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Have Zionists Weaponized “Antisemitism”?
Would Holocaust Era Jews Understand How We Use It Today?
How I understood “antisemitism” in the 1970s, is not how it’s used today.
For example, I say, Netanyahu is a narcissistic genocidal sociopath.
Does that statement make me antisemitic? To many Jews who comment on my stories the answer is probably to yes.
To pre-Holocaust Jews, would calling any individual such names register as antisemitism?
No.
What if I exclaimed “the Jewish town Petah Tikva is full of narcissistic genocidal sociopaths!” Would they consider that antisemitic?
No.
Would this be antisemitic to them? “The Jewish town of Petah Tikva is full of money grubbing Jews who celebrate the killing of Jesus.”
YES
American Jews born after the 1930s don’t understand that most people, pre-WWII, didn’t look at Jews as individuals like they do assimilated Jews today. Jews were viewed as an insular ethnic group who believed they are “the chosen people”.
Antisemitism was a VERY SPECIFIC set of prejudices about ethnic Jewish groups.
So why do many Jews today believe antisemitism originates from the individual. How’d that happen?
That is, these days, you or I, we’re either each of us, yes an antisemite or not. Like the #BLM or #MeToo movements, we only need to identify the individual racist, misogynist or antisemite, put them in jail or remove their power and ostracize them.
When people call me (and many others) antisemitic that’s what they want to do.
Let me back up.
When I was growing up many post Holocaust American Jews solved the original antisemitism problem by choosing near-complete assimilation. My Dad and his family were those type of Jews.
In the above story the shift in perception is perfectly expressed.
