A Dangerous, Astounding Libel

 

Ever hear of the Blood Libel? The Blood Libel is a lie about Jews—about me. It is a lie spread since the Middle Ages through the 21rst century by people who wanted to use it as a tool to oppress Jews and to use them as scapegoats. The lie accuses Jews of ritually killing non-Jewish children in order to take their blood to make matzoh. Crazy, right? Except that over the years, a lot of people who believed this lie have used it as a reason to kill a lot of Jews. To this day, there are anti-Semitic groups who use the Blood Libel as a rallying cry against Jews.

I mention this now, because this is what I thought of when Savannah Guthrie asked President Trump what he thought about QAnon and their claims that Democrats are a Satanic pedophile ring. Just as with the Blood Libel, here was another insane, baseless lie. Just as with the Blood Libel, here was a rallying cry designed to make people want to rise up in violence against a group that included me.

So what was Trump’s response? If he had been responding to a question about the Blood Libel, no doubt he would have refuted it instantly (I hope). But Guthrie’s question was not about a lie about Jews. It was about a lie about Democrats. So without flinching, Trump claimed he had never heard of QAnon, then, in contradiction to that claim, he said, “they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard.”

That is the equivalent of saying people who espouse the Blood Libel are “very much against murdering children to cook with their blood. They fight it very hard.” In fact, this comparison is incredibly apt, because QAnon also claims that Democrats murder and eat children.

So it is astounding that Trump refused to refute the lie and the group that made it.  In fact, he did so knowing that Georgia is about to get a new Republican member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who promotes QAnon’s theories. That is really frightening--just as frightening as the group of people who sought to kidnap Governor Whitmer as an answer to Trump's call to "liberate Michigan."

We should all treat Trump's answer to Guthrie's question just as seriously as if Trump had failed to refute the Blood Libel. Otherwise, we will help raise to legitimacy and empower QAnon and other groups that spread insane, baseless, and incredibly dangerous lies.

The Conversation DeSean Jackson Needs to Have

I've been thinking about DeSean Jackson’s horribly anti-Semitic Instagram posts.

I’ve read the posts which are obviously terrible. Let’s face it, it’s impossible to excuse or explain away any post that includes a photo of a book page that includes the words: “seek more truth and learn Hitler was right.” 

While one may say, “Well, DeSean didn’t highlight that part of the page,” I would respond, “Doesn’t that part of the page put the whole page in a context that can only be described using language inappropriate for a blog?”

DeSean followed up his post with another one stating “Anyone who feels I have hate towards the Jewish community took my post the wrong way.” Just to drive this point home, he once again included the exact same photo of the exact same page with the exact same line saying “seek more truth and learn Hitler was right.”

Then DeSean  released an apology. He then underscored the sincerity of this apology by liking an Instagram post that said he should not have to apologize.

I respond to this with a quote from the Jewish sages:  “Oy vay.”

I have since seen the discussions/debates of whether DeSean should be fired from the Eagles. I have mixed feelings about this. I have seen people call for his firing because he crossed an unforgivable line. I agree with that. I have also seen people like the Patriots’ Julian Edelman speak out against firing DeSean and to instead take this as an opportunity to visit the Holocaust Museum and the Museum of African American History and Culture and to then have an uncomfortable conversation over lunch. I suppose that conversation would start with Edelman taking a bite of a burger and saying, “DeSean, my man, Hitler was actually not right.” Yes. Uncomfortable.

While that is an absurd ice-breaker, I still feel like there could really be a benefit to treating this as an opportunity for a conversation. I feel that way because DeSean has been an outspoken advocate of civil rights in the context of Black Lives Matter, so perhaps a conversation with Edelman and others could tap into that sense of justice. DeSean himself has since said that Hitler was a bad person who caused terrible pain to the Jewish people.

Even though, as I type this, Captain Obvious is on my shoulder rolling his eyes, this raises another point: while DeSean’s apologies reject what his posted passage says about Hitler, these apologies do not reject that passage’s anti-Semitic tropes about Jews having secret plans for world domination. In fact, when DeSean tried to clarify his intent by reposting the offensive page with what he judged as the bad parts blacked out—the one line he left unredacted said, “The[y] will extort America, their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were.”

So perhaps a conversation with DeSean can include a lesson about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, about how this document was used to propagate lies about the Jewish people—about their secret plans for world domination. And perhaps he can be shown that the claims in this document have long since been proven to be as false as those in the many 18^th and 19^th century “scientific” documents that attempted to build the myth of black inferiority.  And, sadly, he could see how to this day, there are many people who treat these debunked myths as truth to the detriment of Jewish and black people. Then, perhaps he would understand that propagating hurtful myths against any group ultimately hurts all groups.

If such a conversation could impact DeSean, it may also impact all his followers on social media. So whatever happens next, my hope is that it will actually lead to having this conversation.

And you shall tell your child on that day

Judaism has at its core one word: “Why?”  Nowhere is this more clear than when we tell our children they have to go to Hebrew school, and they respond with an impassioned refrain of “why why why why?”  This past Sunday, our house was no exception to that rule.  My ten year old son, Aaron, expressed this existential refrain with honest, heartfelt passion.  Nonetheless, off he went, with his question unresolved.

Later that day, just before bed, Aaron paused the DVR to tell his mom and me a story he had heard in Hebrew school that morning.  It came out of the commemoration of Yom HaShoah, the time we remember the millions who died in the Holocaust.

My son told us there had been a Rabbi imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen who had with him a small Torah scroll—small enough to fit in his pocket.  The Rabbi, at risk to his life, held onto this scroll as a small symbol of hope amidst the horrors around him.  At some point, another prisoner, a boy named Joseph, had reached Bar Mitzvah age.  To commemorate this, the Rabbi held a quiet ceremony and gave Joseph the scroll.  Amazingly, the boy’s mother was able to share this moment with her son by sneaking in from the woman’s barracks.

After the “celebration,” the mother rushed back before she was missed.  Just before she left, Joseph told her “I love you.”  His mother died before he could see her again.  By the end of the war, the Rabbi, too, had died, but Joseph had survived along with the small Torah.

As my son told me this story, even though the boy and the Torah had survived, my wet eyes betrayed my feelings that this story did not hold forth a whole lot of hope.

Aaron continued.

He said that the boy grew up to become a scientist working on the Space Shuttle program where he designed an experiment that actually went into space.  One of the astronauts on the mission had noticed the scroll on Joseph’s desk and asked him about it.  After the astronaut heard the story, he asked for permission to take the Torah into space.  Joseph agreed, as did NASA—so up the Torah went into space with the shuttle.

Now I was starting to see the light!  This tiny surviving beacon of hope had not just made it out of Bergen-Belsen—it was actually going to fly free—straight up into the heavens! 

Then my son told me the shuttle was called Columbia—and I realized what this meant.  Just as the bodies of the dead at Bergen-Belsen were burned to ash—such was the fate of the seven astronauts and the Torah scroll as Columbia burned on reentry.  Some symbol of hope.

Then a thought—or really a feeling--came to me—and I started to cry.  But these were not tears of hopelessness.  Because in that moment, watching my son tell me this story, in this house, in this family room, on this day, I understood that the ashes of that small Torah, the astronauts, the six million—they would not simply become memories of all that is bad in the world.  They would also become, as the Rabbi had said, symbols of hope—hope because we are here to tell their stories.  “And you shall tell your child on that day.”  Only this time it was my child who told me.