By Chris Crass (February 28, 2017)
Antisemitism positions Jews as socially acceptable targets for working and middle class Christians (religiously and culturally) to unleash violence and hatred, to release the anger and resentments of crushing economic and political inequality.
Antisemitism instructs and encourages working and middle class Christians to see Jews as the conspiratorial puppet masters of society, all the while obscuring the actual functioning of ruling class power, and strengthening despots who traffic in hatred of Jews, hatred of Muslims, hatred of people of color, hatred of disabled people, hatred of queers, hatred of women, hatred of the Left.
Just like white supremacy, it isn’t that ruling class people aren’t racist and antisemitic, it’s that we must understand how racism, antisemitism, sexism and systems of oppression operate to divide, conquer and rule the vast majority of us, while consolidating, protecting, and mystifying power at the top.
All of us raised religiously or culturally as Christian have a responsibility to boldly and repeatedly denounce antisemitism, unite with our Jewish friends, comrades and family, both because it’s the right thing to do, and because we are the ones antisemitism is trying to turn into soldiers and/or Nazi-era “Good Germans” to further and go along with supremacy systems and despotism.
The vandalism and attacks on Jewish cemeteries, community centers, and synagogues are not archaic fringe acts, they are a cornerstone of authoritarian regimes and their agendas against the majority of humanity.
With deep gratitude for Jewish leaders and organizations rising up against this hate. With deep gratitude for Muslim and Christian leaders and organizations refusing the antisemitic strategy of hate and division and instead are uniting in solidarity. With deep gratitude to everyone building up the Left as a force for powerful change rooted in love and collective liberation. We build together, to all get free.