2 YEARS OF GASLIGHTING...
The gaslighting the Jewish community has experienced in the last two years has been monumental. There is the obvious, of course: the vile gaslighting regarding the events and nature of the October 7 massacre, a phenomenon that mirrors Holocaust denial. Then there is the gaslighting regarding the 360% spike in antisemitism in the United States since, with similar staggering figures reported elsewhere in the Diaspora.
But there is something else, something arguably even more insidious. We are gaslit not only about the antisemitism that exists, but about the reasons that we speak out against said antisemitism. When the majority of Jewish New Yorkers express concern over Zohran Mamdani’s affiliation with antisemites, whitewashing of antisemitic incitement, and proliferation of age-old antisemitic conspiracies, The New York Times writes that we are weary of his support for Palestinian rights. When Jewish students sound the alarm at the overt support for terrorist groups, antisemitic rhetoric, physical violence, and the infringement of Jewish civil rights at the pro-Palestine encampments on campus, the media describes the encampments as “pro-peace,” thus implying that most Jewish students are anti-peace. It goes on and on.
...BUT IT'S NOT JUST GASLIGHTING
The other day, it finally clicked for me: it’s not just that we are gaslit. It’s that the weapon of choice in this gaslighting is the ancient antisemitic conspiracy of blood libel.
Arguably, the biggest culprit in all of this is children’s educator and entertainer Ms. Rachel.
translation:
Jews that think I’m antisemitic are not normal and not good people. Jews that think I’m antisemitic want kids to be killed. Jews that think I’m antisemitic want kids to lose limbs. Jews that think I’m antisemitic want kids to starve. Jews that think I’m antisemitic want kids to be homeless. Jews that think I’m antisemitic don’t want kids to go to school.
STRAW MAN ARGUMENTS
A straw man argument is an informal fallacy in which, while creating the impression of refuting an argument, the real subject of the argument is not addressed or refuted, but instead, is replaced with a different argument.
For example: Person A states, “I prefer dogs over cats.” Person B responds: “Why do you hate cats?”
Person B, while creating the impression that they’ve responded to Person A’s argument, is actually arguing something else entirely.
In this context, a straw man argument can look like this: Jews decry the use of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthi banners at pro-Palestine protests in New York City. Instead of addressing the issue at hand — that is, overt support for terrorism that kills Jews — supporters of the protests in turn accuse the Jews of being “pro-war” or “anti-ceasefire.”
AN UGLY PRECEDENT
This kind of behavior towards Jews is nothing new — and it has a really ugly history.
After Hitler rose to power, American Jews who sounded the alarm on the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in Europe and urged the world to intervene on their behalf were gaslit and accused of being warmongers and agitators who sought to drive the United States into another world war.
"Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences."
CHARLES LINDBERGH, 1941
This is a pattern of history: when Jews express concern over antisemitism, we are demonized as warmongers and war instigators, baselessly suggesting that we want innocent people to die, and echoing an antisemitic trope dating back to 19th century Europe: that Jews provoke wars for pleasure and profit.
BLOOD LIBEL
Blood libel is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that originally asserted that Jews killed Christian children for ritual purposes, though it has since evolved to describe any false accusations of murder against Jews.
The earliest origins of blood libel possibly precede Christianity entirely, dating to the Greek occupation of Judea between the fourth and second centuries BCE, but the first official blood libel took place in Norwich, England, in 1144, when the Jewish community was falsely charged with the murder of 12-year-old William of Norwich. Naturally, accusations of blood libel are always followed by an uptick in antisemitic violence.
Blood libels depict Jews as inherently evil, malevolent, and bloodthirsty. When Ms. Rachel implies that her Jewish critics must simply want children to die, she is not only shutting down all opportunity for reflection, education, and accountability, but she is echoing one of the oldest antisemitic tropes in history...and maligning the Jewish community in the process.
BLOOD LIBEL AS A GASLIGHTING TACTIC
For a while, I used to think the accusations of antisemitism against Ms. Rachel were overblown. I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
But how a person responds to allegations of bigotry says a lot about them, and about how seriously they take that bigotry in the first place. And here’s the thing: every time, without fail, Ms. Rachel defends herself from allegations of antisemitism, she does so with more antisemitism…specifically, with blood libel.
Ms. Rachel implies, time and time again, that any Jew who finds issue with her statements and behaviors must surely want innocent Palestinian children to die. This is a vile projection, untrue, and incompatible with empirical data on the Jewish community.
FOR THE RECORD, MS. RACHEL
Here’s why many of us believe you have some serious, serious antisemitic bias, at the very least:
- You projected the oldest antisemitic conspiracy in the book, and one that has cost the lives of millions of Jews, the conspiracy of Jewish deicide, onto the Jewish state. Criticism of Israel isn’t antisemitic, of course. “Criticism” of Israel that utilizes antisemitic tropes is.
- You uncritically repeat allegations made by Hamas and have not corrected yourself when those allegations were proven to be false. It’s fine to be skeptical of the Israeli government or the IDF, but it’s telling when that same skepticism is not extended to internationally-proscribed terror organizations that livestreamed their crimes against humanity.
- You collaborated with Motaz Azaiza, who has posted in support of Hamas, celebrated October 7, and mourned Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, both of whom had Israeli children’s blood on their hands.
- You, a white Christian woman with zero skin in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have virtually made your entire platform about the one war involving the world’s only Jewish state, ignoring much deadlier conflicts elsewhere in the world, many of which concern the United States in one way or another. This suggests, at the very least, a hyperfixation on the State of Israel rooted in antisemitic bias — whether you are aware of it or not.
- You’ve fostered such an antisemitic, terror-supporting online community that any time you throw Jews a bone, you have to close the comments. That should tell you something.
- You respond to accusations of antisemitism by victimizing yourself, a non-Jewish person, and then deflect from those accusations by tokenizing fringe Jewish groups, instead of sincerely listening to the concerns of the majority of Jews. That tells us how seriously you take antisemitism — which is to say, not at all. If you took antisemitism seriously, you would reflect, not deflect.
ANTISEMITISM ISN'T ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS, MS. RACHEL
Kind of weird to tokenize JFREJ, an organization that gave an award to a convicted child rapist, Douglas Powell, two years ago, when you claim to care about children so much.
JFREJ has never apologized.
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