What does it mean to say that I’m Jewish? I don’t attend religious services, nor do I celebrate Jewish holidays except for Chanukah — I love lighting those candles and eating potato latkes. So, I’m not a practicing Jew. But that doesn’t matter, it’s in my cells, my DNA.
I’ve covered this subject before, but I feel that it’s even more important to speak about it again now. The first time was in August 2017 when neo-Nazis, white supremacists and antisemites marched openly at their violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Jews will not replace us,” they shouted. The hatred was palpable.
Of course, it isn’t just Jews that they fear will replace them — it’s Blacks, Asians, and anyone else not white enough for their taste. But it’s the Jews they believe are the ones orchestrating this great replacement. A counter protester, Heather Heyer, was killed during the march that day when she was run down by a driver who intended to kill many more as he drove his car into the crowd.
Our president at the time, Donald, insisted there “were very fine people on both sides” protesting that day. Yes, the ones displaying the antisemitic, racist and violent behavior were very fine people. It’s just so Donald.
Late last month, it was widely reported that Donald had a cozy dinner at Mar-A-Lago in the member’s dining room for all to see, with a couple of antisemitic, racist dining partners. One was Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, the man responsible for recent tweets that got him restricted and then suspended from Twitter. The first tweet was a threat that he would soon go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE”, but the tweet that got Ye the final boot was an image of a swastika inside a Star of David.
I guess that was just one antisemitic step too far for the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, who has promoted his own love of free speech as he lurches politically off to the right. Musk explained that “the post violated the social media outlet’s rule against the incitement of violence.” Imagine that, Death Con 3 against Jewish people just wasn’t violent enough!
That’s not all, of course. Ye told conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, on his podcast recently that “I like Hitler.” He likes Hitler? Hitler, the man who masterminded the Holocaust, the mass round up and murder of more than 6 million Jews during World War II? Yes, that Hitler.
Donald’s other dinner guest that night was a young man named Nick Fuentes who is quite well known in white Christian nationalist and antisemitic circles. In 2017 he created a livestream show called “America First,” which targets a young white male audience. Fuentes and his followers oppose immigration and “liberal” values such as women’s and LGBTQ+ rights and has said that they are the result of a “bastardized Jewish subversion of the American creed. The Founders never intended for America to be a refugee camp for nonwhite people.”
If that quote isn’t enough to shock you, try this one: “My overriding belief … is that God is real, Jesus Christ is God, and yet the country is run by people that don’t believe this, and don’t live by this. And … they are largely Jewish … We’ve got to save our country, tell the truth, and have Christian leadership.”
I, of course, strongly support his right to have religious beliefs that differ from mine. But the Founding Fathers intended America to be a Christian nation? That’s not what our Constitution says. The founders wrote into that document a separation of church and state since that was one of the issues they had with the king of England. The Constitution protects us from being governed by any religion, though it’s getting hard to see that with a Supreme Court making decisions based on one religion’s beliefs at the expense of others, as in the Dobb’s decision that ended women’s reproductive rights. That decision allowed states to do as they please regarding abortion.
I am digressing, but let me just say this, there are currently three lawsuits in three separate states brought by Jewish plaintiffs who “claim their state is infringing on their religious freedom by imposing a Christian understanding of when life begins.”
Back to Donald and his dinner guests. It turns out that Fuentes was an attendee at the Unite the Right event in Charlottesville back in 2017 that I mentioned above — must be one of Donald’s “very fine people.”
And Fuentes was a participant in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, leading his America Firsters to enter the Capitol building that day, though he personally did not. They have been charged for their actions and Fuentes was forced to testify before the House committee investigating that day’s coup attempt.
This guy gets around, doesn’t he? And he’s a friend of Donald, the man who would be king if he could just get back to the Oval Office. I shudder to think that’s even possible, but it is.
So, there’s Donald, an announced presidential candidate, having a leisurely and very public dinner with two quite prominent antisemites who have made violent and hateful statements about people like me. Attacks on Jews, both verbal and physical have increased dramatically over the last few years and I just don’t see that changing.
As long as influential people like Donald continue to give air to people like Ye and Fuentes, this hateful, violent rhetoric will surely turn more quickly into the real thing — hate-filled violence.
We’ve seen all this before, and it did not end well. Words matter.
Karen Gardner, of Haydenville, can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.