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Maeve Korengold is half-Ashkenazi on her father's side. In this Op-Ed, she explains that antisemitism is not a "thing of the past", but is instead rife across the globe. Learn more about the rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes, and the steps world leaders are taking to counter such acts. This article discusses rapper Wiley's antisemitic comments, and Twitter's inaction.
Violent crimes against Jewish people in France were reported to have risen by 74% in 2018. There were over five-hundred documented incidents, one being the murder of Mireille Knoll: an eighty-five-year-old Holocaust survivor, who was killed in her own home. Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, called this “the worst level of antisemitism since World War II.” Surveys by the European Union report that almost 90% of Jewish people believe that antisemitism has become more prevalent in their country over the last 5 years.
In the United States, over 1800 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2018. These events include the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pennsylvania that killed eleven and injured seven. Another includes the exclusion of Jewish symbols from the Chicago Dyke March because “Zionists cannot be feminists.” When the American President was asked what he was going to do about the rise of antisemitism, he responded by saying, “I am the least antisemitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life.” He then refused to condemn the actions of neo-Nazis, who attended a “Unite the Right” rally in 2018, saying that there were “very fine people on both sides.” In addition to this, he accused American Jewish people of being “disloyal” to Israel by voting for Democrats last August.
This prejudice also manifests on social media. The Anti-Defamation League found that, over 12 months, more than 4 million antisemitic tweets were shared or re-shared on Twitter. Recently, British grime artist Wiley has come under fire for a series of anti-Jewish tweets that he posted on Friday, June 24th. One read: "I don't care about Hitler, I care about black people,” and another compared the Jewish community to the Ku Klux Klan.
The tweets remained visible for well over 12 hours, leading outraged users to boycott the platform for 48 hours. After being temporarily suspended, Wiley’s Twitter account was permanently banned for hateful conduct. In a statement, Twitter said: "We deeply respect the concerns shared by the Jewish community and online safety advocates," and apologized for not “moving faster.”
According to Sky News, Wiley’s tweets were the result of his falling-out with his former manager, who is Jewish. When Sky News interviewed him, Wiley apologized for “generalising and going outside of the people who I was talking to within the workspace and workplace I work in.” He continued to say: “I'm not racist, you know. I'm a businessman. My thing should have stayed between me and my manager, I get that.” However, a large proportion of the interview could not be broadcast, as many of his comments were "too inflammatory".
"My questions are: why did he feel compelled to spew hate online after a disagreement with his manager? Why did Twitter take so long to take action? Is antisemitism somehow more acceptable than other forms of prejudice against ethnic/religious minorities?" - Maeve Korengold
Walter Reich, a professor and former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, writes that some of the motivators of antisemitism are:
“The need to unify the majority group by identifying a common enemy, especially an enemy within.”
“The need to explain a minority’s material or national success, especially by a majority whose members feel that that success has come at their expense.”
“The need to condemn a minority whose members obstinately refuse to accept the majority’s religion, or whose role in that religion’s narrative is evil.”
“The need to distrust and ostracize a minority whose members act differently, don’t assimilate fully into the larger culture, and have their own customs and practices.”
He goes on to argue that antisemitism is “useful” for political agendas in Europe and the United States. He writes: “For some on the right, it can fulfill the need for a national, religious, or ethnic agenda. And for some on the left, it can fulfill the need to establish virtue, particularly when it’s connected with anti-Zionism.”
Over the past few weeks, I have watched people on social media say that Wiley was punished too harshly - that his comments weren’t so bad. These are the same people who tokenize the suffering of our people by comparing every current social issue to the Holocaust. The same people who associate all Jewish people with an incorrect and twisted definition of Zionism. The same people who tell me that I shouldn’t be speaking on the issue, because I’m only half Jewish by blood, and I don’t even practice Judaism.
It’s true that I’m not scared for my safety going to and from my place of worship. I’m very fortunate in that way. However, someone who hates and wants to hurt Jewish people isn’t going to care. They are not going to ask if I had a Bat Mitzvah or how much Hebrew I know. All that they’re going to see is my prominent nose, my curly dark hair, and my last name, and that will be enough.
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