The Anti-Semitism Con

2,027 words

There’s a scene in the 1981 film adaptation of Chaim Potok’s novel The Chosen in which our protagonists — two Jewish teenagers — run into a gang of young gentile toughs in 1940s New York. The gentile toughs proceed to beat the shit out of the two Jewish kids, all the while spewing anti-Jewish abuse. This scene left a lasting impression on me in my youth. How could people be so hateful and vicious? Why would anyone have a grudge against these kids? And what do they have against Jews anyway? Haven’t they been through enough already?

Up until that point in my life, what is known as anti-Semitism amounted to little more than the occasional TV documentary, our forced reading of The Diary of Anne Frank in school, and my Jewish friends cracking Jewish jokes and thinking they were clever. (Hey, you wanna know what’s so special about the new Jewish car? Not only does it stop on a dime, but it picks it up!)

(This was pre-Schindler’s List, and I was far too young to be watching movies like Sophie’s Choice or Marathon Man anyway.)

As the anti-Semitism depicted in The Chosen and similar media continued to intrude upon my life in my teenage years, I began to carry a proper loathing for it. I wanted to be the exact opposite of those punks depicted in The Chosen. So well indoctrinated was I that by the time I reached my mid-twenties, I was fully prepared to white knight for the Jews. Part of it was IQ-worship, but most of it was simply buying into the lugubrious school of Jewish history which was so well crafted in the many books and movies to which I had easy access.

But something about this anti-Semitism thing just did not add up for me — even back then. For a people that supposedly saw anti-Semitism as a great evil, they sure liked to talk about it a lot. It really animated them, and in some weird way seemed to raise their morale. I was conscious of anti-white racism as well, but whites seemed to consider the topic distasteful and preferred not to discuss it.

Not so with the Jews. I noticed this among my friends and acquaintances, on television, in newspapers, and, as the internet came into being, online. Boy, was it easy to find online. This contradiction didn’t really crystalize for me until I spent some time with an extremely conservative (and extremely old) Jewish professor. I told him about the Jewish Holocaust movie I had just seen, The Grey Zone, and he waved his hands at me in contempt. He did not want to discuss “another Holocaust movie” and dismissed Hollywood’s treatment of it as a racket. This was the first Jewish person I had met who felt this way. I didn’t understand why.

But I understand now. What’s known as “anti-Semitism” as explained to us by Jews is nothing more than a con. This of course does not mean that hatred and violence towards Jews do not exist. Of course they do. But to assert that anti-Semitism is some universal-yet-latent trait amongst gentiles or that Jews around the world should constantly be on the lookout for the next Hitler or that “anti-Semitism” can be a policy driver, fundraising tool, and political weapon all at the same time, in effect, rigs the game in the Jews’ favor. Indeed, when the anti-Semitism card is played, the Jews cannot lose.

Hey, that rhymes. There must be a limerick in there somewhere…

There once was a man who was white
Who got smeared as an anti-Semite
It’s a game that the Jewses
Determine who loses
And who’ll be forever contrite.

When accused of anti-Semitism, the naïve victim can only produce an outcome favorable to Jewish interests. Either he changes his tune and begins acting the way the Jews want him to act, or he digs in his heels and cops to his anti-Semitism. This latter action benefits the Jews because it gives them a convenient enemy, and as Samuel Huntington pointed out in his classic The Clash of Civilizations, enemies are necessary to bind a people together. Here’s the quote:

For peoples seeking identity and reinventing ethnicity, enemies are essential, and the potentially most dangerous enmities occur across the fault lines between the world’s major civilizations.

So win-win, right?

In order to better understand anti-Semitism as a con, it would help to define it within this context. But this is hard to do, since anti-Semitism these days is more of a thoughtcrime than an actual crime. The con does not apply to obvious cases such as that of deranged mass murderer Robert Bowers, who in 2018 killed eleven people in a Pittsburgh synagogue. Such a person could never be coerced to act in Jewish interests and makes a pretty shabby enemy as he rots in prison. This means that whenever anti-Semitism is not a con (i.e., when it is one hundred percent true), it’s worth little as a political weapon for the Jews.

Instead, the con applies to cases that are not so clear-cut: people who could inspire the next Robert Bowers, but just haven’t done so yet. But how can you track down such people if they keep their anti-Semitism secret? How can you tell if someone is communicating their anti-Semitism in code? How do you know if someone is thinking anti-Semitic thoughts? 

Well, first you infer, then you fearmonger, then you attack. If a well-known or prominent gentile otherwise behaves impeccably but still says anything critical or unflattering of Jews as a people, then one must infer that he harbors venomous hatred for them. If a person does this enough times, one must presume that he will sooner or later incite violence against Jews. There is no middle ground here. John Derbyshire once relayed how an older relative of his admitted to being only mildly anti-Semitic. In the eyes of many Jews, there is no such thing. A mild anti-Semite is merely a Jew-hater who has a sense of tact. Such a person would not lift a finger to help the poor defenseless Jews during the next pogrom.

So to prevent future pogroms, such a person must be smeared as an anti-Semite, ostracized, deplatformed, and, if possible, ruined. Of course, it does not matter if the victim is telling the truth or being perfectly rational and consistent. It doesn’t even matter if he means well. As I believe Joe Sobran once said, an anti-Semite used to be a person who hates Jews. Now it is a person the Jews hate.

This of course gives the Jewish elite tremendous power. And, as we all know, this is an easy power to abuse. All a prominent white gentile has to do is dispute key points of the Jewish Holocaust or be critical of the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians or in any other way annoy the emissaries of Jewish power, and he will be lumped in with Jew-hating mass murderers like Robert Bowers as an “anti-Semite” — a term which clearly has no specific meaning. This is an abomination of justice. However, this is not where the con lies. The con becomes clear once we realize not what anti-Semitism is but what it isn’t. So, I will challenge my vast readership with a simple question, a question that, if answered correctly, will expose the anti-Semitism con forever:

What is the opposite of anti-Semitism?

I will follow this question up with a clever poem by Richard Wilbur called “Some Opposites” which will hopefully prevent all you eager beavers out there from scrolling ahead and sneaking a peek at the answer. Enjoy. . .

“Some Opposites” by Richard Wilbur

What is the opposite of riot?
It’s lots of people keeping quiet.

The opposite of doughnut? Wait
A minute while I meditate.

This isn’t easy. Ah, I’ve found it!
A cookie with a hole around it.

What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.

The opposite of a cloud could be
A white reflection in the sea,
Or a huge blueness in the air,
Caused by a cloud’s not being there.

The opposite of opposite?
That’s much too difficult. I quit.

I’m glad you made it this far. The opposite of anti-Semitism is not philo-Semitism — as many of you may have thought. 

No. No, of course, it isn’t. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

The opposite of anti-Semitism is. . . anti-Gentilism. 

And the most virulent form of anti-gentilism today is. . . you guessed it. . . Anti-white racism!

If you answered either of these, congratulations. I am proud of you. You are now officially part of the Dissident Right Skittles and Socializing Club. We meet every other Thursday at 9:30 at the Reichstag Bar & Grill behind the bowling alley on Fourth Street. Come this week and mention my name and you will receive your complimentary alt-right armband and monocle while supplies last.

Understanding the opposite of anti-Semitism equips its gentile victim with a much-needed third option. Before, he could only squirm and vacillate like a stool pigeon between renouncing or embracing his alleged anti-Semitism. Now, however, he can turn the tables on his accusers and accuse them of anti-Gentilism. Yes, the very act of accusing an innocent gentile of anti-Semitism is, in itself, an act of anti-Gentilism. What’s the ADL going to say to that? And this tactic gives us the triple whammy of taking the focus off the gentile, forcing his Jewish accusers on the defensive, and likely boring everyone else to death in the resulting tit-for-tat. Remember, indifference is your friend in the Cancel Culture era when your employer is deciding whether to take seriously that tasteless joke you tweeted back in 2009.

So now back to The Chosen. How does all this help my younger self break down that awful scene described above? How can it free us from the anti-Semitism con? By making us realize that depicting white gentiles as mindless thugs who assault Jewish kids for no reason is an act of anti-Gentilism itself. 

Perhaps such attacks were not as common as the filmmakers made it seem? Better yet, maybe there were some legitimate reasons why white Americans would be angry with their Jewish minority back when the story takes place? This was the 1940s, during World War II. Thanks to my study of Benjamin Ginsburg’s How the Jews Defeated Hitler ^[4], I now realize that many Jewish groups had been highly influential in dragging the United States into this unpopular and unnecessary war. In other words, throughout the 1930s, the Jews war mongered, and over 400,000 Americans died as a result. These Jews included Felix Frankfurter and much of FDR’s cabinet, the Century Group, the Fight For Freedom Committee, the ADL, and Congressman Samuel Dickstein who harassed pro-German groups in America throughout the 1930s while being a paid informant for the NKVD. These were all extremely powerful men who stopped at nothing to drench Europe in its own blood.

Not to justify the violence depicted in the movie, but some anti-Jewish sentiment during the 1940s is now a little more understandable — and only a drop in the bucket compared to the violence of World War II. What’s less understandable however is omitting the perfectly sound reasons why white Americans would be frustrated with Jews back then, as the filmmakers of The Chosen dishonestly do. What were the odds that these gentile bullies had a father, sibling, or cousin who never came back from Normandy or Okinawa? What were the odds that one of them would be called up to become cannon fodder in the next war the Jews wish to prosecute? I would say pretty good on both counts. Meanwhile, what were the odds that these two Jewish kids would get out of serving altogether? In the story, neither serves in the military, although one of them helps run guns to Israeli forces during their 1948 war of independence — so that tells us something about their priorities.

It also tells us all we need to know about the anti-Semitism con.

*  *  *

Don’t forget to sign up ^[5] for the weekly email Counter-Currents Newsletter for exclusive content, offers, and news.