Comment by jesserosenthal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jesserosenthal | Hacker News Reader

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You ask why it is hard to believe that "everyone who is Jewish constantly fears for their life and lives with daily radical antisemitism." I can't speak for the poster you're responding to, but I can speak from multiplication of anecdote: neither I nor any American Jew that I am related to (born after, say, 1950) has ever in their life experienced any threat of violence or loss of opportunity due to being Jewish. I want to extend that further to any Jew I know, but I know a lot, and I'm afraid I might forget some edge case. To be clear, I'm talking about the US. That isn't to say it doesn't happen -- I'm well aware of the Pittsburgh shooting, and other acts. But there is no significant history of antisemitic violence in the US (roughly four anti-semitic lynchings during a period that saw 3,500 anti-black lynchings), so if this is arising here, it is arising as a new historical formation. Not---as various billboards or Philip Roth novels would have you believe---as the return of a barely repressed, long-simmering animus.

There is a sense among many that the overall vibe has changed. I can buy that---the nativist and anti-globalist vibe in America, and on this message board, has changed, and Jews may well become the totems for that, as they often have. But numbers are harder to come by. The ADL, which does much of the counting, has been open about the fact that it considers Jewish anti-zionist groups like JVP to be hate groups, and their demonstrations (made up largely of Jews) to be anti-semitic acts.[1]

My point is just that if we're talking about vibes and sense of the discourse, there are many Jews (myself included) who also are deeply suspicious that, as the parent said, "everyone who is Jewish constantly fears for their life and lives with daily radical antisemitism." You asked why they find it hard to believe. As an n of 1, closely connected to an n of many more, I find it impossible to believe.

[1] https://twitter.com/JGreenblattADL/status/171479177486948797...

I live in an extraordinarily liberal, extraordinarily inclusive, extraordinarily communitarian enclave of Chicagoland, and I just watched a school board meeting (I am in the kind of community where everyone watches the school board meeting) where 6 households back to back got up to the public comment podium and talked about the specific, materially important physical safety issues they are currently, personally, experiencing as Jewish Americans.

I am not sticking up for ADL, which I agree has tilted way too far towards the defense of the Israeli government and surrendered some credibility in the process. JVP is controversial for good reason, and it is not reasonable for people to cite JVP as evidence that mainstream Jewish Americans broadly agree with a maximalist anti-Israel position. But they are not a hate group.

Right now I look at ADL the same way I look at RationalWiki. I don't trust editorialisms from RationalWiki at all. Who would? But when RationalWiki presents receipts, I look at the receipts. ADL's "editorial" voice is not very useful right now, but their specific reporting often is.

At any rate, my major point here is: Jewish Americans face unique, widespread, material safety issues. If you're operating under the impression that it's easy to be Jewish in America as it is to be Irish Catholic, do some reading and revise that opinion. From what I can see, that would be a very difficult claim to defend.

I admit to bristling a bit at your suggestion that I "do some reading" on the Jewish experience in America. I like to think that I'm fairly well read on the topic. But if it wasn't clear from the previous post, I am also a (secular) Jew, married to a Jew, and come from a large, geographically spread out (and politically spread out) Jewish family. Most of my relatives are married to Jews. I've been to more family bar and bar mitzvahs than I can count, including my own. My name (and, to some extent, phenotype) leave little doubt of my background to those who might care to know. Like you, the places and I have lived and the professional environments I have worked in have brought me in contact with many more. Perhaps unlike you, shared cultural background also offers the possibility of pretty frank discussion on matters related to Jewish experience.

So while I certainly don't presume to speak for all American Jews, or most American Jews, I am operating under much more than "impressions" or "opinions." Like your neighbors, I am describing what I, and many, many besides me, are, as you say, "currently, personally, experiencing as Jewish Americans."

The point you were supporting claimed that this was an experience that "everyone who is Jewish" faced. This is a gross overstatement, and one that is without doubt being mobilized currently for political purposes. If you want to speak about a rise in antisemitic acts in the US, we could do that, provided we are operating under a shared definition. If you want to talk about the experience of suburban Jews in the Northern Midwest, I'd be happy to hear more, and compare it to what I've heard from friends and family who live there. But I was responding to your post about why anyone would question a universalizing claim about the experience of Jews in America. Please don't tell me I need to do more reading to do that.

I appreciate your perspective on this. Thank you and well said.

Fair enough. I regret the word choice.

What more do you want to hear about what's going on in Chicagoland? I'm happy to go into more detail.

Here in today's Atlantic is an example of what I'm talking about, though it's been nowhere nearly that bad here (for instance, thus far, there haven't been whole-classroom walkouts at OPRF --- though we do have teachers signing off on student groups making t-shirts celebrating October 7).

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti...

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