economic/financial/political powers to suppress this feedback whilst continuing doing the nasty things you do.. and the result will be the negative feelings towards your tribe will grow and grow. Until one day you wake up getting kicked out of the place again. This time, more of less permanently I'm guessing given we now have nuclear weapons in the world. Why not just stop being so aggressive, racist and objectionable? Chill out, assimilate, intermarry and quit stealing.
When i was child i learned in the school, the mosque and TV.. that Jews are all bad, evils,.. monstrous. after many years of hating everything jews, i realized that we, humans are the same, someones are good, others are evil despite our nationality or our religion. i agree, that we have a lot of work to as arab, we have to check our school books to withdraw all anti-jews expressions and to revise the religious view about jews.
can easily be seen in most talkback forums of larger newspapers, some of which do not censor the most outrageous ones. Even here, in a Jewish paper, commentators that say criticism of Israel is not anti-semitism, yet follow up their whitewashing effort with statements holding ALL Jews responsible for any given Israeli Government decisions they do not agree with. As a native German and a Jew by choice, I was troubled by the last election, which resulted in a government that will, in my opinion, delay any chance of a peaceful two state solution in the near future. Furthermore, as many Diaspora Jews, I am highly critical of the political power of the Orthodox Rabbinate in a democracy. Sadly though, a majority of the posters, holding only Israel responsible for the mess in the area that the Romans named "Palestine", clearly express a not so thinly disguised, old fashioned anti-semitism that has existed for about 1700 years.
The rockets are obviously more intended to cause disruption rather than take life,you cant just punish the innocent as a response to a minority of terrorists.We had over 40yrs of terrorist attacks from the IRA and never ever attacked eire.I am sure hamas will stop attacks when Israel leaves palestine once an for all.The west bank is enjoying better economics inspite of Israel not because of Israel.Israel will enjoy security once it goes behind the green line and is only getting problems through greed and land theft as well as demolishing arab homes in palestine.Get out of Est Jeruslem and palestine and enjoy peace my friend theres a fine line between resistance and terrorism.I could go on about palestinan suffering at the hands of Israel but this is enough
There is no idea to argue with entrenched antisemites, as well as there is no idea to argue with arab-haters and Islamophobes. People who lack intelligence and compassion will never be convinced by any good and sound arguments whatsoever. What is more important is to keep the discussion alive with the broad masses of decent and normal people of all nations and creeds. Information and education can reach the minds and hearts of normal and decent persons - the overwhelming majority - and have the requested outcomes instead. Leave the hate-mongers where they belong, in intellectual and moral hell !
Go to topix.com and look for forums on Israel. I have argued the case for Israel there and some have appreciated it; but I eventually stopped because the minds there that are so entrenched in baseless hatred, antisemitism and lies are incapable of reasoning.
It is in Hungarian,but the most vicious antisemitic and racist web site is one that the government of Hungary tried unsuccessfully to have closed,is called kurucinfo.hu. It is unbelievable!
Anti-semitism is at present, very much a phenomena on what was once called ,"the Left". Usually, anti-semitism on the Left is thinly couched in terms of anti-Israel rhetoric, and often cynically preceded by, "gee is ALL criticism of Israel considered anti-semitic?" It makes one wonder, if not, then why do Western Leftists, with no connection to the issues or the conflict, with no real knowledge of the history of the conflict or of the peoples,languages, religions or cultures,feel compelled to pontificate and to tell lies intended to demonize Israel?
I am pleased that you have read about the Holocaust,but I get the feeling that the reality of what happened then & what happens today is the middle east has become all one & the same to you.When you write about what Israelis do to their neighbors,you seem to imply their actions happen in a vacum.Cast Lead was the result of years of endless Hamas rockets aimed at Israeli civilians.Where is your recognition of that?Civilan suffering in Gaza was the direct result of the terrorism originating from there & frankly the public support for the rocketing.In comparison,there was no invasion into the West Bank because there is no terrorism originating from there.In response to that,the Israelis have reduced their presence,removed security roadblocks no longer deemed necessary & the West Bankers are not only free of Israeli military action,but enjoying a significant economic revival at a time when the world-wide economic situation is so bleak.You seem to have missed that situation
Alistair, you sit there in yours little world in Scotland and you say that Jews preach hate??? Wake up and look around, haven't you learnt something since 9/11? Or you are blind to what's happening?? Look at London and who is preaching hate in Muslim demonstrations? not only for Jews but for yours kind to, so before you open yours mouth think if you are capable!!
Your comparison between the Holocaust where 6 million Jews were systematically murdered merely for being Jews with the Israeli-Palestinian dispute not only minimizies the deaths of those millions who died in a state plan of genocide, but propounds an often made claim of modern antisemites.Your comparison actually makes the case of the author as to the new forms of antisemitism and how it exists today.I would suggest that suicide bombers killing innocent civilains on bues,in schools & markets and rockets purposely aimed at civilian targets are far closer to Nazi acts than defensive measures taken in the face of such conduct.One must only look to the present West Bank's economic revival with the end of terrorism from there for the proof of how distorted and wrong your claim is.Obviously you don't have the slightest knowledge of what actually happened during WW2
BS'D The ugly spectre of anti-Semitism that is accelerating across the United States.. is more than just "a click away"! (See website:www.shuva.net) American Jews should pick up,pack up and come home to Israel, the Jewish homeland BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
What a great way to describe it all ... cheers to you
Tony Silver's expansive Zionism seems at odds with Israel giving up the Sinai and Sharm El Sheik to Egypt and giving up the Gaza Strip to Hamas. Israel seems to be getting smaller from being a tiny strip of erstwhile desert instead of bigge.
Opposition to the policies of the Israeli government, advocacy of an Israeli withdrawal from the Israeli-occupied territories etc., are not necessarily synonymous with anti-Zionism. Many Israelis also hold these views, as do many Jewish and other supporters of Israel outside Israel
...activities, can never be an acceptable excuse for accepting blatant antisemitism, racism and history-revisionism
Obama is sucking up to Congress Congress is sucking up to AIPAC+ Co. AIPAC+ is sucking up to Israeli right wing fanatics. Right wing fanatics are sucking up to expansive Zionism!
Human beings are only apparently rational; actually our nature is still very irrational. Racism - as a form of hatred - is maybe one of the most irrational expression of the human nature, and anti-Semitism the most irrational form of racism. There are no so rational and reasonable arguments that can dissuade an anti-Semite to be what he is. But, in the same way, there are also no so reasonable arguments to convince an anti-Zionist no to hate Israel. To blame today Israel instead of the Jews once is actually the milder presentable fashionable political form of the modern self-hiding and self-denying anti-Semitism. No surprise that the virulent anti-Semitism isn't worried at all to conceive the link between Jews and Israel on its declared hateful sites. The "milder" form, on the other hand, can be met on every site with the topic Israel, so of course on liberal web-sites like Haaretz, and easily be read between the lines, for instance also here in some of the talkbacks above.
It is a total disaster to read Arabic webpages and discussions in which both Antisemitism and Holocaust-denial is professed. The Arab nation is harming itself tremendously by accepting these kind of activities. It is high time that our intellectuals start a strong and ongoing campaign against Antisemitism and History-revisionism, otherwise it will take generations to repair the damages now being done to our youth and their brainwashed concepts and misunderstandings in these aspects.
What a load of old twaddle.Jance is saying no such thing.We hate anti semiteism.You are putting words in peoples mouths.Its attitudes like yours that promote anti semitic rants.Unfortunately people dont always understand the difference between folk like you and the decent jewish people that deserve the repect of the world. Arlene Peck has an opinion on Obama in the Jpost look at the talk back for this and the story then tell me that all jews dont encourage hate and anti semitism.Star your search with "Wow its Arlene Peck"
Antisemitism is the irrational, unjustified and prejudiced hatred of Jews, and of Judaism, as well. Ignorance is the handmaiden of bigotry. Those critics of Israel who babble on about Israel's bad treatment of Arabs choose not to see how WELL Israeli Jews have treated Arabs, nor how BRUTALLY Arabs treat other Arabs. This is evident in the ignorant, non-factual comments that appear here that criticize Israel unfairly. While antisemitism used to be unfashionable (but is coming back into fashion), anti-Zionism is quite fashionable now among the ignorantsia. Unfortunately, it is hard to expect those who don't know anything about the Middle East to learn the truth, if they read Leftist rags like HaAretz or watch Israeli movies like those of Yoav Shamir and other chronic self-haters. Today, Israel is, oddly, one of the great promoters of antisemitism - and Jews outside Israel would be wise to distance themselves from the self-hating Israeli Left that promotes bigotry-as-culture.
...disaster to read Arabic webpages and discussions in which both Antisemitism and Holocaust-denial is professed. The Arab nation is harming itself tremendously by accepting these kind of activities. It is high time that our intellectuals start a strong and ongoing campaign against Antisemitism and History-revisionism, otherwise it will take generations to repair the damages now being done to our youth and their brainwashed concepts and misunderstanding in these aspects.
This does not mean that Israel's policies are right or moral. Lot of times they are wrong. However, the obsession that the "human right" stupid activists display against Israel could be definied as pure antisemitism, and it is perfectly seen in this talkback. The argument of Israel bashers is clear: Israel should behave as saints. Less than that should be defined as 'genocide'. For the Human rights "criminals" Darfur does not exist, let alone Georgia, Chechenya, Tibet. The only thing that really exists are palestinians, that paradoxcally are very well off in comparision with poor people in the Brazilian "favelas" who are far from the television sets.. The palestinian are the "rock stars", the Madonnas of the opressed, and the amoral H Rights activits and Israel bashers are "antisemitic" festival dancers.
The Holocaust was one of the greatest crimes in history. But in 10 or 20 years time it will be beyond living memory. It will be history. An appalling piece of history, but still history nonetheless, along with all those other bloody and horrifying pieces of history of which there are sadly so many. Inevitably, there will be less programmes about the Holocaust and fewer visitors to Holocaust museums. You may not like it, but it's inevitable. Just as fewer people are interested now in WW1 than in WW2. Inevitably too, Jewish people will be seen less as victims and more as just ordinary people. That's as it should be, but it also means that they will have to take criticism, both just and unjust, like evrybody else. There are plenty of people on this site and on the web happy to spout rubbish about Londonistan and perfidious Albion and evil British colonialists. Plenty of people spouting rubbish about any race or nation really. It's ALL just a click away.
I am not a holocaust denier and for those who deny it are anti simite. But the sad thing is that Isreal polcies are doing to the Palestinian the some thing. I see the holocaust and what is happining to them in a similar way. NO DIFFERENCE to me.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi's Germany concentration and extermination camps , operating during WW II ,following German invasion of Poland in September 1939 . Inconvenient truth ? You prefer to see every single Pole as an any-Semite responsible for the holocaust .
So, janice #3, in your mind we jews are responsible for anti-semitism? if we hadn't killed jesus, no crusades? if we hadn't poisoned the wells of europe, no blood libel? if we hadn't liberated yehuda and shomron, no twin towers? no thanks.
I find it interesting that so often we hear the excuse "it's anti-zionism" not "anti-semitism", from the same group of people that are the first to generalize the actions of Israelis to the entire Jewish People.
Please, people, cease and desist from your ongoing bleating and hee-hawing regarding "anti-semitism". You do not seem to understand that justly criticizing and holding responsible a national state and its leaders for war crimes is not a criticism of judaism or genuine semitic race. Your braying accusations of anti-semitism no longer have any affect/effect, as the entire world understands that plump and aggressive northern European converts are not "semites" by any stretch of imagination. Palestinians and Sephardim, those brown folks who clean Israel's bathrooms, should they be so lucky, are the only semites in white-only Israel.
On every site related to Israel in which there are Talkbacks there appear anti- Semites, obsessed with hatred of Jews and Israel. This particular site draws an exceptionally large proportion of them, in part because it supplies a great deal of anti- Israel material. The obsessive hatred displayed too by certain journalists who write regularly for this site is also deplorable. What is the answer to this? One small but important answer would be for 'Haaretz' to change its editorial and Talkback policy.
Certainly there has always been anti-Semitism but it would not be too far off the mark to say that any upsurge in anti-Semitism must be blamed on Israeli actions against Palestinians and Lebanese. After World War 2 there seemed to be a tremendous sympathy for Jews who had suffered so under Naziism. But Israel has squandered much of that good will had its actions continue to erode that good will. One day, if there is not a turn around, that good will will be gone.
Some people are just filled with hatred and some are plain ignorant.I am sure that some show antisemitism through seeing what Israel does to its neighbours.I am an empathetic person and in all truth, its made me say things that I totaly said in the heat of the moment,cast lead made me feel this way before,seeing children crying for their dead parents in gaza,mothers holding dead babies,I am a parent too.I was taught about the holocaust as a school kid ,Friedrich was a harrowing book and the Silver sword.We were brought up to understand what Hitler did and we found it incomprehensible one human could do this to another race.I like the Jewish people but understand that people in the west will tend to judge Israelis by what they do to their neighbours and they dont understand that not all Israelis are the same.I go to other jewish websites and see Jews spouting hate against anything that is not inline with Israeli views.Its up to you guys to stand against Jews preaching hate
the holocaust/shoa was very criminal and never should have happened. hitler in reality hated every race or people except the aryan, germanic or herrenrasse/masterrace. he did not only killed 6 million jews but he also killed millions of other "untermenschen". he also killed at least 27 million russians/soviets, almost half of the number of the people, who were killed in the second world war. the russians have suffered gigantic sacrefices to defeat the so-called "ubermensch" and warcriminal adolf hitler. anti-semitism, racism, supremacism and speaking about ubermenschen and untermenschen and hatred to whatever people(s) or human being(s) is very bad and evil. history teaches us what the consequences can be. peace and hapiness to all of us.
Jordana - you don't have to go to avowedly neo-Nazi sites to find these sorts of comments. Just try the Guardian's "Comment is Free" site, fed with anti-Israeli article by the likes of Israelis Neve Gordon, Dafna Baram, Dhimmi Rieder, oleh-chadash Seth Freedman, and the UK's home grown "as-a-Jews" Tony Lerman and Brian Klug, and you will be shocked at what you will find there. Even better, try the website dedicated to monitoring anti-Smeitism at the Guardian, CiFWatch, at http://cifwatch.com