WHY ARE JEWS FREAKING OUT?

THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE: BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT. (A NOTE TO MY FRIENDS.)

This should be you.

Jews are freaking out.

I’m not surprised you don’t know that.

You haven’t been paying attention.

In fact, you have been doing more than not paying attention. You have been deliberately, emphatically, aggressively avoiding what Jewish people are experiencing.

I’ll admit that, since we all live in our information silos, your news and social feeds may not be as deluged as mine are with endless streams of shocking, depressing anti-Jewish ideas, desecrations and violence. But to not know that there is a pandemic of antisemitism in Canada, the United States, Europe and everywhere in the West right now (to say nothing of the Middle East, North Africa and other places where antisemitism has been endemic for generations), you would truly have to be aggressively oblivious.

So what’s the deal?

Well, you tell yourself that it’s not really antisemitism. It’s mostly anti-Zionism. But the lie was finally and truly put to that little fable in recent weeks, with two people shot dead recently in the street in Washington, DC, and eight more set ablaze in Boulder, Colorado, this past weekend.

Oh, I know. Random crazies. Lone wolves. Mentally disturbed.

It was a senseless act of violence. An isolated incident. Let’s not politicize this tragedy. This isn’t who we are.

It wasn’t a hate crime so much as a misguided political statement. It was violence — and that’s bad — but it isn’t a sign of a systemic problem. If Israel would stop …

No. You stop.

When anti-Asian hate emerged in North America amid the COVID pandemic, all decent people recognized that as unacceptable and abhorrent. Yet a ton of those same people think it is understandable that North American Jews suffer because of perceived “crimes” of Israel.

Apples and oranges? A global pandemic that first appeared in China is not the same as what you view as inappropriate military actions by a government? OK, then. Why aren’t people with Russian names who live in Montreal or Malmo being beaten up or boycotted because Putin invaded Ukraine?

Because this isn’t about Israel. It’s about Jews.

When “activists” want to protest Israel, where do they go? Jewish community centres, synagogues, Jewish neighborhoods.

Why are Polish or Italian singers and products not being boycotted, when their governments are made up of neo-fascists? Have you noticed no one is boycotting Chinese restaurants because China’s government is among the world’s worst forces? Why are Canadian Jews held responsible for Israel’s actions when Canadians of no other national identity are targeted for the actions (or perceived crimes) of any other government in the world.

Because Jews.

“Zionist” is a euphemism for “Jew” and anti-Zionism is (not 100% of the time, but close) a barely camouflaged variation of anti-Jew. If you are still getting your back up about this blatantly obvious connection, that’s your problem — and a big one — not mine.

But wait. Let’s pretend anti-Zionism and antisemitism are completely (or almost totally) unrelated. Let’s say 99% of anti-Zionists bear no ill will to Jews (or even that they might carry unconscious biases toward Jews that manifest in anti-Zionism).

Knowing that the killer in Washington and the firebomber in Boulder were motivated by the incendiary rhetoric of anti-Zionist hysteria, wouldn’t you owe it to human decency to tamp down the rhetoric a tad?

But no. Any such suggestion and you go full-on victim, claiming I am trying to shut you up, silence criticism of Israel, I’m a McCarthyist.

Funny you would recognize the connection between violent words and violent deeds when it comes to any other group. When it comes to Jews, though, all the verbal flailing and unrestrained hostility is legitimate, no matter how many Jews get shot on the streets or burned alive. Because Israel is just so evil that American Jews deserve to die. Or at least do not deserve your sympathy. You may not have shot the couple in Washington, but your language loaded the gun.

But these two horrific incidents are — weirdly — not the most alarming developments on my radar. At least the media and decent people have acknowledged these violent crimes as abhorrent. What is gobsmacking to me is the constant drip of anti-Jewish stuff going down all over the world that you cannot be entirely oblivious to — but about which you have not raised so much as a whisper of concern.

If you were Jewish, or even remotely attuned to Jewish concerns, you would be familiar with a bunch of other things that are justifiably causing Jewish people to freak out.

The most obvious and common: The Jewish state is accused of perpetrating genocide. I am not going to waste my fingers typing for you the facts because, if you believe Israel is perpetrating genocide, you (1) do not know the definition of genocide and/or (2) have no idea what is happening in Gaza. In either case, you are either too stupid or too willfully ignorant to engage.

But the corollary to the false allegations of genocide is that anyone who supports Israel is abetting genocide. And 91% of Jewish Canadians (and probably comparable numbers of Jews everywhere else) support Israel. So, one plus one being two, a whole ton of people conclude based on a lie that Jews deserve to be shot and burned. And you’re not freaking out about either the false allegations of genocide — a sick inversion of a word that literally had to be invented to describe the Jewish experience in the 20th century — or about the violence committed based on that lie.

That’s one reason Jews are freaking out.

Because you’re not.

You may have paid a little attention to the two most recent, major crimes against Jews, but there have been thousands of lesser, non-fatal incidents that make the news (usually locally) of synagogue firebombings and shootings at Jewish schools, assaults of Jewish people that don’t require hospitalization and vandalism. Google it.

Then there are the social media posts, things shouted from cars, nurses in Australia expressing the intention to kill “Zionist” patients, American activists declaring “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and a seeming favorite: “Go back to the ovens,” among literally millions of similar affronts. And you are able to convince yourself that there is nothing to get alarmed about.

That’s why Jews are freaking out.

Make all the excuses you want. Dismiss these as insignificant compared with the death and destruction in Gaza. But this is happening in our neighborhoods. And you are either part of the braying mob or doing sweet nothing to challenge the mob.

I’m sure you have your reasons.

Maybe it’s just that there is a lot of terrible stuff happening in the world and if you got worked up about all of it, you’d never get to Netflix. But that’s only half an excuse. Because not only have you done nothing to make your Jewish friends and neighbors believe you are a reliable ally — they’ve actually seen you like a lot of stuff on socials that add to the inferno of Jew-hatred in the world today. So not only are you not freaking out about anti-Jewish stuff going on. You’re kind of telegraphing support to the ones who are freaking Jews out.

There may be other reasons.

You’re sure Jews are overreacting — because that’s what they do, right?

You keep telling yourself the Jews are so touchy.

What’s a few Jews shot or burned, after all? It’s not like the Holocaust is happening again, which is what those people are always wailing about.

Are these the excuses you use?

If these are not your excuses, what are?

Is it that Jews are powerful so, even if a few get killed, “The Jews” will ultimately be just fine?

Please. Really. Explain to me why you’re not freaking out.

Because — even more than the litany of horrors from genuine haters, what is really making Jews freak out is the unbelievably blaring silence from the people they thought would come to their aid.

People like you.

That’s why Jews are freaking out.

Because you’re not.