Freedoms Son

MyJewishLearning published yesterday an article written by a Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI for short) - for those who are not familiar with them, they are an evangelical Christian movement that promotes antisemitic ideas.

“Feeling at Home Among 900 Black Jews at an Ethiopian-Israeli Wedding: As I look around the room, for the first time in my life I feel like I belong to the Jewish people.”

The author claims to suffer with racism from within the Jewish community, but the article reads in a very weird way. So I decided to check (and I’ve seen that a few others on Facebook did as well), and found her page on a BHI website: Celeste Jackson; and her mom, Mother Anna “Levy”. Their “synagogue” is a BHI church in Saint Albans, NY.

There is racism in the community, and pieces like these (be it by Celeste Jackson or Nylah Burton, et al) make it harder to address that because they provoke a growth of scepticism toward those who actually face racism in the Jewish community. The reference others have often is non-Jews faking being Jewish for the sake of identity politics (Nylah), or whatever BHIs are doing (Celeste). Which makes easier for detractors to claim that when Jews facing such issues come forward with complaints, they are lying, just look at these *points to the LARPers*.  

It is doubtful if Tali (the Ethiopian Jewish friend) is aware that Celeste is a BHI. Both in Israel and abroad, Ethiopian Jews do not buy into BHI claims, and there is at least one video available on YouTube of such confrontations.

A wave of anti-Semitism has swept over Ukraine. In the past three weeks alone, a far-right leader publicly called for cleansing Ukraine of zhidi (a slur equivalent to “kike”); a Holocaust memorial in Ternopil was bombed; hundreds marched through Lviv, in honor of an SS unit, complete with Nazi salutes; “Death to Zhidi” graffiti was scrawled in two cities; a revered rabbi’s tomb was vandalized; a Romani camp in Kiev was attacked and burned by far-right nationalists, and hundreds rocked out at a neo-Nazi concert clad in swastikas and throwing up Nazi salutes.

This outpouring of hatred got the attention of the World Jewish Congress, which put out a short video condemning the surge of anti-Semitism:

Shortly afterward, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko issued a press release affirming his commitment to combating anti-Semitism. In turn, WJC president Ronald Lauder thanked Poroshenko for his statement, which made Lauder feel “gratified.”

But we shouldn’t heave a sigh of relief just yet. Unfortunately, WJC’s willingness to accept Poroshenko’s word is premature. Over the past four years of Poroshenko’s presidency, Ukraine has experienced a steady growth of anti-Semitism, including the glorification of Nazi collaborators, vandalism of Jewish sites and public threats against Jews — and the rate of anti-Semitic incidents appears to be escalating.

Indeed, the day after Poroshenko issued his empty promise, which was so effusively celebrated by Lauder, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry flatly denied the growth of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. How can Poroshenko combat anti-Semitism when his own Foreign Ministry (which he theoretically has control over) refuses to acknowledge the problem?

After the WJC welcomed Poroshenko’s commitment to fight anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred, a Ukrainian mayor was caught spewing vitriol about Jews seeking to kill gentiles; the Ukrainian consul in Hamburg was suspended following allegations of writing anti-Semitic Facebook posts, including blaming the Jews for WWII; the tomb of the daughter of a revered rabbi was defaced for the fifth time in two years; far-right thugs stormed the home of a TV station co-owner; the neo-Nazi C14 gang carried out another Roma pogrom, torching an encampment in L’viv; and ultranationalists affiliated with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion shut down an LGBT event sponsored by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in Kiev while authorities refused to act.

Poroshenko became president following the bloody Maidan uprising of 2013-2014, in which ordinary Ukrainians died for the right to live in a democratic, Western nation. But at best, Poroshenko’s government has ignored the anti-Semitism problem in its midst; at worst, it has actively encouraged it.

Celebrating Butchers Of Jews

The April 28 march in L’viv, during which a thousand people honored SS Galichina, a Ukrainian division in Hitler’s Waffen-SS, was not an isolated event planned by a fringe group. The march was the culmination of a weeklong celebration of SS Galichina promoted by the L’viv city council. Bizarrely enough, this included a contest encouraging teenagers to submit fan artwork of the SS.

How does a European city come to glorify an SS unit whose members took a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler? It helps to have a healthy dose of historical revisionism. Last year, the director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory — an official department of the Kiev government — declared that SS Galichina fighters were actually “war victims.” This, of course, raises the question: if the SS were victims, what does that make the Jews and other ethnicities they slaughtered?

SS Galichina is far from the only WWII-era paramilitary sanctioned by modern Ukrainian authorities. In 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed laws that proclaimed the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which collaborated with the Nazis and was responsible for liquidation of thousands of Jews, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which carried out the ethnic cleansing of 70,000-100,000 Poles, as well as other ethnicities on its own accord, to be heroes of Ukraine.

Thanks to Kiev’s laws, as well as public campaigns conducted by the Institute of National Memory (whose 2018 budget is around two million dollars), these butchers are now celebrated across the land.

It should come as no surprise that state-sponsored glorification of anti-Semites is often accompanied by anti-Semitic outbursts. On January 1, 2017, thousands marched through Kiev in honor of OUN leader Stepan Bandera. Chants of “Jews Out!” rang through the crowd, yet the next day, police denied hearing anything anti-Semitic. Last June, L’viv had a three-day festival in honor of UPA leader Roman Shukhevych, and a synagogue was firebombed during the festivities. In November, Radio Free Europe reported seeing Nazi salutes as 20,000 torch-wielding men marched in honor of the UPA.

Vandalizing Holocaust Memorials And Religious Sites

Anti-Semitic vandals in Ukraine are hardly concerned with originality. The Holocaust memorial recently firebombed in Ternopil has been defaced on four separate occasions over the past year. But that’s only one memorial: other Holocaust sites, Jewish centers, cemeteries, tombs and places of worship are vandalized with swastikas, SS runes and slurs on a regular basis.

The rampant vandalism has gotten to the point where the Israeli Foreign Ministry took the unusual step of publicly demanding that Ukrainian authorities begin investigating these assaults. A similar plea was made by the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee in a New York Times op-ed, which stressed the government’s apathy in protecting religious and Holocaust sites.

Publicly Threatening Jews

The May 2 incident in Odessa, when Tetiana Soikina, regional head of the ultranationalist Right Sector organization, promised to get rid of the zhidi, comes amid a spate of similar calls to violence by public figures. In March 2017, Member of Parliament Nadiya Savchenko, once celebrated as the “Ukrainian Nelson Mandela” by Western media, exploded in an anti-Semitic tirade on live television. “Why is no one talking about what the people are saying…today’s Jewish yoke?” asked a caller. “Good question,” replied Savchenko. “Yes, our government has non-Ukrainian blood, so to speak. What should be done about it? We must think and take action.”

Barely two months later, a general in Ukraine’s security services posted flagrant threats promising to exterminate the zhidi, which prompted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to demand Poroshenko fire him (no action was taken). Several months later, the regional head of the far-right Svoboda party went off on an anti-Semitic rant after local Jews protested the erection of a statue to Symon Petliura, yet another Ukrainian “hero” responsible for mass pogroms. “Get used to our rules or be punished,” the Svoboda head said, encouraging his fellow ethnic Ukrainians to “put minorities in their place.”

Unfortunately, the public officials and party leaders making such statements have done so with impunity. And even though Poroshenko promised an “immediate” law enforcement reaction to Soikina’s public threats, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that Soikina’s call to cleanse the country of Jews was “not inherently discriminatory or a call to violence.” Mostly likely, Soikina, like the others, will face no consequences.

Persecuting the Roma

Historically, whoever targets the Roma sooner or later comes after the Jews.

Watching a short clip of the recent pogrom is bone-chilling — masked thugs chase terrified women and children in the middle of a European capital, as black smoke from the burning Roma tabor (camp) fills the background. The women scream for help, which doesn’t come. Indeed, when the police were finally shamed into opening an investigation, they classified it as “hooliganism,” which shows the shocking indifference with which Roma lives are regarded.

But the most disturbing aspect here is this was at least the fourth anti-Roma pogrom in Ukraine over the past two years.

In September of 2016, two-dozen Roma were forced to flee an Odessa village after locals burned down their homes. The then-governor of Odessa responded by praising the villagers’ actions, saying that the village has long been a den of “anti-socialism,” and that he fully shared the mob’s concerns. The only thing the police did was provide a “safe corridor” for the Roma to leave through. In May 2017, a Roma man was killed during an attack in Kharkiv; according to witnesses, local authorities were involved in the shooting. That same month, a group of men attacked Roma families at a Kiev railroad station.

The recent pogrom in Kiev, however, stands out in that the responsibility was proudly claimed by C14, a neo-Nazi gang that has been gaining influence over the past year. C14’s actions caused Amnesty International to issue an urgent statement warning that the radicals “feel untouchable…the authorities, in most cases, do not act,” and anyone, including Jews, could be next.

The examples listed above are just a small fraction of the deeply disturbing pattern of anti-Semitism and Poroshenko’s inability and unwillingness to assert the rule of law. They don’t include the rampant attacks on LGBT communities or the way far-right groups disrupt courts and defy law enforcement. But they should be enough to show that readiness to accept empty assurances from Poroshenko is shockingly naïve.

Members of the Toronto synagogue Adath Israel Congregation opened a plain-looking envelope to find a swastika and the words “Jewry must perish” on Monday, an occurrence that human rights organization B'nai Brith Canada says happens all too frequently.

The letter, featuring a full-page drawing of a swastika inside what appears to be a bleeding Star of David, left members of the congregation afraid for their safety, B'nai Brith Canada representative Marty York said.

York said the woman who handled the letter was “terrified” it could contain something poisonous.

B'nai Brith Canada reported that the same letter had been delivered to synagogues in Montreal, Hamilton and Edmonton. They’re aware of five letters in total, but York suspects there may be more.

“It was an eight on the frighten scale,” York told CBC Toronto. “But I’ve seen nines and 10s, all the way down the ladder, almost every day.”

The organization reported last spring they’d heard about more than 1,700 anti-Semitic incidents across Canada last year, the highest number yet.

@witches-ofcolor 

okay so first off the majority of american jews aren’t white 

I’m simply saying that in the light of recent events, black people are primary victims as well as Jewish people, not secondary victims as people have been saying.

“we, as people of color, are primary victims in this—specifically black people.” no one is arguing that people of color aren’t a target. for the kkk they are definitely the primary target. but for neo-nazis? no. that’s jews. black people are obviously in danger and are a target. but neo-nazis are saying their “goals” are to kill jews. 

“No one is forgetting Jewish people. No one.” That’s false. The news is pretty much just…not mentioning us. They’re not discussing the antisemitic slogans to the extent they’re discussing racism. Most of the goyische posts I’ve seen do not mention jews. 

“Every post I’ve seen has been graciously inclusive of Jews, as they should be.” Graciously inclusive? Um. We’re the primary target of neo-nazis what does graciously even mean in this context? we should be thankful they’re not forgetting us??? even though they are?

“I don’t consider Jewish people POC as whole nor do I lump their issues in with ours because to my understanding a lot of them are white (at least American Jews).” this is an incredibly false understanding of jews and race. ethnic jews aren’t white. there are jews that are definitely poc (black jews for example!) and there are ethnic jews such as myself who aren’t white but aren’t exactly poc, depending on your definition. jews do not possess all the advantages white privilege affords.

I am allowed to disagree with the way the charlottesville tragedy has been used without being antiblack. you can’t say I’m antiblack just because you don’t want to acknowledge the insidious way antisemitism has been ignored at Charlottesville. 

If I said that Jews were secondary victims, I would have stated that explicitly, because I’m shy about nothing I say on this blog. You’re putting words in my mouth. Read the post that sparked this anon being sent to you (which you have, but obviously you’re just cherry picking what and what not to use).

That said, you most likely know that this post is a response to this post, which makes people of color and “black people” (as if we aren’t people of color)  as secondary victims in light of the Charlottesville events, which is not true at all.

Jews are main victims. But so are African Americans, as this entire tragedy occurred as a direct result of the removal of a Confederate statue, which in turn spurred neo-Nazis, KKK, and White Supremacist to march the streets. 

So to claim that black people aren’t the “main” victims and imply that they are secondary to Jewish victims despite the reason for this entire controversy centering around a Confederate statue is wrong, it’s racist, and incredibly hurtful to African Americans who are harassed and still suffer to this day due to racism ingrained in America.

I’m not saying that Jews aren’t main victims, because they are. What I’m saying is that African Americans are as well, as I’ve been repeating, these marches were a result of Confederate statues being removed, and that has everything to do with us. Everyone marching the streets—Neo-Nazi’s included, were doing so to victimize African Americans as well as they were Jews.

Claiming we’re secondary victims—even remotely implying that, is harmful, is racist, and is absolutely wrong.

Everyone knows that the Nazis target the Jews, everyone does. If you don’t, you’re an idiot. No one is forgetting that, certainly not to the point where we have to tell African Americans to shut up and sit back, because these people marching the streets aren’t victimizing us.

That’s the point I’m trying to make. That’s what I’m trying to say.

And again, the existence of Black people in Germany was blamed on, guess who? —

In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler charged that “the Jews had brought the Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate.”

Yes, again, the Nazis, and Hitler himself, blamed Jewish people for the presence of Black people in Germany! 

So yes, absolutely Black people in Germany suffered. No one disputes this. The Nazis targeted biracial black children (sterilization), and were exceptionally cruel to black prisoners of war and non-German black folks. (Although unlike Jews or Roma, a few Afro-Germans did join the Hitler Youth and Wehrmacht, though this seems rare.) While Afro-Germans were oppressed, there was no official policy regarding say, Nazi extermination, aside from laws against inter-racial relationships (which also existed for Jews and Roma.) No one disputes the fact that antiblackness existed in Nazi Germany, and no one here is disputing the idea that Nazis were antiblack. But within their antiblackness, Jewish people specifically were named and blamed as the cause of Black people, Jewish people were (and are) “at fault” for the existence of blackness within Nazi ideology.**** 

Nazism’s antiblackness is in the flavor of “The Jewish people caused Black people to be our problem/created them to destroy us.” So again, while antiblackness exists and is damaging in nazism, if you search out a root, you’ll find antisemitism. If you look for what Nazis blame for the issue of “Black existence,” you will find they point the finger at Jews. 

**** Note: many white supremacists/almost all nazis abide by some kind of argument that Jewish people are responsible for the advent/creation of racial mixture, black people, brown people, and biracial people, that they are the Ultimate Evil Brown responsible for all other “Bad Races”, and who “dilute” or seek to “destroy” the white race which is the “real” chosen people/”superior race”. In some kind of weird mirror hellscape of this, there are a few fringe groups which claim Jews are…..the root cause of the evil white race, the ultimate Evil White Man, and also racial mixture and the dilution/destruction of the black race who are the “true” chosen people. It’s mirrored specifically in the New Black Party, and the Nation of Islam, and to lesser extents in minor “Black Hebrew Israelite” groups which are supersessionist black christian messianic movements. That certainly isn’t a mainstream view by any means, but also since moving to the east coast, I’ve seen several NOI and “Black Israelite” folks yelling about the [white] Jews in public. Those groups seem to be an on-going fixture of Philadelphia from what I can tell, just like any other fundie yelling street preacher.

Regardless, no wonder most Jewish folks cringe over the idea that a gentile gets to “decide” their race – when outsider groups do this, the next step is usually to call for their murder. 

I am aware they primarily targeted them but the idea visibly black people were not more vulnerable to violence because they weren’t Jewish is problematic because colorism and anti blackness surely did determine the method in how people were targeted.

Hey, hi, hi do you remember that whole thing where Nazi Germany mandated all Jewish people wear a giant yellow star of David on their clothing at all times? 

Did we forget that they made the visibility of Jewish people legally mandatory?  

Like you remember that part, right? It did not matter if someone ethnically “looked” Jewish or not, because 

A.) Jewish people were all forced to wear giant badges that indicated their Jewishness and were forced into ghettos to identify them by location, 

B.) Nazis had registries, lists, and also forced Jewish people to re-register for Jewish passports and Identification that labeled them as Jewish, and 

I know you’re not directly responding to me but this is originally my thread so I’m going to address some things.

goyim or gentile means non-jew. the white thing was elsewhere on this thread, people aren’t always reblogging that part of it. if you look at it you’ll find it.

“clever use of gentile” well gentile is the word for non jews. stop making people seem conniving by using it for fucks sake. if you had googled the term you’d know that.

I’m not going to say it again. Neo Nazis at Charlottesville impact jews the most. jews and Romani people. 

Me personally? I’m not white. I’m an ethnic jew. you actually are trying to decide my race and other jew’s race by saying we are white. no one’s saying they’re black or brown. if you read any of my other posts you would see the way I personally define it is not being white but not being a person of color either, it’s an in-between thing.

“I’m not telling you your race but….” um, that’s exactly what you just did tho.

Also that’s so fucking gross to say  “clever use of gentile”. UNLIKE IN CHRISTIANITY - GOY/GENTILE IS NOT AN INSULT. As a former christian - in a christian context “gentile” is ABSOLUTELY used as an insult. NOT in Jewish culture. And to accuse a Jew of being sneaky? 

Then neo-fascism reared its head in America, but Roma and Jews were left out of the conversation in terms of people being impacted, because our oppression was “over.”