On the Term Anti-Semitism
I was asked by a colleague to write an article responding to this bigotry found on Quora. I hope I did it justice.
My response:
The fact that the word anti-semitism makes people worried is because people saw where it led to, mass murder.
Think about it. One in three Jews in the world, murdered within six years, one in two in Europe. Anti-semitism is a scary word for the world because it is a reminder of what the world did to the Jewish people because of that hatred. Those who do not learn from the past tend to repeat it, and the world is hopefully trying not to repeat mass genocide again.
People resent the term antisemitism and accuse Jews of victim-blaming do so because they resent having to be accountable for their words. They want to be hateful, without Jews sticking up for themselves. “Stop calling me out, stop holding me accountable.” It’s similar to being a woman and having to stand up to sexism. Instead of people fixing the sexism, those who want to uphold the bigotry will claim that the woman is overly sensitive. They will regard a woman calling a man sexist as far worse than the man being sexist.
Anti-semites/sexists want to think everyone agrees with them but is too scared to say it. Sadly, they are wrong. The “rancid terror” people feel when they hear those words is actually the rancid disgust moral people have when Anti-semitic/sexist bigots are unmasked.
Can you imagine how bigoted people have to be, to hold the Holocaust against Jews and police how we deal with our trauma in a way that pleases them? Again, as a woman, it reminds me of the #metoo movement when women who stepped forward were accused of attention-seeking, and making use of their trauma for profit. We are actually perversely accused of enjoying our victimhood too much. Seriously, I’d rather not have been a victim in the first place.
People love to quote “An anti-Semite used to mean a man who hated Jews. Now it means a man who is hated by Jews.” That is attributed to either Holocaust Denier David Irving or writer, Joseph Sobran, fired by the National Review for hate speech against Jews.
Those who accuse us of weaponizing Anti-semitism do so because they want to hate Jews without consequence. Those who seek to ban Jews from talking about their own persecution are the ones who seek to persecute Jews and silence them.
Don’t let them.