On a recent Friday evening, Jacqueline Mates-Muchin, senior rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland, interrupted her Shabbat sermon.
Earlier that day, a 21-time Grammy winner and one of the vaunted celebrities within the country had doubled down on conspiratorial antisemitic tropes that he had been mainlining into the American bloodstream for weeks.
In an interview on Oct. 28, the rapper formerly called Kanye West compared himself to George Floyd for the persecution he was under after making antisemitic statements, read an inventory of corporations with Jewish executives, and blamed his supposedly misdiagnosed bipolar disorder on a “Jewish doctor.”
His comments got here after weeks of spreading lies about Jewish power and control, comments shared with hundreds of thousands.
And so they followed a 12 months of recurrent antisemitic flyer campaigns and other propaganda stunts within the Bay Area and across the country. A military of Nazi sympathizers, led by a Petaluma man, repeatedly left anti-Jewish literature on people’s doorsteps, and had evaded consequence.
So Mates-Muchin opened the synagogue floor to dialogue. “People were talking about feeling vulnerable,” she said.
One after one other, congregants shared stories about their family’s experience with antisemitism, or their very own: stories of “great-grandparents in Poland,” or relatives who lived through or died within the Holocaust; memories of “not getting jobs or into certain schools” because they were Jewish within the Forties and ’50s.
“There was an inkling” amongst some congregants that “that was all previously,” the rabbi said. “Obviously, within the last five years or so, it has grow to be such a distinct reality.”
Five years ago, right-wing extremists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, carrying torches and chanting “Jews is not going to replace us!” It formed an indelible image of a recent political era, one during which extremists, sure by web subcultures, felt comfortable showing their faces in acts of hate.
In other words, the hoods were off.
Now, Jewish community leaders within the Bay Area are describing a fresh wave of uncertainty and anxiety. It’s marked each by an increase in open antisemitism and the specter of political violence, exemplified in their very own back yard by the frightening Oct. 28 attack on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco.
Since 2016, reported threats against members of Congress have increased tenfold, based on a recent report within the Recent York Times. In an era of acute political polarization, threats can come from either side. Still, it’s the intense right that’s powering threats of violence facing Jews and other minority groups.
The destabilizing political era can’t be disentangled from antisemitism. It is usually part and parcel of the blinkered ideologies that compel certain people to act, because it did David DePape, the person who shattered Paul Pelosi’s skull, motivated by conspiracy theories and racked by delusion.
At a time when it appears like you simply want to curve up and disappear, I believe it’s that way more vital that we proceed to achieve out.
The Anti-Defamation League worries keenly about political violence, acknowledging in a report last 12 months that “antisemitism will often be a central a part of the conspiratorial views” that fuel it.
Indeed, it’s easy to locate the kernel of antisemitism in conspiracy theories like QAnon, Pizzagate or the rantings of Alex Jones, even when the word “Jew” is just not mentioned. The Proud Boys who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, often present to the news media as a multiracial fraternity, then share rank antisemitism in encrypted messaging apps. American terrorists — including those that committed large-scale acts of violence this 12 months in Buffalo, Recent York, and in 2019 in El Paso, Texas — accomplish that within the name of an antisemitic conspiracy theory, the Great Alternative, even when Jews aren’t targeted.
So what’s different now? Emboldened by hugely influential celebrities, anti-Jewish bigotry is increasingly finding its way into the mainstream.
“I feel just like the Overton window of acceptable discourse keeps moving for the more severe,” said Rabbi Mark Bloom, senior rabbi at Temple Beth Abraham in Oakland, in an email.
“My big concern is their big followings,” he said of celebrities who had spread antisemitism, referring each to Ye and Kyrie Irving, the preternaturally talented NBA point guard who shared an antisemitic movie on his Twitter account on Oct. 27. The film, which spreads lies about Jewish power and accuses Jews of fabricating the Holocaust, is today a bestseller on Amazon Prime video.
“Our youngsters now should have arguments with their peers for this reason,” Bloom said, “though there really is not any ‘other side.’”
Each Ye and Irving faced hefty business consequences; Ye was dropped from lucrative sponsorship deals, losing, he said, billions in net price. Irving, after reiterating his support for the film in a press conference, and remaining coy when asked whether he harbors antisemitic views, was dropped by Nike and suspended for a minimum of five games without pay.
Still, the institutional response to those hateful missteps couldn’t erase something way more concerning, and way more ungovernable: the upswell of support for them.
An Instagram post from Ye expressing solidarity with Irving earned greater than 1 million likes. Numerous NBA players equivocated when asked about Irving’s behavior; Brooklyn Nets teammate Kevin Durant said the Nets should “move on” (he later wrote that he doesn’t “condone” hate speech or antisemitism). Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma, a teammate of the NBA’s only Jewish player, Deni Avdija, tweeted cryptically on Nov. 4, “Can’t even tell the reality no more.” The tweet drew rebukes from antisemitism watchdog groups; Kuzma then added that the tweet was “not about any current events lol.” Meanwhile a hashtag trended on Twitter: #FreeKyrie.
Emboldened by the coarsening of the general public discourse, white supremacists picked up the mantle. The Goyim Defense League, the antisemitic group liable for flyer campaigns in greater than 40 states and led by Jon Minadeo Jr., launched into a national propaganda tour, seeing a chance to capitalize on what Kanye had began: an effort to “redpill” the “normies” (web speak for opening the eyes of normal people to previously secret but essential knowledge).
GDL members, working with National Socialists, hung banners saying “Kanye is true concerning the Jews” and projected digital messages in highly trafficked areas in California and Florida. “We’ve found the Jews’ weak spot!” a GDL post on the social network Gab read, sharing YouTube videos concerning the Ye and Irving controversies.
Today, antisemites proceed to flood Twitter with hate using the hashtag #TheNoticing, spreading, minute-by-minute, anti-Jewish conspiracies, Holocaust denial and threats to distinguished figures resembling the CEO of the ADL.
“Music and sports have the unique capability to bring people of all races, creeds and political opinions together,” Bloom said. “They are actually driving us further apart.”
For Rabbi Ryan Bauer of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, the experience of the past month was deeply discouraging since it forced him to take into consideration whether the Jewish community had the allies it thought it did.
“The more concerning thing is the response to Kyrie Irving,” Bauer said.
Within the basketball world, Irving’s actions did earn unequivocal condemnation from Charles Barkley (whose daughter is married to a Jew), Shaq, Steve Kerr and others. But Bauer saw much more leeway given to Irving than, say, Donald Sterling, the previous Clippers owner banned from the NBA after making racist statements that were publicized in a leaked recording. Irving, alternatively, stays vp of the players union.
“You’ll be able to imagine in the event you flipped the scenario around, if someone had posted a racist video,” the response would have been different, Bauer said.
“You’re not seeing a sweeping response that claims, hey, there’s no place for this sort of hate,” Bauer added.
He also felt snubbed by allies within the fight for social justice, particularly after years of concerted efforts from Jewish community leaders to indicate solidarity with marginalized groups.
“I used to be at [San Francisco International Airport] throughout the Muslim ban, and for the Black Lives Matter movement,” Bauer said. “The Jewish community has been involved in all these items. And I believe there’s a little bit of looking around and saying, wait a second, where’s the response here?”
“I just feel prefer it’s been a bit tepid,” Bauer added.
So, the way to respond?
Whilst local synagogues proceed to take a position heavily in security measures resembling armed guards, locks and surveillance systems, the proliferation of hate speech online and in live antisemitic stunts presents a separate problem.
Antisemitic discourse works to dehumanize Jews while maintaining plausible deniability. Outside of actual violence, spreading hate will be confused with spreading “truth.”
In response, many rabbis say, Jews ought to be much more visible.
“The response to it is just not to cover, but to get larger,” Bauer said. “We’re a vital a part of American society. So don’t hide in your workplaces, don’t hide in your schools.”
Added Mates-Muchin, “At a time when it appears like you simply want to curve up and disappear, I believe it’s that way more vital that we proceed to achieve out, and proceed to construct connections with people. To look to one another and to other Jewish communities for support. Recognizing that we’re on this together.”