The headline is a reference to Jesse Jackson’s characterization of New York City during his presidential campaign in 1984. He did not mean it as a compliment. He was alluding to both the number of Jews who live in the Big Apple and their influence in banking, media and politics. It was a common antisemitic trope against the perceived power and influence of Jews. In that moment, Jackson revealed the backburner antisemitism that has existed in the Black community and among New York’s more WASPish elite for generations.
Arguably, the most outrageous example of Black antisemitism is the Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan. Despite his hateful preaching against Jews, Farrakhan was quietly embraced by Democrat politicians. One of his Acolytes, Keith Ellison, is now the Attorney General of Minnesota. During an earlier CNN interview with Jake Tapper, Ellison denied any association with Farrakhan. That denial got him four Pinocchios from the Washington Post.
It is ironic – or perhaps revelatory – that the most extreme examples of leftwing antisemitism would now erupt in New York City – one of the left-wing’s political strongholds. What we have seen in the past few days is nothing less than the greatest outpouring of anti-Israel and antisemitism in the history of the United States. While it has been garbed in expressions of concern for the victims of the war launched by the Hamas terrorist organization, the public protests emanating from elite educational institutions are founded on antisemitism.
The anti-Israel sentiment in the Democratic Party is so politically powerful that leading Jewish politicians – such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Senate Majority Leader and Chuck Schumer, and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (both representing New York City, by the way) bend to the Hamas propaganda view of the war. They accuse Israelof committing atrocities and call for an unconditional cease-fire. Schumer even called for regime change in Israel.
The fact that the least safe place for Jews in America is the streets of New York City – and several campuses in other left-wing communities says all that needs to be said.
While antisemitism is isolated to small fringe groups on the right – and they are dangerous — the cancer of antisemitism has long ago metastasized throughout the radical progressive political community on the left.
Just as the vast majority of Americans are NOT racist, most Americans are not antisemitic. Antisemitism has its greatest influence and impact within the elite academic intelligence – and among the radical left-wing political component of the Democratic Party. It is a leadership problem.
It is no coincidence that the most rabid manifestation of modern antisemitism should be occurring in New York City – and other sancta sanctorum of the left-wing establishment and the Democratic Party.
So, there ‘tis.