Among the Jewish Organizations Devoted to Shielding Anti-Semites from Criticism

March 18 2020

Founded in New York City in 1991, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) describes itself as “inspired by Jewish tradition to fight for a sustainable world with an equitable distribution of economic and cultural resources and political power.” JFREJ has published a booklet titled “Understanding Anti-Semitism,” which devotes much attention to papering over the persecution of Jews in Muslim lands and to the topic of Islamophobia. To Karys Rhea and Keren Toledano, the document exhibits how so much of today’s “anti-racist activism . . . acts as a cover for Jew-hatred.” Perhaps most dangerous is JFREJ’s inclination to chalk up all forms of anti-Semitism that can’t be blamed on “white Christian nationalism” to what Marxists once termed “false consciousness.”

In [an] interview, [the group’s executive director] Audrey Sasson asserted that attacks on Jews, if committed by minorities, arise from “rightful anger about real problems.” Since black Americans are perceived to be a marginalized group, their hate crimes must be rationalized as an understandable, if misguided, rebellion against oppression—as opposed to the manifestations of anti-Semitism that they are.

By this reasoning, the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan—who famously compared Jews with “termites,” called Jews “bloodsuckers,” “great and master deceivers,” and the “enemy of God and the enemy of the righteous”—hates Jews because of some misplaced grudge against the system. And so when Farrakhan refers to Hitler as “a very great man” and attributes gay marriage, abortion, and anal sex to the “Satanic influence of the talmudic Jews,” he is merely reacting to the evil of the white, Christian West.

Above all, JFREJ prizes its “alliances” and readily dismisses the sins of its allies—even when those sins run counter to the group’s stated beliefs. In her interview, Sasson rightly described anti-Semitism as a “tool that punches up against Jews, in that it portrays Jews as powerful.” But this is precisely the conspiracist brand of anti-Semitism espoused by anti-Israel groups such as IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, with whom JFREJ partners. These outfits rely on an anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist framework that sees the Jewish collective (i.e., Israel) as the oppressive power and that equates Zionism with Palestinian suffering.

Read more at Commentary

More about: American Jewry, Anti-Semitism, Jewish Voice for Peace, Louis Farrakhan

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023