The golden age of American Jews is ending

[Anonymous]

Something had changed.
I agree the shifting point was early back- 9/11. I will also add that as this country has become more diverse with new immigrants coming from the Middle East and around the world, long held frictions have sprouted here in American life - in our schools. I was driving on the 101 the other day (in LA) with a small group of pro Palestine protestors holding up traffic waving signs and chanting. This would not have happened before, these were likely new immigrants protesting what they see as a genocide on their people.

As for what’s happening in schools. Jews are targeted. Indians are targeted. Black kids are targeted. Kids are racist as F.

I don’t disagree with the article (I hope it’s not true) and my heart sank reading it. But those are additional comments I wanted to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Whiny Jews complaining about antisemitism is why people don't like Jews, then? Great circular logic (that would actually have also been right at home in the Soviet Union, since you brought it up!).

See there you go

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Current events have me wondering, does the Jewish community in the U.S. consider it antisemitic to not support Israel?

If a gentile disagrees with Israeli foreign policy are they by definition antisemitic?

Who do you support?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Perhaps you could give an example of the “pointing out of anything related to being Jewish” that you feel is unfairly being labeled as antisemitism, and that is preventing you from doling out any sympathy towards Jews. Just wondering.

Like asking if they are bothered by how many kids died in Gaza. this is apparently antisemitism!
Fwiw I am neither from the Middle East nor Jewish

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Perhaps you could give an example of the “pointing out of anything related to being Jewish” that you feel is unfairly being labeled as antisemitism, and that is preventing you from doling out any sympathy towards Jews. Just wondering.

Like asking if they are bothered by how many kids died in Gaza. this is apparently antisemitism!
Fwiw I am neither from the Middle East nor Jewish

You cannot be serious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the anti-semitism from the right. Most fundamentalist Christians hold Jews are the Chosen People because it says that in the Bible.
Even though we are not really that religious we had to pull out our son from public school and the only private school we could afford was a Christian School. The vast majority of the families and almost all the teachers were MAGA republicans who supported Trump. My son had so many Bible lessons on the history of the Jewish people. My son had to map how Abraham (after having his name changed from Abram) moved from Ur to Canaan (located in present day of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. My son only heard of Jewish people being spoken to in terms of respect. He is back in a public high school that is filled with progressive families and since he started he has heard a bunch of Anti-Semetic comments even before this past October.

I guess you already forgot Charlottesville. https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/jewish-america/2021/november/replacement-antisemitism-sarna.html

The right I am talking about are Christian fundamentalist Trump supporters, not ultra right wing white supremacists. It’s like saying antifa represents the left.

I don’t get why it is so hard to believe many on the right are pro-Israel/pro-Jewish. Many families at the school owned business like successful businesses in construction trades, ex-military, federal agents/police/fire, doctors, lawyers, etc. It was really a completely different culture in a way for our kids to be surrounded by MAGA families. We aren’t a white family and didn’t find them to be white suprematists. Certainly some of them had some bat sh*t crazy beliefs during COVID and several kids told my son his arm was going to fall off for getting a COVID vaccine.

I did find it surprising how much they learned about ancient Biblical history like memorizing in order the ten plagues when the Pharoah wouldn’t free the Israelites who Moses eventually led to Canaan (President day Israel).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Perhaps you could give an example of the “pointing out of anything related to being Jewish” that you feel is unfairly being labeled as antisemitism, and that is preventing you from doling out any sympathy towards Jews. Just wondering.

Like asking if they are bothered by how many kids died in Gaza. this is apparently antisemitism!
Fwiw I am neither from the Middle East nor Jewish

You cannot be serious.

What’s wrong?
I also dared to object her statement that democrats are antisemitic so she can’t vote for them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the anti-semitism from the right. Most fundamentalist Christians hold Jews are the Chosen People because it says that in the Bible.
Even though we are not really that religious we had to pull out our son from public school and the only private school we could afford was a Christian School. The vast majority of the families and almost all the teachers were MAGA republicans who supported Trump. My son had so many Bible lessons on the history of the Jewish people. My son had to map how Abraham (after having his name changed from Abram) moved from Ur to Canaan (located in present day of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. My son only heard of Jewish people being spoken to in terms of respect. He is back in a public high school that is filled with progressive families and since he started he has heard a bunch of Anti-Semetic comments even before this past October.

I guess you already forgot Charlottesville. https://www.brandeis.edu/jewish-experience/jewish-america/2021/november/replacement-antisemitism-sarna.html

The right I am talking about are Christian fundamentalist Trump supporters, not ultra right wing white supremacists. It’s like saying antifa represents the left.

I don’t get why it is so hard to believe many on the right are pro-Israel/pro-Jewish. Many families at the school owned business like successful businesses in construction trades, ex-military, federal agents/police/fire, doctors, lawyers, etc. It was really a completely different culture in a way for our kids to be surrounded by MAGA families. We aren’t a white family and didn’t find them to be white suprematists. Certainly some of them had some bat sh*t crazy beliefs during COVID and several kids told my son his arm was going to fall off for getting a COVID vaccine.

I did find it surprising how much they learned about ancient Biblical history like memorizing in order the ten plagues when the Pharoah wouldn’t free the Israelites who Moses eventually led to Canaan (President day Israel).

Many are pro-Israel because the support Israel. That does necessarily not extend to supporting Jews in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Perhaps you could give an example of the “pointing out of anything related to being Jewish” that you feel is unfairly being labeled as antisemitism, and that is preventing you from doling out any sympathy towards Jews. Just wondering.

Like asking if they are bothered by how many kids died in Gaza. this is apparently antisemitism!
Fwiw I am neither from the Middle East nor Jewish

You cannot be serious.

The 'antisemitism' that the author leads the story with is a protest against Israel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Current events have me wondering, does the Jewish community in the U.S. consider it antisemitic to not support Israel?

If a gentile disagrees with Israeli foreign policy are they by definition antisemitic?

Something that really struck me about the Atlantic article is that the writer characterizes the belief that Israel should be a bi-national state as anti-Semitic, because of the “naive” belief that Jewish people could survive in such a state. But historically, Jewish communities thrived in the Middle East, as did Christian communities. There’s an argument to be made that colonial meddling in the region was the source of the decline of these communities. I don’t say that as a “naive” person, I say that as a Middle Eastern Christian from one of those shrinking communities.

So the writer is coming from this lens of being a white, Western man. The “golden age” in the American Jewish community the author writes about was not really a golden age except for white people, and Jewish people were reaping some secondary benefits. I grew up in this era as a brown person and there was nothing golden about it. This is an era where a bunch of white guys arrogantly decided to invade a Middle Eastern country without even knowing wtf was going on there. The Atlantic author considers this a turning point in anti-semitism in the US, but I think it was also a turning point in this assumption that elite white men from the US know how to run the entire world. Americans lost their taste for nation building after Iraq and Afghanistan for good reason, and we are losing our taste for interfering in the Israel-Palestine problem for many of the same reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Perhaps you could give an example of the “pointing out of anything related to being Jewish” that you feel is unfairly being labeled as antisemitism, and that is preventing you from doling out any sympathy towards Jews. Just wondering.

Like asking if they are bothered by how many kids died in Gaza. this is apparently antisemitism!
Fwiw I am neither from the Middle East nor Jewish

You cannot be serious.

The 'antisemitism' that the author leads the story with is a protest against Israel

Forget the author. Do you actually think that coming up to a Jewish person in America and asking them about dead kids in Gaza is not antisemitic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Current events have me wondering, does the Jewish community in the U.S. consider it antisemitic to not support Israel?

If a gentile disagrees with Israeli foreign policy are they by definition antisemitic?

Something that really struck me about the Atlantic article is that the writer characterizes the belief that Israel should be a bi-national state as anti-Semitic, because of the “naive” belief that Jewish people could survive in such a state. But historically, Jewish communities thrived in the Middle East, as did Christian communities. There’s an argument to be made that colonial meddling in the region was the source of the decline of these communities. I don’t say that as a “naive” person, I say that as a Middle Eastern Christian from one of those shrinking communities.

So the writer is coming from this lens of being a white, Western man. The “golden age” in the American Jewish community the author writes about was not really a golden age except for white people, and Jewish people were reaping some secondary benefits. I grew up in this era as a brown person and there was nothing golden about it. This is an era where a bunch of white guys arrogantly decided to invade a Middle Eastern country without even knowing wtf was going on there. The Atlantic author considers this a turning point in anti-semitism in the US, but I think it was also a turning point in this assumption that elite white men from the US know how to run the entire world. Americans lost their taste for nation building after Iraq and Afghanistan for good reason, and we are losing our taste for interfering in the Israel-Palestine problem for many of the same reasons.

I wish they stopped meddling in Ukraine as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This article and the comments here (and on other threads here) are disheartening. People can never seem to say: antisemitism is wrong and American Jews should not be targeted. Same on instagram. It's always "but what about Gaza, what about evil zionost colonizers?" even on a simple post about someone being called a dirty Jew or assaulted.

This is such a disingenuous argument that is implicitly trying to shut down any real discussion. OF COURSE antisemitism is wrong and Jews should not be targeted. My understanding is that we are all starting from that assumption, although I guess you believe that other people think antisemitism is hunky dory.

If someone here wrote “I think my husband is cheating on me,” do you think the discussion should be 15 posts of “cheating is wrong and men shouldn’t cheat” before we ask why she believes that?

Your understanding is wrong. Right now as a Jewish woman, in this context, I assume people are slightly antisemitic unless they've expressed otherwise. I absolutely would assume you are based on what you've posted in this thread, and I'd back away irl. As for your analogy, I am sure some people would actually flame that poster and make her feel like shit and tell her it's all in her head. Probably the same people who deny antisemitism is a valid concern.

Let’s review. Someone wrote that they wish SOMEONE, ANYONE would say antisemitism is wrong.

Then I said of course antisemitism is wrong.

Then you said you assume I am antisemitic.

I could continue, but I don’t think dialogue with you or the other poster is productive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Perhaps you could give an example of the “pointing out of anything related to being Jewish” that you feel is unfairly being labeled as antisemitism, and that is preventing you from doling out any sympathy towards Jews. Just wondering.

Like asking if they are bothered by how many kids died in Gaza. this is apparently antisemitism!
Fwiw I am neither from the Middle East nor Jewish

You cannot be serious.

The 'antisemitism' that the author leads the story with is a protest against Israel

Forget the author. Do you actually think that coming up to a Jewish person in America and asking them about dead kids in Gaza is not antisemitic?

But does that actually happen on any sort of regular basis? The author leads with this account of high schoolers because kids in high school are a-holes and they make his argument easy. When I was in high school I was against the Iraq war and kids came up to me and told me I wanted to f*** Saddam Hussein. Was that a larger statement on my existence or are kids just aholes? The whole article is actually really, really lazy writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any questions or pointing out of anything related to being Jewish is immediately labeled as antisemitism. Doesn’t make you sympathetic to be honest.
The constant oppression Olympics participation is tiresome as well. Hatred towards URMs is also something not very pleasant.
At least that’s what I observe in ex USSR Jews of whom I know many.

Perhaps you could give an example of the “pointing out of anything related to being Jewish” that you feel is unfairly being labeled as antisemitism, and that is preventing you from doling out any sympathy towards Jews. Just wondering.

Like asking if they are bothered by how many kids died in Gaza. this is apparently antisemitism!
Fwiw I am neither from the Middle East nor Jewish

You cannot be serious.

The 'antisemitism' that the author leads the story with is a protest against Israel

Forget the author. Do you actually think that coming up to a Jewish person in America and asking them about dead kids in Gaza is not antisemitic?

But does that actually happen on any sort of regular basis? The author leads with this account of high schoolers because kids in high school are a-holes and they make his argument easy. When I was in high school I was against the Iraq war and kids came up to me and told me I wanted to f*** Saddam Hussein. Was that a larger statement on my existence or are kids just aholes? The whole article is actually really, really lazy writing.

I am asking you about the statement you made, not about the article.