The Shalom Center - What Is Anti-Semitism?

Obama, Romney, Bigotry, & Slander

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:48:52 -0400

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow,
Director of The Shalom Center

The Shalom Center by law may not, and doesn't, choose between candidates in an election. But there is no legal, ethical, or moral bar to our denouncing the use of religious slurs and slanders when they are used against any candidate. Or more than one, as is the case right now in American politics.

Indeed, we are morally REQUIRED to condemn such slanders. And so are all of us. To say it NOW, before slander casts its vote against decency and ALL America loses the Presidential election.

During the present Presidential campaign, slurs against the religious beliefs of at least two candidates -- Barack Obama and Mitt Romney -- became widespread.

Rumors & Slanders about Obama

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:39:39 -0500

DO WE HAVE CLEAN HANDS?
By Dan Shallman

** The Obama slurs and the 'empathy deficit' **

Los Angeles Jewish Journal
February 1, 2008

Last Sunday, to mark the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Senator
Barack Obama delivered a courageous sermon at King's Ebenezer Baptist
Church in Atlanta.

Notably, after recalling our country's dismal treatment of
African-Americans throughout much of our history, Obama challenged his own
community to acknowledge the intolerance and anti-Semitism in its midst.
In so doing, he has challenged all of us -- Jews included -- to look deep
inside our own hearts and minds to break down the barriers that divide

My Jewish Problem—And Ours (including comments on Obama and the Jews)

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:09:26 -0500

Bernard Avishai

From his blog -- http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/2008/01/my-jewish-problemand-ours.html
Tuesday, January 29, 2008

In 1963, the young editor of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz, wrote a strangely confessional article (the first intimation of what, full-blown, would become his style), which he called “My Negro Problem—and Ours.” Its disquieting point, made the year of the March on Washington, was that too much hatred attached to race for integration ever to succeed. Podhoretz offered himself as evidence, confessing to the fear, envy and contempt with which he had grown up in Brooklyn under the siege of “Negro gangs.” Those streets still seemed to him world-historical ground: “There is a fight, they win and we retreat, half whimpering, half with bravado. My first nauseating experience with cowardice, and my first appalled realization that there are people in the world who do not seem to be afraid of anything, who act as though they have nothing to lose.”

Interfaith Leaders one year ago denounced slurs against Obama

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:32:51 -0500

New York, January 23, 2007 – Religious leaders from many faith traditions are expressing outrage at recent political tactics in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign.

Recent emails, blogs and one cable news program about Sen. Barack Obama's religious upbringing prompted several religious leaders to speak out against such divisive politics. The stories suggested Obama had attended a radical Muslim madrasa school as a child.

"We are writing to deplore this despicable tactic," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, and eight other leaders. "We have had enough of the slash and burn politics calculated to divide us as children of God," said the leaders today in an open letter to the religious community (complete text below).

Nine Jewish Leaders Condemn "Hateful" E-mails Regarding Obama and Religion

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:15:59 -0500

Nine Jewish Leaders Condemn "Hateful" E-mails Regarding Obama and Religion

"The leaders of nine Jewish groups released an open letter on Tuesday condemning what they called 'hateful e-mails' that they said spread lies about Senator Barack Obama’s religious beliefs and his intentions." As The New York Times (Jan. 18, 2008) explains, "[t]he anonymous e-mail messages have circulated for months, saying that Mr. Obama is a Muslim and carried a copy of the Koran when he was sworn in at the United States Senate." These statements are false. As the article notes, Obama is a Christian and a longtime member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Islam an unknown factor in Obama bid

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:45:37 -0500

Campaign downplays his connection during boyhood in Indonesia
By Paul Watson
L. A. Times March 16, 2007
From the Baltimore Sun
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- As a boy in Indonesia, Barack Obama crisscrossed the religious divide. At the local primary school, he prayed in thanks to a Catholic saint. In the neighborhood mosque, he bowed to Allah.

Having a personal background in Christianity and Islam might seem useful for an aspiring U.S. president in an age when Islamic nations and radical groups are key national security and foreign policy issues. But a connection with Islam is untrod territory for presidential politics.

Slurs against Obama: Editorial in "The Forward" & Waskow letter to editor

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:39:59 -0500

FEAR FACTOR

Forward/ Editoria
January 31, 2008

When the dust settles, the uproar over Barack Obama’s religious beliefs
will have taught us little about the candidate and his loyalties that we
don’t already know. If we look closely, however, we can learn a great
deal about American Jews and their anxieties. More pointedly, we can
penetrate the mystery of the power of the so-called Jewish lobby.

As most Americans have heard by now, rumors flying around the Internet
suggest that the Illinois senator is secretly a radical Muslim. It’s
rumored that he took his oath of office on a Quran, that he was educated

Neo-Con Smerconish on new "Israel Lobby" book & danger of "anti-Semitism" charges

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:34:19 -0400

Philadelphia Inquirer, September 9, 2007
Op/Ed column:

'Anti-Semitic' label curbs talk about Israel

By Michael Smerconish

[Michael Smerconish is a Philadelphia-based radio host and regular Op/Ed columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer who has also filled in for Bill O'Reilly on The Radio Factor and Glenn Beck on his CNN Headline News television program.

[Smerconish is an outspoken critic of "political correctness" in society and in the war on terrorism and has written two books on the subject:
* 2004 - Flying Blind: How Political Correctness Continues to Compromise Airline Safety Post 9/11

NY Times article on CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:00:26 -0400

Scrutiny Increases for a Group Advocating for Muslims in U.S.

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
NY Times, March 14 , 2007

With violence across the Middle East fixing Islam smack at the center of the American political debate, an organization partly financed by donors closely identified with wealthy Persian Gulf governments has emerged as the most vocal advocate for American Muslims — and an object of wide suspicion.
The group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, defines its mission as spreading the understanding of Islam and protecting civil liberties. Its officers appear frequently on television and are often quoted in newspapers, and its director has met with President Bush. Some 500,000 people receive the group’s daily e-mail newsletter.

EXCOMMUNICATING JEWISH THINKERS, or RENEWING JEWISH CULTURE?

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 09:00:25 -0500

Dear friends,

One of the tactics that has been used by some elements of the official structures of American Jewish organizations has been to attempt to "excommunicate" some critics of Israel by calling them "self-hating Jews" or "enablers of anti-Semitism."

I will take up the implications of the "self-hating Jew" epithet in another letter. On the other accusation, there was recently a firestorm when the American Jewish Committee attacked a number of progressive Jews as enablers of anti-Semitism. In response there has come a wave of civil-liberties-style criticism of the AJCom for these smears.

Muslim leader speaks out against denials of Holocaust

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:33:55 -0500

Dear Chevra,

Occasionally, even on our lists and much more often in the Jewish community at large, someone or other has been heard to say that Muslims do not speak out against Muslim extremism as some Jews do against Jewish extremism, some Christians against Christian extremism, etc.

It ain't so.

See below.

Ibrahim Ramey was, we should note, one of the people at the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation who organized the Pray-in in which I took part in support of the Imams harassed and abused by US Air. So he is, thank God, perfectly able and ready to mobilize Muslims and others in defense of justice and of Muslim rights, and to mobilize Muslims and others in defense of truth and Jewish honor.

THE SPITEFUL RESURGENCE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 17:38:02 -0400

By Johann Hari

Independent (UK); reprinted in the *Seattle Post-Intelligencer* on Aug. 22 Aug. 17, 2006

A sweet little granny was sitting next to me, knitting a scarf. She was listening to an elderly professor as he delivered a speech about the Holocaust. Every now and then, at the most rousing moments, this tiny old woman would mutter her agreement. "Kikes," she said absently as she nodded her head. "Dirty fucking kikes." Nobody objected; nobody even turned to look. This Nazi granny was among friends.

I was sitting in a bland hotel in Orange County, Calif. -- one of those interchangeable global hotels that could be anywhere, or nowhere -- at the 2003 conference of the "Institute for Historical Review." It's an outfit of maniacs who claim the Holocaust is at best exaggerated, at worst a fabrication. Robert Faurisson, a disgraced former professor of literature at the University of Lyons, represented the conference's liberal wing: In his speech, he admitted, "The Jews were persecuted," but quickly added, "They were protected by Hitler too." Some grumbled -- why was he so soft?

Tony Kushner on the film "Munich"

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 07:56:03 -0500

Los Angeles Times
January 22, 2006

Defending 'Munich's' disputed territory
By Tony Kushner

At a recent family gathering, my cousin-in-law, Janice, asked me to respond to complaints she'd read over and over again about "Munich," the Steven Spielberg film I co-wrote with Eric Roth, which she hadn't yet seen.

The movie is stirring up a lot of controversy, which I anticipated when I agreed to work on it. I even considered it a side benefit that my mishpocheh, my family, an occasionally argumentative bunch, would have fresh subject matter for the discussion part of our next few Seders. Matzo balls might be flung, but arguing is good for the digestion.

Is Venezuela's President Anti-Semitic?

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 13:12:01 -0400

Dear Friends,

This message raises some serious doubts about a claim put forward by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela spoke an anti-Semitic slur this past Christmas Eve in a speech to a Venezuelan rehab center.

My own analysis of the full text of the talk, together with correspondence I have now had with North Americans who are in Venezuela, cast great doubt on the charge.

I am not absolutely certain the charge is wrong, but I think it probably is, and should be further investigated before being propagated. Already, however, some other Jewish organizations have leaped on this JTA article to attack President Chavez.

The Nature of European Anti-Semitism Today

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 10:48:23 -0500

Tony Judt, 1/1/2005

GOODBYE TO ALL THAT? By Tony Judt

** The anti-Semitism of today's Europe is not that of our grandfathers' generation. — Most Europeans believe the problem originates in the Middle East and must therefore be addressed there.