girlactionfigure:

According to the latest

FBI hate crime statistics

,  the overall number of hate incidents reported to the FBI increased about 17 percent in 2017 compared with the previous year.  

Jews were subject to nearly 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes in 2017 in spite of being only 2% of U.S. Population.  There were a total of 938 hate crimes committed against Jews in 2017, up 37 % from 2016.

Of the 1,749 victims of anti-religious hate crimes:

• 58.1 percent were victims of crimes motivated by their offenders’ anti-Jewish bias.

• 18.6 percent were victims of anti-Islamic (Muslim) bias.

• 4.3 percent were victims of anti-Catholic bias.

• 3.3 percent were victims of bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).

• 2.3 percent were victims of anti-Protestant bias.

• 1.8 percent were victims of anti-Other Christian bias.

• 1.5 percent were victims of anti-Eastern Orthodox (Russian, Greek, Other) bias.

• 1.5 percent were victims of anti-Sikh bias.

• 0.9 percent (15 individuals) were victims of anti-Hindu bias.

• 0.9 percent (15 individuals) were victims of anti-Mormon bias.

• 0.7 percent (13 individuals) were victims of anti-Jehovah’s Witness bias.

• 0.7 percent (12 individuals) were victims of anti-Buddhist bias.

• 0.5 percent (8 individuals) were victims of anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.

• 4.9 percent were victims of bias against other religions (anti-other religion).

The toxic climate coming from both the fringe left and the fringe right  is adding fuel to the fire of the worlds oldest hatred.

Pro Israel Bay Bloggers

pearwaldorf:

Hello (goyische) friends. As it is almost Passover, this is a good time to eat matzo ball soup but also consider our understandings and possible misunderstandings of Jewishness and antisemitism. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, an explicitly intersectional organization, put out a report right after the election about antisemitism, its connections to white supremacy, (ethno)nationalism, and how it prevents social progress of all sorts.

It’s a pretty long document, and I understand if you don’t want to read it all, but I encourage you to read at least part 1, which gives a pretty good background on the diversity of the Jewish population (spoiler: much wider than the typical Ashkenazi portrayals in the media). 

Something I would like to explicitly point out is criticism of Israel and its connection to antisemitism:

Criticisms of Israel and Zionism are not inherently or inevitably anti-Jewish. All states, movements
and ideologies should be scrutinized, and all forms of injustice denounced. It is not anti-Jewish
to denounce oppressive acts committed by Jews. On the contrary, insisting that a history
of oppression exempts Jews—or any other group for that matter—from accountability undermines
Jewish liberation and betrays our values. [emphasis theirs]

Leaders of the Jewish state and the Jewish leaders and institutions that support them worldwide
must be held accountable for their oppression of Palestinians and the continued occupation of
Palestinian land. However, we must not become confused about the nature, cause, or, sadly, the
sheer ordinariness of Israeli state violence and the pain visited upon Palestinians. It does not
in any way minimize the suffering of Palestinians to say that their oppression is comparable to
many other terrible human rights disasters being committed worldwide by non-Jews. There is
nothing about the Jewishness of Israeli leaders that makes their rockets more deadly or their
walls more brutal—it is simply militaristic nationalism. Syrians, Ukrainians, Chechens, Afghans—all
will recognize this flavor of violence immediately, just as indigenous people in the

U.S. and the world over are familiar with the violence of displacement—no Jews required. 

This
is why JFREJ envisions a world without oppression, colonialism, occupation, and displacement,
including, of course, here in the United States.
We must criticize Jews who support the oppression of Palestinians on the same terms and by the
same standards that we hold for all oppressors the world over—we are enraged because of what
they do, not by who they are. 

It is also important to understand that for many Jews past and present, Zionism has not been
seen as a colonialist project but as the right for Jews to have a physical place of self-determined
safety. [emphasis mine] For many Jews, the State of Israel has felt like the only thing standing between them and
another Holocaust. This fear, rooted in very recent historical trauma, is why grounded and valid
protests against Israeli government policy or Zionism are sometimes heard by Jews as threats
to the safety of the Jewish people as a whole. Actual violence against Jews or other antisemitic
acts in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and around the globe only compound these fears and
further a tragic dynamic…

We cannot overlook any injustice when we see it, no matter where it is or who is causing it. As
Jews, we are no less responsible for our role in perpetuating oppression anywhere in the world
because of our history of persecution; in fact, that history should only further fuel our commitment
to justice. But our movements must also continue to cultivate clarity about the role that all
oppressions—including antisemitism—play in maintaining the status quo. If we’re committed
to collective liberation, we can’t compromise on who’s included in that vision for the world. We
need everyone, from New York to Palestine.

So I hope this is useful, and clarifies some things.

behirahbee:

listen up, goyim, because i’m gonna say this once and once only.

antisemitism is a form of oppression, but it relies on a different mindset. it is a different ballgame than ANY sort of prejudice you know. yknow why? because to antisemities, jews aren’t lesser (well, we are, but that’s not the important thing). we’re successful.

that’s the kicker.

antisemities WANT you to believe that jews are doing well, because if we’re doing well, we’re not REALLY being persecuted. it all goes back to the protocols of the elders of zion: the jews are taking over. the jews are a threat. therefore, if they’re a threat, it’s only right to kill them. it’s only right to ghettoize them. it’s only right to have exterminated 40% of the world’s jewish population in the 40s.

nevermind the fact that antisemitism makes up nearly 50% of all religious hate crimes in the us. nevermind the fact that jews make up less than 2% of the world’s population. nevermind the fact that jews, historically, have been scapegoated and killed and othered for literal millenia. i mean, who cares, because jews are rich and powerful, right?

don’t fall for it. don’t fall for the centuries-old claim that jews are just faking it. listen to us. support us.

and the next time you brush off antisemitism because ”oh, it’s not a big deal, jews are successful”, take a good hard look at yourself and realize that you’re spouting the same nazi propaganda that killed six million people.

jewish-privilege:

optometrictzedek:

nbnightwing:

antifrance:

you know what, i’m about to say it

it’s not just expecting jews to be or proclaim to being pro-palestine/anti-israel/antizionist that is antisemitic, it’s also expecting them to hold or proclaim to holding perfect pro-palestine/anti-israel/antizionist views and politics all the time. and by ‘perfect’ i certainly don’t mean sensible, nuanced, or productive views and politics, i mean views and politics that unchallengingly espouse the mainstream narrative of a solidarity movement riddled with antisemitism. pro-palestine jews become agents of zionism the second they express the slightest discomfort at the unchecked and rampant antisemitism in the movement, the tokenization of their activism, the exterminatory rhetoric surrounding israel, the use of material produced by people with a history of antisemitism, the abuses of bds, the support for deeply antisemitic & armed religious movements, the celebration of people who killed civilians, the erasure of jewish diversity, history and culture, the denial of antisemitism from the holocaust to the jewish exodus from muslim countries, the inappropriate and ahistorical nazi comparisons, the toxic strategies used to dodge accusations of antisemitism – i could go on. expecting jews to be uncritical supporters of a movement in which antisemitism – that is, for those who forget, anti-jewish racism – has such a large audience and amount of offenders, that’s antisemitism, always.

Please feel free to stop me if I’m overstepping my bounds here. But this got me thinking about a whole new facet of the privilege I have as someone who’s not Jewish that just…didn’t hit me until this moment. 

I have the ability to say that I don’t know enough to state an opinion, and I won’t be attacked but lauded for it. I can say that I don’t have the background or the nuance to be able to explain everything, or to give opinions on aspects of the situation, and I won’t be judged for it. I won’t face backlash for it. I won’t be in danger for it. People will praise me for my nuance and for my ability to admit that I don’t have to know everything, while Jewish people are not only expected to know each and every detail of the situation, they’re expected to espouse letter-perfect Ideologically Pure™ views as a prerequisite for their mere existence in seemingly progressive spaces. I can literally exert the least possible effort and be praised for it, while Jewish people are expected to throw themselves in with words and actions that are actively harming them in order to simply be invited to the table, and that’s honestly the most horrifying realization I’ve had in a while. ‘

I’m attempting–and please let me know if I’m failing–not to center myself in this narrative, but hopefully to convey to people who previously considered themselves outside it that they’re not. That the ability to walk in activist spaces WITHOUT thinking about it is something not everyone can do, and that not actively opening doors is as good as holding them shut. 

An identity that isn’t inherently politicized by others by mere virtue of existence is a privilege. Ignorance is a privilege. 

You are 100% dead on and not overstepping at all imo. A+

Thank you for vocalizing it, too. It really, really helps when this comes from allies rather than Jewish people sometimes.

An identity that isn’t inherently politicized by others by mere virtue of existence is a privilege. Ignorance is a privilege.