unz | A
fascinating feature of coverage of the Winter 2019/2020 attacks on Jews
by Blacks in New York has been the total absence of media enquiry into why the assaults took place. Like so much historiography on European anti-Semitism, there is simply no room for the question Why? As
in Kiev, or Odessa, or the Rhine Valley, or Lincoln, or Aragon, or
Galicia, the assaults on Jews in Brooklyn apparently emerged from the
ether, motivated by some miasmic combination of insanity and demonic
aggression. NBC New York reported
bluntly on a “spree of hate,” but had nothing in the way of analysis of
context other than a condemnation of “possible hate-based attacks” —
one of the most remarkably opaque pieces of analytical nomenclature I’ve
ever come across. Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind has said
“The attacks against Jews are out of control, and we must have a
concrete strategy to address the rise of these attacks,” but how he can
develop a strategy to address something that apparently does not yet
have an explanation is another question left unanswered.
What
is clear is that Black anti-Semitism presents Jews with an objective
problem in terms of their (publicly-expressed) self-concept as a people
and the received wisdom regarding the nature of anti-Semitism (now given
quasi-legal standing in many countries via the IHRA definition). The
multiple ways in which Jews have sought to deal with this challenge will
be addressed in a forthcoming follow-up essay, but it should suffice
here to close with the remarks of Steven Gold on the Jewish response to
growing Black anti-Semitism in 1940s Harlem:
Being well organized, Jewish communal associations took note when Jewish merchants were accused of inappropriate behavior. When African-American journalists or activists complained about the exploitative behavior of ghetto merchants, Jewish spokesmen often resisted accepting responsibility and instead labeled accusers as anti-Semites for referring to the merchants’ religion. Contending that Jewish merchants treated Blacks no worse than other Whites did, they objected to being singled out.[17]
An
age-old pattern had thus been employed with a 20th century twist.
Denials of responsibility and accusations of blind and unfair bigotry
had been honed to perfection for centuries in Europe, but now came the
masterful flourish of the pluralist culture — to dissolve into
“Whiteness” at will and direct Black anger at that mask instead. After
all, isn’t the Jew the best friend a Black could ask for?
