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(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump
A short, literary, powerful contemplation on how Jews are viewed in America since the election of Donald J. Trump, and how we can move forward to fight anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism has always been present in American culture, but with the rise of the Alt Right and an uptick of threats to Jewish communities since Trump took office, New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman has produced a book that could not be more important or timely. When Weisman was attacked on Twitter by a wave of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, witnessing tropes such as the Jew as a leftist anarchist; as a rapacious, Wall Street profiteer; and as a money-bags financier orchestrating war for Israel, he stopped to wonder: How has the Jewish experience changed, especially under a leader like Donald Trump?
In (((Semitism))), Weisman explores the disconnect between his own sense of Jewish identity and the expectations of his detractors and supporters. He delves into the rise of the Alt Right, their roots in older anti-Semitic organizations, the odd ancientness of their grievances—cloaked as they are in contemporary, techy hipsterism—and their aims—to spread hate in a palatable way through a political structure that has so suddenly become tolerant of their views.
He concludes with what we should do next, realizing that vicious as it is, anti-Semitism must be seen through the lens of more pressing threats. He proposes a unification of American Judaism around the defense of self and of others even more vulnerable: the undocumented immigrants, refugees, Muslim Americans, and black activists who have been directly targeted, not just by the tolerated Alt Right, but by the Trump White House itself.
Anti-Semitism has always been present in American culture, but with the rise of the Alt Right and an uptick of threats to Jewish communities since Trump took office, New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman has produced a book that could not be more important or timely. When Weisman was attacked on Twitter by a wave of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, witnessing tropes such as the Jew as a leftist anarchist; as a rapacious, Wall Street profiteer; and as a money-bags financier orchestrating war for Israel, he stopped to wonder: How has the Jewish experience changed, especially under a leader like Donald Trump?
In (((Semitism))), Weisman explores the disconnect between his own sense of Jewish identity and the expectations of his detractors and supporters. He delves into the rise of the Alt Right, their roots in older anti-Semitic organizations, the odd ancientness of their grievances—cloaked as they are in contemporary, techy hipsterism—and their aims—to spread hate in a palatable way through a political structure that has so suddenly become tolerant of their views.
He concludes with what we should do next, realizing that vicious as it is, anti-Semitism must be seen through the lens of more pressing threats. He proposes a unification of American Judaism around the defense of self and of others even more vulnerable: the undocumented immigrants, refugees, Muslim Americans, and black activists who have been directly targeted, not just by the tolerated Alt Right, but by the Trump White House itself.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2018
77 people are currently reading
905 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Weisman
2 books33 followersJonathan Weisman, the congressional editor and deputy Washington editor at the New York Times, is author of the novel No. 4 Imperial Lane and the upcoming memoir (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump. His long journalism career has taken him to The Baltimore Sun, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New York Times, where he has covered Congress, presidential campaigns, the war in Afghanistan and the Obama White House.
(((Semitism))) chronicles the rise of bigotry, anti-Semitism and racism unleashed in the age of Trump. It details the creation of the Alt Right out of the GamerGate controversy and a new breed of bigots bred on the Internet. And it takes to task the Jewish community in the United States for a single-minded obsession with Israel that blinded it to the threat inside its borders.
No. 4 Imperial Lane was a Chautauqua Prize finalist, Amazon Best Book of the Month and Great Group Reads Pick at the Women’s National Book Association. The novel is based on true events: A young American in Thatcher's exhausted England goes to work for a quadriplegic nearing the end of life and his alcoholic sister. Through them, he traces a family's collapse, from aristocracy to elopement, the colonial wars of Portuguese Africa -- Guine and Angola -- South Africa, and the tragedy that brings them all together.
Jonathan lives in Washington, D.C., with his two daughters and fellow write Jennifer Steinhauer.
(((Semitism))) chronicles the rise of bigotry, anti-Semitism and racism unleashed in the age of Trump. It details the creation of the Alt Right out of the GamerGate controversy and a new breed of bigots bred on the Internet. And it takes to task the Jewish community in the United States for a single-minded obsession with Israel that blinded it to the threat inside its borders.
No. 4 Imperial Lane was a Chautauqua Prize finalist, Amazon Best Book of the Month and Great Group Reads Pick at the Women’s National Book Association. The novel is based on true events: A young American in Thatcher's exhausted England goes to work for a quadriplegic nearing the end of life and his alcoholic sister. Through them, he traces a family's collapse, from aristocracy to elopement, the colonial wars of Portuguese Africa -- Guine and Angola -- South Africa, and the tragedy that brings them all together.
Jonathan lives in Washington, D.C., with his two daughters and fellow write Jennifer Steinhauer.
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September 26, 2019
Semitism. That’s the way the title is listed on Goodreads. But that’s not the real title: the real title is (((Semitism))). And therein lies a difference.
So what’s up with those triple parentheses? If you know what’s up already, then you know why you should read (((Semitism))). If you don’t, then you need to read it even more, particularly if you are Jewish. Bad things are going on out there in America, and it helps to keep yourself informed.
The triple parentheses—also known as an (((echo)))--is a punctuation device used by the alt-right and other antisemites to set Jewish names apart, thereby tagging them for identification and harrassment. This sort of tagging was even more destructive two years ago, before Google, urged by the Anti-Defamation League, pulled a plug-in which allowed all such designated names to be highlighted on every web page and twitter feed.
Jonathan Weisman, the author of (((Semitism))), knows how destructive such “echoing” can be, for he himself was a target for harassment. It was May 18, 2016, and Weisman, a New York Times writer and editor, active on Facebook and Twitter, had just tweeted a short quote about the rise of fascism to his ten thousand plus twitter followers. Within minutes, he received a response from “CyberTrump”: “Hello (((Weisman))).” And things went quickly downhill from there.
The stereotypical iconography and verbal abuse soon followed: Jews following paths of paper money into gas chambers, the Jew puppet-master (with feminists and BLM activists as his marionettes), the hook-nosed Hasid, the Mr. Moneybags Jew, the rabid Marxist Jew, and the inevitable statements of Holocaust Denial (The Holocaust didn’t happen, but boy, was it cool!).
Weisman chronicles his own experience in detail, as well as those of Zoe Quinn (a female computer game designer originally targeted by chauvinists during Gamergate, but whose harassment quickly turned anti-semitic), Julia Ioffe (a journalist pilloried for her profile of Melania Trump), and Tanya Gersh (a Montana real estate agent who ran afoul of alt-right guru Richard Spencer and his mother Sherry). His account of each of these experiences is absorbing, and entertaining too, in a sad creepy way.
But there are many other reasons for reading this book besides these three instances of alt-right persecution. Weisman is very good when he speaks of his own background, and what it was like for a non-observant Jew—whose ties to tradition were primarily cultural--to be the subject of such violent antisemitism. He also gives good informal histories of the alt-right, and of Jewish assimilation, persecution, and activism. (Weisman is from Georgia, and I found his account of the lynching of Leo Frank, and its effect upon the Atlanta Jewish community, to be particularly moving and instructive.)
Weisman, who once took his Jewishness for granted, does not do so anymore. Assimilation, although it has its virtues, can be a form of hiding, and—in this age of Trump and the alt-right—hiding is not an option anymore. However, although Weisman experiences a new richness, a new seriousness in his Jewish identity, he is still committed to the American liberal ideal of open engagement in the public square. And because of this, he is concerned about the American Jewish people:
Beyond Jewish institutions, Jews ourselves are holding us back. American Jewry is bifurcating into a broad mass of increasingly irreligious secularists and a smaller, ardently tribalist orthodoxy. . . . The Jews who are most interested in a liberal, internationalist future, who wish to live progressive, assimilated existences free of threat, are disappearing. Those willing to accept the rising tibalism—to keep to themselves and fortify the Jewish state as an escape hatch or fallout shelter—are growing in number.Weisman does, however, find both courage and hope in the words of Rabbi Arthur Herzberg:
“The claim to chosenness guarantees that Jews live unquiet lives. I say it is far better to be the chosen people, the goad and the irritant to much of humanity, than to live timidly and fearfully. Jews exist to be bold.”
May 17, 2018
Oy Vey: Kvetching in the Age of Trump is a puddle-deep histrionic screed, subjecting the reader, through a relentless onslaught of migraine-inducing prose, to the inner workings of the author's particular neuroses without a solitary ounce of perspicacity. Despite this, it is sure to delight European-Style Socialists everywhere. How can you take a book seriously which unblushingly uses the triple parenthesis echo meme on the cover? World-famous Internet celebrity Morrakiu isn't even credited for the jacket design!
According to the synopsis (on the jacket of the book which I am holding in my hands because, yes, I actually read the thing, and no, I did not pay the ridiculously high price of $25.99 for it), the author wrote this book because social media made him feel sad. I sincerely hope the publishing process served as a therapeutic emotional release; he certainly needed it.
According to the synopsis (on the jacket of the book which I am holding in my hands because, yes, I actually read the thing, and no, I did not pay the ridiculously high price of $25.99 for it), the author wrote this book because social media made him feel sad. I sincerely hope the publishing process served as a therapeutic emotional release; he certainly needed it.
December 26, 2018
this book was PERPLEXING because it simultaneously offers a well-researched understanding of the profound anxiety & complex social positioning of being Jewish in today's political climate, and also completely misses the mark. There are a lot of places I could choose to criticize - it's really obvious to me that the writer didn't bother connecting with the many many MANY young, progressive Jewish people & groups who are doing the work every day to embody Jewish values by, say, protesting deportations & rallying against the presence of neo-Nazis giving speeches in conservative Jewish spaces. But the take that really bothered me was his insistence that the major distraction preventing American Jews from being fully alert to peril is our continual obsession with, of all things, Israel, implying that we all have a finite capacity for attentiveness and that the existence of Israel & thousands of years of antisemitism aren't connected. It leaves me with a question that Weisman never answers even though it's in his title - what does it mean to be Jewish in America in the age of Trump? To have an understanding of our history, culture, language, trauma? To engage with our belief systems? To show up to Seder once a year? Or to try to live & embody the values that make up our beliefs through our actions by standing up against oppression, falsehoods, deportation anywhere in the world, and fascist action even when not aimed at us? I think we have different answers to that question.
January 12, 2018
I wish that we lived in a world that this book didn't need to be written. It was insightful to have a Jewish perspective on the current rise of the alt-right, and the hate that is directed not only at Jews, but women and all other minority groups. While the focus is on antisemitism, the author includes a look at other instances of the alt-right such as church shootings, Charlottesville and gamergate. Information is provided on details about the alt-right and some of their code words, and you get a sense of the devastation and fear the campaigns of cyber attacks cause. A depressing but informative read that will unfortunately likely need a sequel.
April 25, 2018
Okay, let me just get the necessary stuff out of the way before we get to the review. While I will certainly be getting into the writing of the book as I would in any other book review, I am Jewish (Culturally and genetically. I don't subscribe to any religion at the moment), so it is pretty impossible for me to be unbiased about this book. That being said, this was a really tough read for me. I had moments where I wasn't sure I would finish it. But let's get into what the books about and then we can get into what I thought about it.
Synopsis (from Goodreads):
Anti-Semitism has always been present in American culture, but with the rise of the Alt-Right and an uptick of threats to Jewish communities since Trump took office, New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman has produced a book that could not be more important or timely. When Weisman was attacked on Twitter by a wave of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, witnessing tropes such as the Jew as a leftist anarchist; as a rapacious, Wall Street profiteer; and as a money-bags financier orchestrating war for Israel, he stopped to wonder: How has the Jewish experience changed, especially under a leader like Donald Trump?
In (((Semitism))), Weisman explores the disconnect between his own sense of Jewish identity and the expectations of his detractors and supporters. He delves into the rise of the Alt-Right, their roots in older anti-Semitic organizations, the odd ancientness of their grievances—cloaked as they are in contemporary, techy hipsterism—and their aims—to spread hate in a palatable way through a political structure that has so suddenly become tolerant of their views.
He concludes with what we should do next, realizing that vicious as it is, anti-Semitism must be seen through the lens of more pressing threats. He proposes a unification of American Judaism around the defense of self and of others even more vulnerable: the undocumented immigrants, refugees, Muslim Americans, and black activists who have been directly targeted, not just by the tolerated Alt Right, but by the Trump White House itself.
Usually, I don't include that much synopsis (I usually cut down a little of what Goodreads has) but with this book, I feel like you should know exactly what you're getting into and what the author believes. I don't agree with everything Weisman states throughout the book. There were points where I was rage-reading. Yelling at my computer screen while trying to get to the next chapter. But there were also parts where I was like, "whaaaaat?!" because I learned something I didn't know before. Specifically about Leo Frank. He was a Jewish man who was falsely accused of rape and murder of a young girl. He was then taken out of the local jail by people of the community and killed. I asked my dad if he'd ever heard about this and he hadn't either. I love learning "new" history
Another one of my favorite parts of the book is every Zoe Quinn quote. She is a BAMF and she's been put through the wringer but is now helping people who are being targeted by trolls like she was. If any of her quotes were taken out of the book, I will be incredibly sad. I have to quote her (just once). “The thing that really gets me is this notion that any response emboldens them. No, what emboldens them is showing that there are no consequences for behaving like fucking little monsters.”
I also liked that he pointed out that Jews should be helping fight causes other than just our own (and many are doing so!). If nothing else, Jews know what struggle is and they can bring that knowledge to help fight for LGBT rights, and gender, disability, and racial equality. White Jews, especially, can use their privilege to help shine a light on causes that need it.
Now for the bits I yelled at:
There were multiple times in the book where it felt like the author was being condescending, especially when talking about the BDS movement and college students, like college students can't have rational, well-thought-out opinions. It took me out of the book completely and just made me question the credibility of the rest of what I was going to read.
I also think the author discounts how powerful the MRA and anti-feminist sentiments are in some of these hate groups. Hating women is a powerful drug and should not be underrated as the reason all this hate is coming to the surface. Women have been fighting these assholes for years and have been warning of this hateful tide of shit we've found ourselves in for decades.
One quote I found disturbing: "Those racists, anti-Semites, and xenophobes communed in their own world, not in the younger, hipper worlds of 4chan or Reddit or the chat rooms of YouTube." Please never refer to 4chan as hip. *vomits* I just really needed to say that.
I also had a real problem that the author said that morality had never entered his mind when thinking about what the response should be to Nazis and anti-Semites. Like, WTF?! I am 0% religious and I think about morality all the time. You don't need theology to think about whether your response to hate is moral or not. I believe it is my moral imperative to shout down or punch any Nazi I come across. How could you have not thought about morality until you read Rabbi Yosie Levine?!
There also seemed to be an assumption that white Jews are the only Jews throughout this book. Like intersectionality isn't a thing. Like Jews of color don't exist. I'm sure there are plenty of Jews who are fighting for racial equality because they are a person of color. But, that was something that was not addressed by the author at all and it was upsetting that those people were not acknowledged at all in this book.
Additionally, Weisman's views on the Antifa are ridiculous. Maybe it's a generational thing but the Antifa has done a lot to stop assholes like Richard Spencer from feeling safe in public. He has bodyguards now. The Antifa saved lives in Charlottesville, NC. So by claiming that they turn even the smallest crowd of Nazis into "violent street theater," the author is spouting some bullshit.
But what about the writing, Sarah?
Ok, yes. I did say I was going to talk about that. For the most part, (((Semitism))) is a well-written book. Weisman is a New York Times editor and the book reads like a long NYT article. But there were times when it was hard to pinpoint exactly what he thought. I felt like I should have known the author's opinion within the first couple chapters and I didn't really get it until much later. Sure, yes, he's against anti-Semitism. Duh! But I wanted to know what he thought we should be doing to fight against it and I wanted to know sooner than the last couple of chapters. He works for the New York Times, so he might be more reticent to share his opinions, but I wanted him to shout it at me. I wanted him to be more radical and that's not what I got.
Overall, I found (((Semitism))) to be an interesting but difficult read. Weisman quotes a lot of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic assholes and it was hard to read all those slurs in one book. I am giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. I read this book because I wanted to know what I could do against the hate we seem to see more often to see these days but that's not exactly what this book is.
(((Semitism))): Being Jewish In America in the Age of Trump by Johnathan Weisman came out March 20, 2018.
Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Synopsis (from Goodreads):
Anti-Semitism has always been present in American culture, but with the rise of the Alt-Right and an uptick of threats to Jewish communities since Trump took office, New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman has produced a book that could not be more important or timely. When Weisman was attacked on Twitter by a wave of neo-Nazis and anti-Semites, witnessing tropes such as the Jew as a leftist anarchist; as a rapacious, Wall Street profiteer; and as a money-bags financier orchestrating war for Israel, he stopped to wonder: How has the Jewish experience changed, especially under a leader like Donald Trump?
In (((Semitism))), Weisman explores the disconnect between his own sense of Jewish identity and the expectations of his detractors and supporters. He delves into the rise of the Alt-Right, their roots in older anti-Semitic organizations, the odd ancientness of their grievances—cloaked as they are in contemporary, techy hipsterism—and their aims—to spread hate in a palatable way through a political structure that has so suddenly become tolerant of their views.
He concludes with what we should do next, realizing that vicious as it is, anti-Semitism must be seen through the lens of more pressing threats. He proposes a unification of American Judaism around the defense of self and of others even more vulnerable: the undocumented immigrants, refugees, Muslim Americans, and black activists who have been directly targeted, not just by the tolerated Alt Right, but by the Trump White House itself.
Usually, I don't include that much synopsis (I usually cut down a little of what Goodreads has) but with this book, I feel like you should know exactly what you're getting into and what the author believes. I don't agree with everything Weisman states throughout the book. There were points where I was rage-reading. Yelling at my computer screen while trying to get to the next chapter. But there were also parts where I was like, "whaaaaat?!" because I learned something I didn't know before. Specifically about Leo Frank. He was a Jewish man who was falsely accused of rape and murder of a young girl. He was then taken out of the local jail by people of the community and killed. I asked my dad if he'd ever heard about this and he hadn't either. I love learning "new" history
Another one of my favorite parts of the book is every Zoe Quinn quote. She is a BAMF and she's been put through the wringer but is now helping people who are being targeted by trolls like she was. If any of her quotes were taken out of the book, I will be incredibly sad. I have to quote her (just once). “The thing that really gets me is this notion that any response emboldens them. No, what emboldens them is showing that there are no consequences for behaving like fucking little monsters.”
I also liked that he pointed out that Jews should be helping fight causes other than just our own (and many are doing so!). If nothing else, Jews know what struggle is and they can bring that knowledge to help fight for LGBT rights, and gender, disability, and racial equality. White Jews, especially, can use their privilege to help shine a light on causes that need it.
Now for the bits I yelled at:
There were multiple times in the book where it felt like the author was being condescending, especially when talking about the BDS movement and college students, like college students can't have rational, well-thought-out opinions. It took me out of the book completely and just made me question the credibility of the rest of what I was going to read.
I also think the author discounts how powerful the MRA and anti-feminist sentiments are in some of these hate groups. Hating women is a powerful drug and should not be underrated as the reason all this hate is coming to the surface. Women have been fighting these assholes for years and have been warning of this hateful tide of shit we've found ourselves in for decades.
One quote I found disturbing: "Those racists, anti-Semites, and xenophobes communed in their own world, not in the younger, hipper worlds of 4chan or Reddit or the chat rooms of YouTube." Please never refer to 4chan as hip. *vomits* I just really needed to say that.
I also had a real problem that the author said that morality had never entered his mind when thinking about what the response should be to Nazis and anti-Semites. Like, WTF?! I am 0% religious and I think about morality all the time. You don't need theology to think about whether your response to hate is moral or not. I believe it is my moral imperative to shout down or punch any Nazi I come across. How could you have not thought about morality until you read Rabbi Yosie Levine?!
There also seemed to be an assumption that white Jews are the only Jews throughout this book. Like intersectionality isn't a thing. Like Jews of color don't exist. I'm sure there are plenty of Jews who are fighting for racial equality because they are a person of color. But, that was something that was not addressed by the author at all and it was upsetting that those people were not acknowledged at all in this book.
Additionally, Weisman's views on the Antifa are ridiculous. Maybe it's a generational thing but the Antifa has done a lot to stop assholes like Richard Spencer from feeling safe in public. He has bodyguards now. The Antifa saved lives in Charlottesville, NC. So by claiming that they turn even the smallest crowd of Nazis into "violent street theater," the author is spouting some bullshit.
But what about the writing, Sarah?
Ok, yes. I did say I was going to talk about that. For the most part, (((Semitism))) is a well-written book. Weisman is a New York Times editor and the book reads like a long NYT article. But there were times when it was hard to pinpoint exactly what he thought. I felt like I should have known the author's opinion within the first couple chapters and I didn't really get it until much later. Sure, yes, he's against anti-Semitism. Duh! But I wanted to know what he thought we should be doing to fight against it and I wanted to know sooner than the last couple of chapters. He works for the New York Times, so he might be more reticent to share his opinions, but I wanted him to shout it at me. I wanted him to be more radical and that's not what I got.
Overall, I found (((Semitism))) to be an interesting but difficult read. Weisman quotes a lot of racist, sexist, anti-Semitic assholes and it was hard to read all those slurs in one book. I am giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. I read this book because I wanted to know what I could do against the hate we seem to see more often to see these days but that's not exactly what this book is.
(((Semitism))): Being Jewish In America in the Age of Trump by Johnathan Weisman came out March 20, 2018.
Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.
April 15, 2018
Chilling.
October 21, 2018
Well, of course I picked up this book as soon as I saw it at the local library. I'm Jewish, liberal, and I remember when the ((()))s started cropping up and when the author of this book was targeted by Neo-Nazi trolls on social media.
It's an important book, although it's disjointed. I do like most of the points the author made, especially towards the end when he called for Jews to be more involved with other minority or persecuted groups and their struggles under the age of Trump, as well. Some of us are intersectional and are already here, but I'd love to see more of us out there.
My three main complaints about this book are as follows.
1) Weisman seems to think that all Jewish experiences in contemporary America are similar to his. He was raised in a rather liberal, non-religious bubble where he didn't really come into contact with racism due to him being Jewish until he was much older. Not all of us are so fortunate, and the antisemitism that flared after Trump's election in 2016 didn't take some of us by surprise, considering we'd lived in racist pockets of the country before and knew what was happening out there long before Trump even considered a presidential bid. I would have liked it more if Weisman would have acknowledged that we Jews are a diverse set of people with diverse beliefs and experiences, instead of making it seem as if we are some homogenized bloc.
2) The author tended to ramble, addressing numerous minimally-related topics in each chapter. I would have preferred a more cohesive writing style. It was hard to stay engaged with the book as it was, because when the author rambled, I found my mind beginning to wander and got distracted quite easily.
3) I never really got the impression of what the author really believes what it IS like to be Jewish in America in the age of Trump. I felt like the book ended really abruptly without a clear conclusion or summary or...really, much of anything. It just stopped.
It's an important book, although it's disjointed. I do like most of the points the author made, especially towards the end when he called for Jews to be more involved with other minority or persecuted groups and their struggles under the age of Trump, as well. Some of us are intersectional and are already here, but I'd love to see more of us out there.
My three main complaints about this book are as follows.
1) Weisman seems to think that all Jewish experiences in contemporary America are similar to his. He was raised in a rather liberal, non-religious bubble where he didn't really come into contact with racism due to him being Jewish until he was much older. Not all of us are so fortunate, and the antisemitism that flared after Trump's election in 2016 didn't take some of us by surprise, considering we'd lived in racist pockets of the country before and knew what was happening out there long before Trump even considered a presidential bid. I would have liked it more if Weisman would have acknowledged that we Jews are a diverse set of people with diverse beliefs and experiences, instead of making it seem as if we are some homogenized bloc.
2) The author tended to ramble, addressing numerous minimally-related topics in each chapter. I would have preferred a more cohesive writing style. It was hard to stay engaged with the book as it was, because when the author rambled, I found my mind beginning to wander and got distracted quite easily.
3) I never really got the impression of what the author really believes what it IS like to be Jewish in America in the age of Trump. I felt like the book ended really abruptly without a clear conclusion or summary or...really, much of anything. It just stopped.
February 10, 2018
"Anti-Semitism tends to be invisible until it isn't." This book is a chilling reminder that anti-semitism, often a less visible form of bigotry, is alive and thriving in the US and growing in popularity and acceptance under the Trump regime. Jews face hatred from the alt-right who back Israel because they want the Jews to all leave the US and go to Israel, and from the far left who promote the BDS to the point that they are anti Israel and anti Jewish. The author shares his experience as a journalist of the virulent hatred of the online attacks on Jewish journalists especially and the technique of the alt-right neo-Nazis of surrounding the name of a Jewish journalist with three parentheses on each side to mark them for easy searching to target them online with hateful messages and images including death threats and gas chamber photos. Many policies of hatred perpetuated by the Trump regime and its followers as well as an explanation of the alt-right and neo-Nazis are explained in eye opening ways. I highly recommend this book.
March 26, 2018
A brief history of antisemitism and a closer look at how the alt-right exercises its own particular brand of antisemitism and hate of the “other” in the age of technology and with the tacit consent of the Trump administration. Author explains the importance of fighting this movement and provides some guidelines for doing so.
June 13, 2018
This book provides an excellent analysis of the virulent anti-semitism of the alt- right. It advocates for coalition building to stamp out the rising tide of hatred racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and anti- immigrant sentiment unleashed by the Trump Presidency. It is a well written and thought provoking book.
April 1, 2018
This book shines the awful light on the truth of the amount of antisemitisim that has risen its evil head in the time of Trump the alt right trolls on twitter the pursuit and attack on columnist ,those on tv and other media who once identified or believed to be Jewish are pursued at times threatened.An important eye opening book.
March 24, 2018
Interesting analysis of social media harassment and the tactics of the alt-right. False claims about American Jews and Jewish institutions, weirdly regressive suggestions about how to move forward. The policy recommendations read like they were thrown together in a weekend.
March 28, 2018
I recommend.
July 31, 2020
This is a strange book, with an uneasy fit between topic and author. Weisman ties his awareness of antisemitism to the barrage of hate he received on twitter for being a Jewish public figure, and if anything permeates through this book, it is his shock at having been targeted, at having been forced to out himself as a Jew after a life of assimilation and passing. A significant amount of this book is dedicated to showing the reader precisely how assimilated Mr. Weisman has always been (he eats pepperoni pizza, we are assured, married out, and feels uncomfortable around religious Jews). He is, in short, not that Jewish, and yet— to his apparent shock— he was Jewish enough to be targeted by antisemites.
It is hard, in short, for this brown-skinned, Jewish, female reader to have a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Weisman's plight. If Mr. Weisman failed to appreciate the existence of antisemitism before his fateful twitter encounters, then surely that is a marker of his privilege rather than an accurate portrayal of the American situation. He reminisces about laughing at the girl in his youth group who planned to move to Israel because America would never accept her; he laughs at her still, he tells us, for antisemites are but a small minority of Americans, and Mr. Weisman feels still entirely at home.
What a pleasant thing to be a Mr. Weisman in America! If he is appalled by digital antisemitism, then he is equally appalled by "cancel culture," and at times ventures into "both sides" territory in his haste to demonstrate the "intolerance" of a certain segment— read female and POC—of the left. For Mr. Weisman is a white man in America, and— except for the unpleasantness of his twitter mentions— he can mostly forget that he is a Jew, a minority, a vulnerable beneficiary of that contract of whiteness worked out between America and its Jews in the wake of catastrophic loss.
For the first half of the book, I thought I was being a bit unfair to Mr. Weisman; he had written this work, after all, before the antisemitic massacres at Pittsburgh, and Poway, and Jersey City. How could he have foreseen the violence that would be unleashed upon America's Jewish communities over the past two years? And yet, by the end of the book, one cannot help but nurture the impression that only Mr. Weisman could have made his way through the filth and ugliness that he found in these online forums and still have believed with such a passionate naivety that the Jews were all safe in America. For, as Mr. Weisman hastens to assure us, real violence— the scary kind— happens to other people, to Muslims and Blacks and Latinxs.
If you want a real engagement with the history of antisemitism, read David Nirenberg or Timothy Snyder. However, if you want a first hand account of a man coming to grip with the vulnerability of his own privilege, a man realizing (at least occasionally) that all the pepperoni pizza and shiksas in the world are not enough to separate him from his fellow Jews and our collective fate, then this work will certainly entertain.
It is hard, in short, for this brown-skinned, Jewish, female reader to have a great deal of sympathy for Mr. Weisman's plight. If Mr. Weisman failed to appreciate the existence of antisemitism before his fateful twitter encounters, then surely that is a marker of his privilege rather than an accurate portrayal of the American situation. He reminisces about laughing at the girl in his youth group who planned to move to Israel because America would never accept her; he laughs at her still, he tells us, for antisemites are but a small minority of Americans, and Mr. Weisman feels still entirely at home.
What a pleasant thing to be a Mr. Weisman in America! If he is appalled by digital antisemitism, then he is equally appalled by "cancel culture," and at times ventures into "both sides" territory in his haste to demonstrate the "intolerance" of a certain segment— read female and POC—of the left. For Mr. Weisman is a white man in America, and— except for the unpleasantness of his twitter mentions— he can mostly forget that he is a Jew, a minority, a vulnerable beneficiary of that contract of whiteness worked out between America and its Jews in the wake of catastrophic loss.
For the first half of the book, I thought I was being a bit unfair to Mr. Weisman; he had written this work, after all, before the antisemitic massacres at Pittsburgh, and Poway, and Jersey City. How could he have foreseen the violence that would be unleashed upon America's Jewish communities over the past two years? And yet, by the end of the book, one cannot help but nurture the impression that only Mr. Weisman could have made his way through the filth and ugliness that he found in these online forums and still have believed with such a passionate naivety that the Jews were all safe in America. For, as Mr. Weisman hastens to assure us, real violence— the scary kind— happens to other people, to Muslims and Blacks and Latinxs.
If you want a real engagement with the history of antisemitism, read David Nirenberg or Timothy Snyder. However, if you want a first hand account of a man coming to grip with the vulnerability of his own privilege, a man realizing (at least occasionally) that all the pepperoni pizza and shiksas in the world are not enough to separate him from his fellow Jews and our collective fate, then this work will certainly entertain.
May 6, 2018
Mostly good. I learned a few things and got some insight into an unfamiliar perspective, which I always find valuable. I had no idea, for instance, that the Anti-Defamation League was formed in the aftermath of a Jewish man being lynched in the 1910's. Much of the book is spent chronicling the instances anti-Semitism that spiked after the election of Donald Trump, but Weisman draws a line from the Gingrich revolution of 94--which was largely good for Jews, especially conservative Jews--through to more recent events like GamerGate, the rise of alt-right news sources, the way new-Nazi tactics have changed thanks to the internet, and the success of professional bigots like Richard Spencer. It ties anti-Semitism with broader attitudes about women, blacks, and Muslims.
The book short and fairly readable--Weisman, a journalist for decades, excels at stringing together words into compelling sentences. It's not always an easy read, due to the subject matter, as a good portion of it is devoted to chronicling people saying and doing horrible things to each other. I appreciated that it ended with a call to action and some strong ideas about a path forward. It felt a little unstructured, almost like, a series of unconnected essays more than a book. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this started out as an idea for a set of Medium posts and then grew. There are a lot of Tweets that would have been embedded or screencapped in another format. A few of the digressions felt like they could have been skipped, a few felt like they really needed to be explored more.
But on the whole, I recommend it.
The book short and fairly readable--Weisman, a journalist for decades, excels at stringing together words into compelling sentences. It's not always an easy read, due to the subject matter, as a good portion of it is devoted to chronicling people saying and doing horrible things to each other. I appreciated that it ended with a call to action and some strong ideas about a path forward. It felt a little unstructured, almost like, a series of unconnected essays more than a book. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that this started out as an idea for a set of Medium posts and then grew. There are a lot of Tweets that would have been embedded or screencapped in another format. A few of the digressions felt like they could have been skipped, a few felt like they really needed to be explored more.
But on the whole, I recommend it.
April 28, 2018
Timely, well-written, and important. I love the generous use of quotes from Zoe Quinn, who knows of what she speaks, and the way the author brutally excavates the anti-Semitism linking together all of these various alt-right figures and publications.
Some gripes: I found it a bit repetitive at times, as in the book would reintroduce events or situations that had already been discussed. Some of the arguments were self-contradictory—for instance, that we should stand up and fight back against neo-Nazism and that some ideas should not be up for debate, and yet somehow certain college students are going too far in shouting down alt-right speakers? I was also a bit taken aback by the author’s grim portrayal of American Jews and their supposed complacency; he spends many pages excoriating (justly) the minority of Jews who voted for Trump and the even smaller minority who donated substantial funds or worked in his administration, but doesn’t really discuss the activism that many Jewish communities have been spearheading since before the election, save for a few pages at the end. Of course, there’s always more to be done, but honestly, it’s the non-Jewish white liberals who really need that reminder now.
That said, it’s lovely to see another Jewish writer call for Jewish involvement in causes like Black Lives Matter, trans rights, and anti-Islamophobia. He’s got all of my agreement there.
Some gripes: I found it a bit repetitive at times, as in the book would reintroduce events or situations that had already been discussed. Some of the arguments were self-contradictory—for instance, that we should stand up and fight back against neo-Nazism and that some ideas should not be up for debate, and yet somehow certain college students are going too far in shouting down alt-right speakers? I was also a bit taken aback by the author’s grim portrayal of American Jews and their supposed complacency; he spends many pages excoriating (justly) the minority of Jews who voted for Trump and the even smaller minority who donated substantial funds or worked in his administration, but doesn’t really discuss the activism that many Jewish communities have been spearheading since before the election, save for a few pages at the end. Of course, there’s always more to be done, but honestly, it’s the non-Jewish white liberals who really need that reminder now.
That said, it’s lovely to see another Jewish writer call for Jewish involvement in causes like Black Lives Matter, trans rights, and anti-Islamophobia. He’s got all of my agreement there.
August 15, 2018
There are places where I disagree with Weisman's perspective or wonder why he didn't interview a broader range of Jewish people (especially those who are more deeply engaged with Judaism on a spiritual and political level), but, overall, this is a book that I've been waiting a long time to read. It is a thoughtful, well-written, and nuanced exploration of what it means to be Jewish in Trump's America. I feel so starved for nuanced thinking in political discourse that I can handle a bit too much meandering if I get the sense that the writer is willing to engage complex topics on a deep level. I appreciate how this book puts current events in the context of Jewish-American history, as well as how it discusses antisemitism in relation to increases in racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, and misogynistic activities. I'd love to see this as one of my synagogue's book club picks, but given that we seem to have more Trump supporters than the average synagogue (maybe because I'm in Free-State-Libertarian-New Hampshire), I know that will not happen.
September 14, 2019
This book was on my reading list for a while before I picked up a copy. Weisman does a terrific job putting together disparate events of recent years that would be easy to shrug off if each was an isolated event. And reading the news each day, it's easy for someone to believe that events in Washington, DC, Montana, and Twitter are unrelated. But Weisman effectively proves that a larger movement of hatred exists and has been emboldened in recent years.
April 1, 2018
Some of the analysis I found difficult to follow. Also some of the references required one to be "in the know," so I ended up googling a lot. Also sometimes the author was being sarcastic or ironic and I had to stop to decide whether he agreed or disagreed with something. Having said that:
1. I really loved the last couple chapters. I have been "resisting" since Nov. 2016 and it is exhausting. I really loved Weisman's analysis of Jewish organizations, historical responses, and I totally agree that when an African-American is shot unjustly, or a Muslim deported unjustly, it affects Jews.
2. I am grateful for his explanation of how social media harasses people and what some of the "code words" are.
1. I really loved the last couple chapters. I have been "resisting" since Nov. 2016 and it is exhausting. I really loved Weisman's analysis of Jewish organizations, historical responses, and I totally agree that when an African-American is shot unjustly, or a Muslim deported unjustly, it affects Jews.
2. I am grateful for his explanation of how social media harasses people and what some of the "code words" are.
April 2, 2018
Excellent piece, think long long-form journalism. The recent history of anti-semitism is well worth understanding, and he lays out a cogent plan of fighting all hate, together with others who stand against hate. Weisman keeps anti-semitism in perspective, and offers ways forward. I feel both better educated and calmer after reading this.
March 28, 2018
I received this in exchange for an honest review. This book was a bit of a disappointment. It had great potential and the subject matter was interested it just felt like it could have been edited some more and expanded on.
March 28, 2018
Antisemitism resurgence in the age of Trump. History and current issues
Many Jewish people had become complacent about being Jewish in America - the past was the past. But Trump has reopened the past
Many Jewish people had become complacent about being Jewish in America - the past was the past. But Trump has reopened the past
December 3, 2021
This should be required reading by everyone regardless of race, color or creed.
November 28, 2018
I tend to start reviews with what a book does well. I appreciate the author speaking from his experience and sharing it. I like that he interviewed Zoe Quinn and thought there was some good highlighting of how there is overlap between online communities and how that could also be used to help us support ourselves and reach out. I liked highlighting where Jews and other communities have come together to support each other. It felt good to be reminded that we are a people of activism who have done good things when I feel like sometimes our involvement in the Civil Rights Movement gets erased in more whitewashed tellings of it.
The first thing I would argue is that the book felt a bit disorganized. Timelines would seem to jump around a bit. Sometimes the book had a conversational tone. I realize his chapter on Israel suffered a bit for me because I'd been listening to Judaism Unbound's Israel series which had a bunch of incredibly articulate experts with different points of view talking about how Israel impacts younger American Jews. I think the book suffered for comparison to those podcasts.
The other part, I think, is that a lot of this is from an older Boomer perspective. I think his perspective is valid and one that is also important to hear, and I think he doesn't do as good a job at connecting with Jews my age or younger. I loved the part where he talked to Zoe Quinn, because she's awesome. However, I don't think he effectively used her points in the service of his book on antisemitism. I also would have liked some citations on Jews thinking antisemitism had gone away. While I appreciated him sharing his experience, he talked about it as if it were definative. I have a different point of view and also grew up in the south, though in a smaller Jewish community. And even if they didn't talk about it openly, my congregation didn't believe antisemitism was gone by the 90s.
This brings up another issue I had was the discussion of Dyke March. It's a topic I tend not to speak on as a bisexual Jewish woman who lives in Chicago. I and a lot of other folks in my community were impacted by what happened at Dyke March 2017 and him saying "Don't worry about Dyke March" felt like getting patted on the head and ignored. I would have liked to see a more nuanced discussion of anti-semitism from the Left and Right as well as how it can also show up in communities of color (the same way Racism, sexism, classism, islamophobia, transphobia, ableism, misogyny and colorism show up in Jewish communities). I also know Scholars of Color who have written much more deftly about anti-semitism as an animating force in of White Nationalism and seeing their works cited would have been more boalstering to his points I feel. Telling me I shouldn't care about it when Leftist groups use the word Zio because they are worse on the left (dialectics says I can care about both in varying degrees and have varying responses!) does not make me as a younger Jewish reader feel heard or a part of the narrative of what it means to be Jewish in Trump's America.
I also kept having that sense that most of the Jews he was talking about were Ashkenazi, which are somewhat overrepresented in American Jewish narratives. Jews of Color have important narratives and experiences to share and we (I include myself as an Ashkenazi) don't pass the mic enough. While he did a good job of acknowledging that a lot of antisemitism in America hasn't been the same as those affecting Folks of Color, he doesn't acknowledge that there's a number of people who are affected by intersectional experiences of hate. Like the author, I'm a bit frustrated by the ways intersectionality doesn't always include my Jewish identity, and that doesn't make it any less important of a concept. If we want the world to be better at including our identity, we have to do better at including others.
Overall it's an ok book, I'm not always sure who the audience is, but it's a decent primer on antisemitism in modern America that have been emboldened and amplified by the White House.
The first thing I would argue is that the book felt a bit disorganized. Timelines would seem to jump around a bit. Sometimes the book had a conversational tone. I realize his chapter on Israel suffered a bit for me because I'd been listening to Judaism Unbound's Israel series which had a bunch of incredibly articulate experts with different points of view talking about how Israel impacts younger American Jews. I think the book suffered for comparison to those podcasts.
The other part, I think, is that a lot of this is from an older Boomer perspective. I think his perspective is valid and one that is also important to hear, and I think he doesn't do as good a job at connecting with Jews my age or younger. I loved the part where he talked to Zoe Quinn, because she's awesome. However, I don't think he effectively used her points in the service of his book on antisemitism. I also would have liked some citations on Jews thinking antisemitism had gone away. While I appreciated him sharing his experience, he talked about it as if it were definative. I have a different point of view and also grew up in the south, though in a smaller Jewish community. And even if they didn't talk about it openly, my congregation didn't believe antisemitism was gone by the 90s.
This brings up another issue I had was the discussion of Dyke March. It's a topic I tend not to speak on as a bisexual Jewish woman who lives in Chicago. I and a lot of other folks in my community were impacted by what happened at Dyke March 2017 and him saying "Don't worry about Dyke March" felt like getting patted on the head and ignored. I would have liked to see a more nuanced discussion of anti-semitism from the Left and Right as well as how it can also show up in communities of color (the same way Racism, sexism, classism, islamophobia, transphobia, ableism, misogyny and colorism show up in Jewish communities). I also know Scholars of Color who have written much more deftly about anti-semitism as an animating force in of White Nationalism and seeing their works cited would have been more boalstering to his points I feel. Telling me I shouldn't care about it when Leftist groups use the word Zio because they are worse on the left (dialectics says I can care about both in varying degrees and have varying responses!) does not make me as a younger Jewish reader feel heard or a part of the narrative of what it means to be Jewish in Trump's America.
I also kept having that sense that most of the Jews he was talking about were Ashkenazi, which are somewhat overrepresented in American Jewish narratives. Jews of Color have important narratives and experiences to share and we (I include myself as an Ashkenazi) don't pass the mic enough. While he did a good job of acknowledging that a lot of antisemitism in America hasn't been the same as those affecting Folks of Color, he doesn't acknowledge that there's a number of people who are affected by intersectional experiences of hate. Like the author, I'm a bit frustrated by the ways intersectionality doesn't always include my Jewish identity, and that doesn't make it any less important of a concept. If we want the world to be better at including our identity, we have to do better at including others.
Overall it's an ok book, I'm not always sure who the audience is, but it's a decent primer on antisemitism in modern America that have been emboldened and amplified by the White House.
April 11, 2018
This book will (should) keep you up at night with terrifying accounts of alt-right trolls. If it only hints at a path forward, I think that's because Weisman is still exploring what Judaism means to him. He assumes that his relationship to Judaism is representative of all Jews, and misses a lot that is going on that is positive. Simon Schama said it better than I can: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/bo....
April 9, 2018
A great read and look at the increasing tide of white anger and hate against minorities, women, and Jews alike. How did we get here? Why has the Trump phenomenon fueled it? How has the response been? Where do we go from here? These questions and more are examined.
September 9, 2018
This is at times a tough book to read because of the hate filled rhetoric reviewed by the author. This is a book that is hard to like because of the material covered; thus, the 2-star rating. I think the last two chapters are worth 3 stars because this is where everything comes together and held my interest more than the previous chapters. Writing-wise, the author is succinct and clear throughout the book. Since the author has had hate rhetoric directed at himself, the personal aspect gives this account of anti-Semitism, and in a more broad context hatred towards non-whites in general, heft. It is distressingly disappointing that we have these incidents of hate; it is distressing that these incidents seem to be tolerated by the Trump White House providing an atmosphere of more visible hate; it is distressing that the internet makes it so much easier for the dissemination of hate speech & threats; it is distressing that there are still people who have the mindset that would support concentration/death camps. It takes being part of a group to stand up to the hate directed against others. It was rewarding to learn that the techniques of the hate trollers can be used against them. This may be one of the rare instances where sinking to their level is more productive than taking the higher ground. The author also provides an interesting exploration of his Jewish identity and expectations as a Jew which he broadens into the expectations of Jews in general. It was interesting to learn how the Jewish community can be split, with even some Jews supporting members of the far right. Overall, this is an important book for the period we are in.
December 27, 2017
Full review to come, but worth reading when you get a chance.
July 24, 2018
This is a great book for people who are not Extremely Online.
I am Extremely Online, and I remember seeing the exchange between Weisman and @CyberTrump (now banned) come across my timeline. I remember GamerGate, and how people like Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich used video games to promote themselves to the position of culture warriors against the SJWs they claimed were trying to control everyone's lives. And I saw the antisemites and racists swoop in to this new space and leverage it to their advantage. They took the message of GamerGate, that the SJWs were organizing to remove everything fun about video games, to "inject politics" into something that was just harmless fun, and realized that its adherents already believed that there's a conspiracy of hidden figures out there who are trying to control their lives. Once that framework is in place, jumping from there to focusing on the Jews isn't too far a step. And plenty of people pointed out that this was happening, that young (mostly) men were being radicalized under our noses, that the Brexit vote went to Leave and the 2016 election was close enough to be a surprise too, and they were dismissed because it's just the internet. It's not like it's real life.
Well, Trump is president and Heather Huber is dead.
Half of (((Semitism))) is about pointing out the connections that gradually poisoned a lot of internet spaces with racism, and half of it is about what to do. Weisman points out that most Jewish organizations are too focused on Israel, whose right-wing government is perfectly happy to collude with the right kind of antisemites as long as it gets them international support, and not focused enough on justice at home. We Jews often trumpet our participation in the Civil Rights era as a badge of honor, and it was honorable, but it was also fifty years ago. Where are we now, during the Muslim Ban, the Black Lives Matter protests, or when children are being locked into cages?
Weisman correctly points out that while antisemitic hate crimes are still one of the largest categories, in absolute numbers, most American Jews are not subject to discrimination as severe as that levied against other minority groups. Sometimes we have our loyalties questioned, as in the Chicago Dyke March incident--one of the reasons I personally am wary of participation in leftist activism--but light-skinned Jews aren't followed in stores, and we certainly aren't gunned down by police during routine interactions. After the election I thought about making a bugout bag, remembering a quote I heard from an acquaintance that his father said during a Pesach Seder: "Jews don't have roots, we have legs." In the end, procrastination and expense prevented me from doing so, and I may still regret that, but the situation doesn't seem like it will get as worse as once it did. Still, the election and the aftermath were a wakeup call for a lot of people I know, some of whom really believed that as Jews, we had made it. We were accepted in America now, at least those of us who looked white, and we could rest on our laurels. But as the sages have said, through Jewish history there have been periods of persecution, and periods of leniency, and neither has ever lasted forever.
That said, compared to many other American minority groups, we do often have it easier. And thanks to intermarriage, a big chunk of my Jewish friends don't look stereotypically Jewish, or don't have Jewish last names, or both. But the privilege to sometimes blend in is not something available to Black Americans, or to immigrants or refugees from Central and South America, and Weisman's argument is that we should remember that and organized Jewry should be more focused on rectifying that. He's right.
I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to get when I started (((Semitism))), but the parts that resonated with me were the calls to action. Less talk about marches in the past and more marching now. Fewer sermons on "Justice, justice shall you pursue" and more getting out and chasing. More remembering that the words of the Haggadah demand that we imagine ourselves as slaves in Egypt, and maybe we should take that awareness and apply it to a modern political situations where children are being caged and their parents are being deported before they are reunited. To, as Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, pray with our feet. That's worthy of a book.
I am Extremely Online, and I remember seeing the exchange between Weisman and @CyberTrump (now banned) come across my timeline. I remember GamerGate, and how people like Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich used video games to promote themselves to the position of culture warriors against the SJWs they claimed were trying to control everyone's lives. And I saw the antisemites and racists swoop in to this new space and leverage it to their advantage. They took the message of GamerGate, that the SJWs were organizing to remove everything fun about video games, to "inject politics" into something that was just harmless fun, and realized that its adherents already believed that there's a conspiracy of hidden figures out there who are trying to control their lives. Once that framework is in place, jumping from there to focusing on the Jews isn't too far a step. And plenty of people pointed out that this was happening, that young (mostly) men were being radicalized under our noses, that the Brexit vote went to Leave and the 2016 election was close enough to be a surprise too, and they were dismissed because it's just the internet. It's not like it's real life.
Well, Trump is president and Heather Huber is dead.
Half of (((Semitism))) is about pointing out the connections that gradually poisoned a lot of internet spaces with racism, and half of it is about what to do. Weisman points out that most Jewish organizations are too focused on Israel, whose right-wing government is perfectly happy to collude with the right kind of antisemites as long as it gets them international support, and not focused enough on justice at home. We Jews often trumpet our participation in the Civil Rights era as a badge of honor, and it was honorable, but it was also fifty years ago. Where are we now, during the Muslim Ban, the Black Lives Matter protests, or when children are being locked into cages?
Weisman correctly points out that while antisemitic hate crimes are still one of the largest categories, in absolute numbers, most American Jews are not subject to discrimination as severe as that levied against other minority groups. Sometimes we have our loyalties questioned, as in the Chicago Dyke March incident--one of the reasons I personally am wary of participation in leftist activism--but light-skinned Jews aren't followed in stores, and we certainly aren't gunned down by police during routine interactions. After the election I thought about making a bugout bag, remembering a quote I heard from an acquaintance that his father said during a Pesach Seder: "Jews don't have roots, we have legs." In the end, procrastination and expense prevented me from doing so, and I may still regret that, but the situation doesn't seem like it will get as worse as once it did. Still, the election and the aftermath were a wakeup call for a lot of people I know, some of whom really believed that as Jews, we had made it. We were accepted in America now, at least those of us who looked white, and we could rest on our laurels. But as the sages have said, through Jewish history there have been periods of persecution, and periods of leniency, and neither has ever lasted forever.
That said, compared to many other American minority groups, we do often have it easier. And thanks to intermarriage, a big chunk of my Jewish friends don't look stereotypically Jewish, or don't have Jewish last names, or both. But the privilege to sometimes blend in is not something available to Black Americans, or to immigrants or refugees from Central and South America, and Weisman's argument is that we should remember that and organized Jewry should be more focused on rectifying that. He's right.
I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to get when I started (((Semitism))), but the parts that resonated with me were the calls to action. Less talk about marches in the past and more marching now. Fewer sermons on "Justice, justice shall you pursue" and more getting out and chasing. More remembering that the words of the Haggadah demand that we imagine ourselves as slaves in Egypt, and maybe we should take that awareness and apply it to a modern political situations where children are being caged and their parents are being deported before they are reunited. To, as Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, pray with our feet. That's worthy of a book.
October 8, 2020
(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump by Jonathan Weisman is a study of antisemitism in American both personal and general. Weisman is the congressional editor and deputy Washington editor at the New York Times, is the author of the novel No. 4 Imperial Lane. In his 25-year journalism career, he has covered the White House, national politics, and defense for the Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Baltimore Sun.
Antisemitism is probably as old as Judaism. It was institutionalized in Europe, de facto or de jure, at various times in history not to mention Czarist Russia and Nazi Germany. In America Jews are said to control the banking and entertainment industry -- the bread and circuses of America. In many areas, Jews simply blended into American society. Being Jewish could be something as invisible as being a nonpracticing Catholic or a high protestant. Judaism can be about heritage, tradition, religion, or community. Like many religions, there can be an invisibility to it in public life.
The melting into American society suffered a reversal recently. The rise of the alt-right, neo-Nazis, and White Supremacist that seemed to ride on the coattails of President Trump became a vocal and violent force. Attacks against synagogues have risen. Protests by the above groups have turned violent and with it, a violent left rising up to match their level. although these groups regularly praise the president and offer their voting support, it is doubtful that the President is any part of the movement, although his condemnation of it has been very weak.
Antisemitism has been in America all along but the internet and social media have brought it out and increased its voice. No longer are mimeographed fliers and underground newspapers the source of propaganda. Websites like the Daily Stormer could virtually reach everyone in the US, Europe, and most of the free world. It's not only on the specific websites. It goes deeper. News and social sites like Twitter are a platform for attacks against individuals and groups. Weisman himself has been a victim of these attacks as well as others he documented. Personally, I had several friends leave Twitter since the campaign and election. Attacks on them had nothing to do with race but with politics. The once friendly online hang out has turned vicious for some.
Internet attacks have grown. The title of the book is in triple parentheses. These are "echo marks" because the names inside echo through history in a negative way according to hate groups. There was a Google Chrome plugin that placed triple parentheses around the names of Jewish people for identification and to make people targets for online abuse. Even this book on Goodreads receives written reviews with good ratings and is offset by plenty of one-star ratings without explanation. Although that does not prove anything it does lead to the idea of hate without reason. The online abuse is more than just words. There have been incidents of public releasing phones numbers and addresses too along with murders and assaults.
Weisman documents and discusses the rise in antisemitism since 2016 in America and gives a history of antisemitism in America and Europe. In an age when general acceptance seems to be on the rise by the majority of the population. There is a vocal and violent minority spreading hate. This group survives and now thrives because we have grown complacent. In the words of Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
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