Words have consequences. Kanye West's infamous antisemitic social media outbursts and public comments have been followed by an increase in antisemitic rhetoric, including the self-proclaimed Goyim Defense League standing on a bridge over the 405 highway in Los Angeles making Nazi salutes while holding up banners stating "Kanye is right about the Jews."
Brooklyn Nets' star Kyrie Irving has added fuel to the fire with a tweet promoting a film filled with antisemitic falsehoods. Irving has long trafficked in a variety of bizarre beliefs and conspiracy theories that comfortably coexist with antisemitism, so it is not surprising to me that he made his antisemitism explicit in a public forum. The Nets quickly condemned Irving's antisemitism, and it will be interesting to see what action--if any--the NBA takes. The NBA has repeatedly demonstrated that it cares more about profits than anything else, so it will be fascinating to see if the league considers antisemitism to be something that could have a negative impact on the league's cash flow. It will also be interesting to see if TNT's "Inside the NBA" show weighs in on Irving's tweet. "Inside the NBA" wields a lot of influence and power, and the studio crew of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O'Neal take pride in speaking out on important social issues.
Jews in the United States are not only being confronted with hate speech; it is open season on Jewish people in New York City--the city with the largest Jewish population in the world--and across the United States, with the Anti-Defamation League reporting 2717 antisemitic incidents in 2021, a 34 percent increase year over year and the highest number on record since the organization began tracking such incidents in 1979.
Note that media coverage of West's despicable statements often focuses more on how much money his hate speech has allegedly cost him, and less on the influence he wields and how his antisemitism appears to be an outgrowth of antisemitic trends with deep roots in the Black community; in 1998, the Anti-Defamation League reported survey results noting that antisemitism is nearly four times more prevalent among Black Americans than among white Americans, and there is no indication that the situation has improved in the past quarter century.
While most white people may rightly consider Louis Farrakhan to be an extremist figure who not only spews antisemitism but also harbors bizarre views--including that white people were created via eugenics by an evil scientist named Yakub--there is a tendency to ignore or downplay just how popular Farrakhan is within the Black community. The false, antisemitic tropes that he regularly spews about Jewish money and Jewish power resonate within the Black community, and are often repeated by prominent Black people who are not overtly members of his Nation of Islam, including Ice Cube, DeSean Jackson, and Stephen Jackson. Four years ago, LeBron James tweeted about "Jewish money" and then issued the classic "If I offended anyone" non-apology apology. I would not equate James with West or Irving--whose words seem to have a harsher and more malicious intent--but I would not dismiss James' comment as benign; fears and misconceptions about Jewish money and Jewish power drive antisemitic thought, which then becomes antisemitic action.
Some people counter that Farrakhan has some good ideas and important messages. That is the equivalent of saying that Adolf Hitler had some good ideas "but went too far," a notion spouted by many antisemites (including former Cincinnati Reds' owner Marge Schott). Farrakhan's primary message is hatred. Any other message that he has does not change that essential truth. If you think that Farrakhan must be given a platform because he allegedly has some good ideas, then you forfeit your right to criticize anyone who spews other forms of hatred but has ideas that some people consider to be good or worth considering.
West's comments and the lies in the film promoted by Irving have their foundation in the antisemitism of Farrakhan, Kwame Toure, and other figures who may not be much noticed in the white community but have significant support in the Black community. One of the themes of this antisemitism revolves around comparing the horrors of slavery to the horrors of the Holocaust. Farrakhan and others assert--without any credible evidence--that Jewish people dominated the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
There is also a popular antisemitic trope belittling the Holocaust with false numerical equivalences, such as 400 years matter more than six years, or 100 million lives matter more than six million lives--which is a despicable way to talk about human suffering; in this context, it is worth noting that Judaism teaches that a person who saves one life has saved an entire world, emphasizing that every life has immense value.
A person with even a superficial knowledge of history can see how absurd such accusations and assertions are, but we live in a society rife with historical ignorance. The first thing to consider is that in 1933 (prior to Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the resulting Holocaust during which the Nazis killed six million Jews), 9.5 million of the world's 15.3 million Jews lived in Europe. In other words, deep into the 20th century most Jews had probably never met a Black person face to face, let alone played a major role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade dating back hundreds of years. The Jewish people were a persecuted minority in Europe for two millennia before this hatred culminated in the Holocaust. Jews were struggling for their individual and collective survival, not plotting to enslave Black people. It is worth noting that Farrakhan and others who promote antisemitic falsehoods about slavery conspicuously ignore the prominent role that Arabs and Muslims played not only in the trans-Atlantic slave trade but in the persecution of Black Africans to this day. The second thing to consider is that the Nazis' explicit goal was to kill every Jewish man, woman, and child who they could capture. That goal, combined with the technological prowess to make it a realistic possibility, is unique in human history. In contrast, slavery--while deplorable--is unfortunately a common theme throughout human history: people of all races and nationalities have conquered other races/nations and then enslaved the conquered for economic profit. Again, it cannot be emphasized enough how horrific slavery is--but it is not historically unique.
Further, if the Jewish people had the power so often attributed to them, then the Jewish people would have used that power to stop the Holocaust or at least get rid of the immigration quotas that prevented Jewish people from seeking sanctuary in the United States (and other countries) during the Holocaust.
Comparing one people's tragedy with another people's tragedy is not a productive exercise--but when antisemites insist on not only diminishing the horror of the Holocaust but then perversely blaming Jewish people for the trans-Atlantic slave trade it becomes a moral obligation to speak the truth about both historical tragedies.
My Jewish ancestors did not enslave Black people; my Jewish ancestors faced genocidal hatred in Europe, and not all of them made it out of Europe alive. Kanye West and Kyrie Irving are spitting on the graves of Holocaust victims while pretending to be righteous advocates of free speech and alternative viewpoints. Antisemitic hate speech is not an alternative viewpoint; it is the first step toward violence, culminating in genocide, as history has repeatedly shown.
Black antisemitism is not a comfortable subject to discuss, but it is an even more uncomfortable experience for the less than six million American Jews who live alongside a much larger minority community that often lamentably focuses more on attacking Jews than on making common cause with Jews to fight hatred. Every time someone like Kanye West and Kyrie Irving spews antisemitism, racists like David Duke and the Goyim Defense League are thrilled--they hate Blacks and Jews equally, and would like nothing more than to see those communities at war.
Basketball Hall of Famer Ray Allen had a personal, annual tradition of visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. during his playing career, and he once explained why this was so important and meaningful to him:
I brought a friend of mine and he was an older black gentleman. And he, you know, he walked through and he had so many questions, and he couldn't believe that some of the things that he saw had taken place. And after we got done, we walked out and the first thing he questioned was, "What about slavery?" He was an older gentleman but, you know, it kind of made him angry, because he wanted to see something like that about the plight of the black people in America, about slavery. And I told him…I said, "This is about slavery." This is about people being enslaved and people being annihilated. And this is a lesson, so slavery doesn't happen anymore, so people don't believe that they're better than the next person. This is all about slavery. It just so happens to be spoken through the words of the Jewish people in the Holocaust, people who the Nazis tried to annihilate.
You take any person through the Museum, based on their experiences and their life, they're going to see different things. And they're going to talk about the things they want to talk about. But I think the most important thing is communication. That's a powerful, powerful tool, just talking about it and trying to understand it, and learn from it, and grow.
It would be nice to think that Ray Allen speaks for the majority of Black people, and that he is setting an example that others follow, but I am not so optimistic. Kanye West scoffed when the L.A. Holocaust Museum invited him to take a tour, and the museum was then barraged with antisemitic messages for having the audacity of trying to educate a person whose ignorance is breathtaking (and frightening, considering how many followers and supporters he has on social media and throughout the world). Antisemitism from the Left is a surging phenomenon, and Leftist movements that purport to espouse "progressive" anti-racist values have made a point of emphasizing that they view Jewish people as oppressors, not victims. Many organizations that are ostensibly focused on being pro-Black are rife with antisemitism, including but not limited to Black Lives Matter (to be clear, I am attacking antisemitism within BLM, and I am NOT attacking the notion that Black Lives Matter). I fear that the schism between the Black community and the Jewish people is being deepened in a way that will not be easy to fix.
I am focusing on Black antisemitism in this article not because it is morally worse than white antisemitism, but because Black antisemitism is tragic and because it fills me with profound sadness. Black people and Jewish people have suffered mightily throughout history, and to the extent that Black people lash out at Jewish people as opposed to working with Jewish people the suffering of both communities will be multiplied, not mitigated.