To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of anti-Semitism’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
In the mid-1990s, none other than Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin told Abraham Foxman that he should find something else to do. Unfortunately for the world and for the legacy of the late prime minister, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League has been quite busy in recent years.
America, Foxman notes, is not Europe. In fact, even the mention of the continent where Foxman was born elicits a story about an Italian editorial cartoon in which Israeli soldiers surround the baby Jesus, who asks, “Have you come to kill me again?” Italian politicians told Foxman they saw the cartoon as a legitimate criticism of Israeli policy.
Can outbreaks of widespread anti-Semitism happen here? We’d be fools to say no, Foxman said during an interview in San Francisco last week.
“Are we immune? Nope. It can happen here. It can happen anywhere,” said Foxman, who was in San Francisco for a speech at Congregation Emanu-El as well as community meetings.
According to an ADL poll, one-third of Americans believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. In Europe, predictably, the numbers are even higher, with an average of 58 percent accusing Jews of greater allegiance to Israel than to their home country.
In Spain, the figure stands at 72 percent. (“They’ve probably never even met a Jew. There are 18,000 Jews there; how many can you meet?” said the exasperated Foxman in his low, gravely voice.)
“We’ve come a very long way toward social acceptance in this country. Social barriers have dropped. Still, we haven’t come all the way in terms of acceptance as a group,” said Foxman, referring to the results of the dual-loyalty poll.
“To me, the question that one-third of Americans believe we’re not loyal is the most classical canard of anti-Semitism. It started with the ‘Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,’ a document which said Jews are only loyal to ourselves and our goal is to control.”
The most violent bouts of anti-Semitism have all started with questions of loyalty, noted Foxman.
“This is a canard that has cost the Jewish people dearly. This is the most potent.”
Yet at the same time that ADL polls show
33 percent of Americans question Jewish loyalty and 17 percent could be qualified as anti-Semites, Foxman believes Jews who protest anti-Semitism are being held to a higher standard than minorities who decry racism.
When Harvard President Lawrence Summers said singling out Israel for divestment was anti-Semitic, newspaper editorials accused him of “stifling debate.”
“Poppycock! He was stimulating debate! If he talked about racism or prejudice, he’d have been made the poster boy for having the courage to stand up to the academic community and talk about hate and racism,” he said.
“Why is it when you’re talking about anti-Semitism, you’re stifling debate? There’s a double-standard out there.”
Removing a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle from his jacket pocket, Foxman shakes his head at a column in which the writer implied it was irresponsible to label Rainbow Grocery’s partial ban of Israeli goods as anti-Semitic.
“Instead of writing about the immorality of boycotting, what this is about is a charge of anti-Semitism,” he said. “I find one way to avoid dealing with the issue is to criticize Jews for labeling people as anti-Semitic.”
If the departments of Rainbow boycotting Israeli goods are successful, said Foxman, then similar boycotts may spread.
“Whoever started this had a purpose: to raise an issue, to embarrass Israel, to embarrass the Jewish community and also to flex their muscles,” he said. If it becomes a cause célèbre, then it may attract others to do it.”
Whatever happens, it’s too late for Israel supporters to ignore the situation because of the publicity it’s received thanks to the Web. The Internet, Foxman says, is a mixed blessing. Its benefits are legion, but one misinformed e-mailer can start a Web hoax, and hate-mongers can utilize it in a way “Goebbels would never dreamed of.”
Yet as frustrated as Foxman grows over the state of the world today, he is steadfast in his contention that when the majority population raises its voice against anti-Semitism, disaster will be averted.
Regarding the Holocaust, “What we now know better than we’ve ever known before is that wherever non-Jews spoke up, Jews lived,” said Foxman, who was born in Poland in 1940 and hidden as an infant.
“Whether it was on the grand scale of Bulgaria, where, from the king to the parliament to the unions everyone stood up and said, ‘You can’t take my Jews,’ and saved 50,000, or Albania, where they saved 20,000. Wallenberg saved 100,000, Schindler saved 1,400 and my nanny saved me. The lesson is clear: If good people stand up, we can prevent it.”