Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Anti-Semitism's New Masks



by Rabbi Avraham Krieger


The U.S. administration should not have been surprised by the heinous actions of Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., who murdered three people in Kansas City in cold blood, just because he thought they were Jewish. Miller had never hidden his anti-Semitic views, nor was he ever shy about expressing his opinions, which advocated harming Jews.
 
Miller was a proud, card-carrying member of the white supremacist group Ku Klux Klan, and as such he had incited to the murder of Jews his entire life. To remove any doubt as to his intentions, Miller committed his thoughts to paper in his book "A White Man Speaks Out"; he headed a white supremacy group in his hometown, gave interviews to known anti-Semitic media outlets and -- absurdly -- was a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate in the 2010 general election. Needless to say, he never refrained from inciting anti-Semitism and xenophobia.
 
The Kansas City murder was not the act of a madman lashing out against civilized society. It stemmed from a belief shared by too many individuals, who are unfortunately given free license to express their opinions, using the American government's weakness to their advantage.
 
Anti-Semitism has been spreading right before our eyes, metastasizing in democratic European nations, where far-right movements are gaining power and winning parliamentary seats, as the have in Hungary and Greece.
 
Many times the radical opinions expressed by anti-Semites are protected by the democratic nature defining public discourse in their society, despite the fact that their teachings defy the very principles of democracy by negating the existence of anyone different.
 
This has afforded us a glimpse of the many ways in which anti-Semitism now masks itself. For example, at times, anti-Semitism will take on the form of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, using it to justify anti-Israel boycotts and political diatribes worldwide. Other times, anti-Semitism will take the shape of liberalism, demanding the barring by law of the rite of circumcision or the practice of kosher slaughter.
 
It is, however, important to discern the legitimate criticism leveled at Israel over policy issues from anti-Semitism. Israeli diplomacy must therefore adapt its response to the various "masks" disguising anti-Semitic elements and employ all the tools at its disposal to denounce any expression of anti-Semitism worldwide.
 
I believe Israel has a moral obligation to stand firm and seek ways to prevent any harm from coming to Jew worldwide, exercising the principle of mutual guarantee and preventing anti-Semitism from rearing its head, as we have seen it do over the past few years.
 
Silence or halfhearted censure of this phenomenon have proven ineffective and it is up to the Israeli government to actively pursue ways to fight those who incite the annihilation of Jews, without hesitation or apology.
 
 
Rabbi Avraham Krieger is director of the Shem Olam Institute for Education, Documentation and Research on Faith and the Holocaust

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=8137

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

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