Recent Attacks on J.K. Rowling Reveal Something about the Anti-Semitism of the Left

One of the latest targets of obsessive Israel-haters has been J.K. Rowling, the author of the wildly successful Harry Potter books, who has become a vocal critic of the endemic anti-Semitism of Britain’s Labor party. Chiming in, a representative of a group called Jews for Racial and Economic Justice accused Rowling of trying to make up for the “viciously antisemetic [sic] scenes in [her books] that destroyed Jewish kids” with “right-wing Netanyahu talking points.” Liel Leibovitz comments:

Just what sort of wicked deeds did the beloved author commit to warrant the accusation of destroying Jewish children, a charge previously limited to, say, the Nazi Einsatzgruppen? . . . In the Harry Potter universe, the banks are controlled by goblins, and the chief goblin is called Griphook. Get it? Grip, because he has a tight grip on money, and hook because he has a hooked nose! Which means he’s a Jew! Which makes J.K. Rowling some sort of slightly more feminine Goebbels!

In their well-scrubbed moments, the boycotters insist that singling out the world’s only Jewish state for opprobrium even though—or even because—it’s a pluralistic democracy has nothing to do with Jews. You can, they insist, be an anti-Zionist and not an anti-Semite. L’affaire Rowling proves yet again that you can’t: the author had nothing to say about Israel. Her concern was the hatred of Jews in Britain, a hatred the community itself has unanimously and unequivocally characterized as a clear and present threat. And for that the boycott-divest-and-sanction lowlifes pounced, arguing that anyone who bravely stands with Jews and speaks out against anti-Semitism must be some sort of bigoted emissary of the dark King Bibi himself.

Previously, this sort of reasoning was reserved to those who dwelled in padded cells and spent their days lining up for meds. But now we have Twitter, where such mad drivel can pass for sophistication. But hey, it’s the holidays, time to be kind and compassionate to each other. So in the spirit of brotherly love, if you believe that singling out the world’s only Jewish state for harsh criticism is totally not anti-Semitic but criticizing [Labor’s leader Jeremy Corbyn], who declared Hamas and Hizballah his friends, truly is, I hope you get all the help you need.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Jeremy Corbyn, Politics & Current Affairs, Social media

 

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society