Imagine that members of a religious minority were being frequently physically assaulted in America’s largest city at alarming rates. Imagine if members of that minority were being cold-cocked or spit on randomly for doing nothing more than being who they are and dressing how they dress. Imagine what a powerful and important story this would be to our country, how mobilized the media and government would be to stop it. But what if I told you that this is happening in New York City right now, and nobody seems to care very much? How can this be? I’ll explain it.
Orthodox Jews in New York City, specifically in Brooklyn, have experienced alarming rates of physical assault over the past year. The New York Police Department says that hate crimes in the city are up 67 percent this year. Of those, a whopping 80 percent have been anti-Semitic hate crimes. Just this week an Orthodox Jew just walking down the street was attacked from behind, punched in the head by an attacker who then ran away. In another incident this week, an Orthodox Jew was attacked by a group of men, one of whom shouted “You (expletive) Jew.”
This is an all too familiar story in Brooklyn these days, and there is a reason it isn’t being treated as a crisis by our media or government. That reason is that many if not most of the assailants are black or Hispanic men. In an article in The New York Times last October that was careful to point out, although without much evidence, that people of all descriptions are committing acts of anti-Semitism, Ginia Bellafante writes (emphasis mine), “In fact, it is the varied backgrounds of people who commit hate crimes in the city that make combating and talking about anti-Semitism in New York much harder.”
We should be clear about what this means. It means that if these assaults were being committed by white men in hoods or MAGA hats, it would not be “hard to talk about.” It would be a clear-cut case of bigotry that needs to be fought with every tool in our arsenal. Instead, journalists are wringing their hands about intersectionality, and careful not to indulge the narrative that these physical attacks are coming from blacks and Hispanics in bordering neighborhoods, even though that narrative is absolutely true.
I know this because I have done it myself. Back in February I wrote about these attacks and I wrote some things that I now regret and want to apologize to the Orthodox community for. I wrote that Orthodox Jews are a “strange set of neighbors,” and their insular ways lead to tension in communities. In retrospect, and through some Orthodox Jews who reached out to me, I see that this was not acceptable, that in fact, I was in some way blaming these Jews for their own assaults.
Just as bad, I was making excuses for these attackers, trying to a find a far more nuanced take than I ever would if the assailants were white men. Even as someone who writes often about race double standards in the media, I fell straight into the trap. I found it “hard to talk about” without placing some blame on both sides.
There is nothing wrong with taking historical racial prejudice into account when writing about racial tension. A conscientious journalist should have worries about painting groups with too broad a brush or promoting stereotypes, but this must be balanced with telling the truth and giving a story the attention it needs and deserves.
In this, both the media and the city government are failing badly, and this is part of why. I asked city councilman and candidate for public advocate Joe Borelli if he thought the city and Mayor Bill de Blasio were doing enough. He was succinct, “It seems like the outrage ended when they couldn’t tie these hate crimes to Trump.”
Jews have fallen completely off the victimization chart informally created by progressives to rank their various constituent victim classes.
Sadly, for progressives, Jews are among the most monied of all their traditional supporters.
It’s getting to be a case of “fool me once,…..”
Our universities are losing alumni donors because these progressive strongholds mistreat the Jews & Israel on campus.
As we see more & more anti-Semitic attacks covered ONLY on-line but ignored in the media, Jews are smart enough to get the point and LEAVE the progressive plantation.
Lately we’ve seen reports that 50% of all Trump support comes from women,
That 29% of all black female voters would vote Trump,
That the “WalkAway” movement is growing even as Dem candidates veer further Left.
There’s been very little said of the Jewish vote.
There’s a real “Shy Tory” aspect to Jews openly telling who they support.
I have Jewish relatives.
They have all, every one of them, quit the Democrat Party recently.
Will Trump get that bump?
Time will tell, but Jews are not being treated well by those who firmly believe they have nowhere to run away to.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with pointing out that the fact that some people look or act differently from another group can be the reason they draw prejudicial actions. That is not the same thing and proclaiming that those people DESERVE to be assaulted. Beyond any question, blacks and Hispanics draw negative actions because the distinctively look different from what might be a predominately white group; that’s not the same as saying that it’s OK. The same goes for Muslims or Orthodox Jews. Remember, in Nazi Germany, Jews had to wear the Star of David so non-Jews would know just who to be prejudiced against and attack.
It was just this kind of molly-coddling of people due to their race (racism itself) that had the direct result of the Parkland shootings. Of course, the more attacks there are, the more opportunities there are to blame the attacks on conservatives. Note the almost total absence of coverage of the recent Highlands Ranch shootings in Colorado; too many indicators pointing directly at the left to exploit. But liberals simply hope there will be another, more exploitable tragedy sooner rather than later; hopefully before the 2020 elections.
This is more evidence of, not only the left’s acceptance of anti-Semitism and even violence against Jews, but how they only attend to such instances when they are politically useful.
Surely they are snowy white Fly over country MAGA hat wearing good ol boys that drive up in the truck to the big city with nooses and bleach, why arent they spotted flying the confederate flag through the toll roads.
translation
They keep to themselves and dont bother anyone
Is it echos of Rev. Wright?
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8956/black-lives-matter-antisemitism