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 on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/karysrheakerentoledano/progressive-jews-let-jew-haters-off-the-hook/