(((Semitism))) Being Jewish in the Age of Trump by Jonathan Weisman, St. Martin Press, New York, © 2018, ISBN 978-1250169938, 224 pages, plus acknowledgements and notes, $25.99
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California – The introduction to author Jonathan Weisman’s newest book (((Semitism))), in which he chronicles the unchecked growth of hate in this country against minorities, including Jews, over the last few years, is gut wrenching to read. Weisman, Deputy Washington Editor of The New York Times and an assimilated Jew, conveys the moment he learned about the three-parenthesis dog whistle, the alt-right’s Internet code identifying a person as a possible Jew earmarked for social-media harassment and derision, which resulted from his Tweeting a snippet from a story appearing in the Washington Post about the rise of fascism in America. “Within minutes, I received a response with punctuation I had never seen before. “‘Hello (((Weisman))),’ wrote CyperTrump.”
Weisman notes Jews wield a lot of power—there are Jewish congressman, senators, influential lobbies, and even a Sabbath-observant vice-presidential nominee, and many Jews risked their lives fighting institutional racism and de facto segregation. But what have Jews done for themselves? How did Jews react when a mob hung Leo Frank for a murder he did not commit? What response did they make when the government reduced immigration disproportionately affecting European Jewry, or turned away the Saint Louis and its cargo of Jews escaping from Nazi Germany? Did American Jews put pressure on the Roosevelt administration to help European Jews during World War II? What answer did Jews give when universities capped Jewish enrollments? Weisman chides American Jewry for its complacency, for hunkering down and waiting-it-out rather than fighting.
Weisman also rebukes American Jewry for relegating important liberal concerns such as education, immigration, and ethnic and interreligious outreach to its fundraising dustpan in favor of Israel, which he asserts, has become a source of international anti-Semitism. Jews, according to Weisman, are so infatuated with Israel that the overt and covert signals of anti-Semitism coming from Trump and his inner circle appear to have been ignored by Jewish Republican mega-donors. Indeed, the alt-right saw the votes by Jewish House of Representatives and Senators against the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal as a fifth-column stab-in-the-back to American foreign policy in favor of the wishes of the Jewish state.
(((Semitism))) is the story of the rise and growth of the alt-right, a term coined by Richard Spencer, which blends “libertarianism, anti-immigration nativism, racism, and anti-Semitism.” Weisman explains how the use of the Internet and social media outlets as an alt-right medium for mayhem occurred by chance: A number of anti-feminist members used their Twitter accounts to pummel Brianna Wu, a computer-game developer, who introduced a female-centric game, Revolution 60, in 2013, with death threats, so that she and her husband had to move out of their home for a period of time.
One can infer from Weisman’s numerous examples describing how, for instance, people were “doxed,” have their personal information posted on the Internet “for a troll army ready to jump from virtual reality to plain old reality,” and how using on-line apps, such as the Google plug-in, Coincidence Detector, to identify and expose Jews, or anyone else perceived to be anti-white. These and other methods are analogous to acts of domestic terrorism, geared to cause as much psychological pain and emotional fear as possible. Social media has given the alt-right a method to anonymously pounce on anyone voicing an opinion contrary to its own.
Nearly all ethnic, religious, and cultural groups have experienced America’s xenophobia at one time or another: American Indians, Irish, Italians, Catholics, African-Americans, Asians, Muslims, and the LGBTQ community; yet Anti-Semitism seems to strengthen and fade, but never quite disappear. Aghast at Jewish lack of defiance against the far right’s attack on our nation’s constitutional freedoms, Weisman quotes a man with a strong Central European accent that he met at one of his appearances, “I have seen movements like this before. They are not so easily dismissed.”
Weisman’s solution? Collective action. Displaying solidarity “in ways that do not give megaphones to the bigots and haters,” including building alliances and recruiting state and federal attorneys to prosecute violators of state and federal statutes. For those attacked through the Internet, he suggests contacting such groups as “Crash Override,” a crisis helpline, support group, and resource center for people experiencing online abuse.
(((Semitism))) is a collection of stories and anecdotes, recent events and episodes, describing a pattern of growing violence, hate, and online ridicule, and bringing to light the lives of those exposed to the open and unchecked vehemence against minorities in general, and Jews in particular, since Trump declared his intention to run for the office of President of the United States. The book is a wake-up call to the Jewish community, reminding me of the quote from the great twentieth century novelist and playwright, the late W. Somerset Maugham, “If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.”
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. His newest works are The Comprehensive Jewish and Civil Calendars: 2001 to 2240, The Jewish Calendar: History and Inner Workings, and Sepher Yetzirah: The Book That Started Kabbalah, Revised Edition. The author may be contacted via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com. )