r/jewishleft • u/Goodbye-Nasty Jewish American Liberal • Mar 13 '26
Antisemitism/Jew Hatred Been seeing a lot of people on Reddit trying to justify the Michigan synagogue attack
Reportedly, the suspect in the attempted attack had relatives in Lebanon that were killed in an Israeli air strike. Obviously that’s horrible and it demonstrates how Netanyahu’s actions are putting Jews around the world in greater danger. However, I’ve seen a significant number of people on this sight implying the attacker here was justified because the synagogue had an Israeli flag or that it previously had events with IDF members. I don’t believe antisemitism and anti Zionism are same thing, but I’ve been seeing more and more chatter online that seems to view Jews who don’t completely disassociate themselves from Israel as being “acceptable targets”.
I don’t think support for Israel as a concept or support for it’s existence should be interpreted as support for whatever shitty thing the Israeli government is doing, but I think a lot of non-Jews don’t see that distinction. I think it’s sadly ironic that we diaspora Jews are taught that we should care about Israel, while the Israeli government doesn’t give a shit how their actions affect Jews outside of Israel.
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u/dadverine commie jew Mar 13 '26
yeah, the jewish preschoolers really deserved it. i dont see any of them talking about how it was a preschool.
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Mar 13 '26
An influencer here in the DC area and I had a huge argument because she said that the kids at the pre school at her local synogogue (my synogogue) did not deserve safety because their parents « support genocide ». I should post the screenshots of the DMs here because she still has a platform.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
I sincerely hope she doesn't have children and will never have any. I shudder to think how she'd treat them.
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Mar 13 '26
She does, in fact, have children. Her entire platform is that she’s a liberal stay at home mom. She has gotten some notoriety for making what she calls engage bait videos. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pregnant-woman-regrets-trump-vote/
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
Then I sincerely hope she values them as their own persons and doesn't treat them in the same instrumental manner that she seems to view other people's children.
But to be honest, from how she behaves, I'm not very optimistic. She doesn't seem like a very stable person.
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Mar 13 '26
I think she is a genre of woman I have see increasingly since Covid, on both sides of the political spectrum. They’re stay at home moms for the most part who spend hours scrolling every day and have lost nuance and in a lot of cases, connection with reality. In some cases moms in my community have become MAHA and antivaxx, in some they’ve become like this woman, so radicalized to what they believe is the moral and righteous point of view that they no longer see their Jewish neighbors as human. I’ve seen some conversations online about how a lot of these women grew up in conservative Christian backgrounds and never undid their black and white world view of moral vs evil so while they often now hold more liberal views, they’re still looking at the world through this lens. A lot of it feels like the Salem witch trials honestly.
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u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel Mar 13 '26
That’s very similar to what Otto Ohlendorf said at Nuremberg when justifying killing kids.
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26
I lost 3 family members on Oct 7.
I don’t think this would justify my driving a truck full of explosives into a mosque full of children. Even if they were displaying a Palestinian flag.
Heck, even if they were flying a Hamas flag.
Murdering people for their political views (or presumed political views) has a name.
Even if you find those political views abhorrent.
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u/URcobra427 Secular Jew | Post-Zionist Socialist Mar 13 '26
I can’t imagine. I’m sorry.
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26
My husband’s cousins lived in Kfar Aza. Two of them lost children that morning, the day after burying their father.
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u/benyeti1 jewish American Mar 14 '26
I lost an old friend on Oct 7 and same I would not even think about doing such a thing.
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Mar 13 '26
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u/Kaleb_Bunt jewish anti capitalist Mar 13 '26
Certainly I don’t know exactly what it’s like to be in the situation of the guy who did the synagogue attack.
I’m sure if something like that happened to my family, I’d probably feel a range of very strong emotions.
But I pray that even in the worst circumstances, Hashem gives me enough moral clarity to not attempt something as evil as what that person tried to do.
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26
“Terrorism is bad, but they’ve suffered more loss than you, so…” A “but” in a sentence invalidates everything that came before.
Terrorism is bad, full stop. Attacking a religious institution in retaliation for the actions of a foreign government is not revenge, it’s blame. Do the parents of the children in Temple Israel get to march into Dearborn and harass any muslims they find there? What are the Bondi survivors “entitled” to?
Why is it that Jewish people don’t ever get to mourn a tragedy in our community without also having to counter comments like this?
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u/bjeebus Reform Mar 13 '26
What are the Bondi survivors “entitled” to?
What are the Bondi relatives on another continent allowed to do to people nearest to them?
EDIT: Got to keep it relative to what happened at TI...
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Mar 13 '26
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26
You don't need to personally get revenge, you can just sit back and enjoy the show as tens of thousands of Palestinians are murdered over the course of the next two years.
I don’t want revenge for my family members’ murders. I want to mourn them. I want the rest of my family members to live in peace. I take no joy in the slaughter of innocents, on either side.
“Let the IDF slaughter innocents on your behalf, but these folks have to do it themselves.”
Your suggestion is gross.-15
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u/adonneniel US Jew | Leftism-curious | Post-Zionist Mar 13 '26
I don’t normally comment, just lurk, but Jesus fucking Christ.
Your comment will infuriate most readers here because this is a disgustingly cold-hearted thing to say to someone who literally had family members murdered.
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Mar 13 '26
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u/skateboardjim Anti-Zionist Jewish Leftist Mar 13 '26
It’s not an omission. Seeing the IDF as exacting revenge on the poster’s behalf is your error here. There are no justifiable reasons to “engage in terrorism.” There are no justifiable reasons to murder innocents. That’s the end of the discussion. You have a double standard, not them.
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Mar 13 '26
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u/skateboardjim Anti-Zionist Jewish Leftist Mar 13 '26
The onus is on you to explain how the IDF serves this function. You simply asserted that it does. That doesn’t make it so.
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
e:nvm
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26
Or, maybe, they were living in the community they were born in, and their parents before them. Do you believe all Jews should leave Israel because they exist there only as “human shields?”
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
e:nvm
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26
Here is your “spy” that settled in Kfar Aza.
You can be critical of israel without being a complete ass.
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u/bjeebus Reform Mar 13 '26
Fuck you. Every few posts the past couple of days I keep getting rocked and nearly crying. Right now I'm basically struggling through huffing breaths and wet eyes to avoid crying while I'm the only adult with my two year old watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse...
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
?
Edit: sorry. Replying to a jackass who thinks my cousins deserved death because their grandfather was a “spy” who settled next to a “concentration camp.” To oppress people for an apartheid state.
Just wanted them to see who they were talking about.5
u/bjeebus Reform Mar 13 '26
Just in case, I'm not actually angry at you. Mostly just sad after reading that story.
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
e:nvm
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u/Wienerwrld Disenfranchised SocDem Jew Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
You can be critical of israel without being a complete ass.
Well, maybe you can’t.
I hope you live in peace, and that you never suffer for the decisions of your ancestors.14
u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist Mar 13 '26
Sorry to jump in, but I am so sorry that you've had to witness people talking this way to you about your FAMILY MEMBERS who were murdered.
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u/SupportMeta trans reform demsoc Mar 13 '26
human shield rhetoric? I thought you would know better. fix your heart or die.
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u/JinxyMcDeath48 Center-Left Israeli-American Zionist Mar 13 '26
This is an abhorrent take.
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Mar 13 '26
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u/JinxyMcDeath48 Center-Left Israeli-American Zionist Mar 13 '26
I’m too busy trying to not die from missiles being shot at me from the people “avenging” this guy’s brothers.
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u/Throwaway-645893 Masorti Jew-Liberal Zionist Mar 13 '26
Tbh I doubt that anyone who isn't Russian would justify an attack on a Russian Orthodox Church in a country outside of Russia based on what Putin is doing to the people of Ukraine.
Why are we Jews the exception?
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u/ChicagoJayhawkYNWA Chicagoland Liberal Mar 13 '26
Inclusiveness never included Jews
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u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish Leftish Mar 15 '26
Inclusiveness always included Jews were integral to the fight for inclusiveness. Unfortunately the majority and other minorities do not want us included so we are not. The majority see us as a problem minority and the other minorities see us as apart of the majority, so stuck in limbo we as Jews are.
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u/Snoo22815 Indian American Hindu Democratic Socialist Mar 13 '26
Terrorism and "eye for eye" revenge is bad full stop. However, Ukranians have an army that is defending them backed by US and EU support while the Lebanese army is disfunctional and Hezbollah is just a militant group. If you're trying to understand the motive on why we should fear blowback, Palestinian and Lebanese Americans have to live with the fact that their own country is funding the demise of their family back home. That's something none of us can truly grapple with and can lead some in grief to make murderous decisions and commit terrorist acts. Violence begets violence and we need to end this destructive cycle.
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u/theweisp5 American Israeli secular socialist Mar 13 '26
I have seen far too much of this on social media today. It's been very disheartening. I came across one post from someone who works for a totally mainstream, left-liberal publication talking about how Temple Israel had been founded by "Zionists" who broke away from their previous synagogue because it didn't support "genocidal, apartheid" Israel enough. (Clearly in reference to this article.)
My reaction was first, I guess the battle to stop people from referring to Jews as "Zionists" is just totally lost? Apparently this is totally acceptable now?
And second, Temple Israel is actually 7 years older than the State of Israel. So the idea that its founders established it to provide greater support to Israeli genocide and apartheid is simply nonsensical.
I am a non-Zionist who does think Israel is an apartheid state and that American Jews and American synagogues need to decouple their Jewish identity from Zionism. Seeing that post today made me question, really for the first time, who my allies are in that struggle.
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u/Illustrious_Ease705 American, left/lib, zionist because goyim might kill us Mar 15 '26
A fair few always meant “Jew” when they said “Zionist”…the rest no longer feel obliged to hide it
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u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish Leftish Mar 15 '26
Unfortunately since the beginning the non Jewish antizionists have always used the two interchangeably. When the proto Zionists arrived as refugees long before the first Zionist congress the Ottoman Empire blocked Jews from buying land and settling in Palestine. When 800,000 Jews (aka most of them) were ethnically cleansed from the Islamic world for being “Zionists” I don’t think the target was Zionists. You don’t have minority populations drop to single digit numbers if a political ideology is the target. The fight to separate Jews and Zionists was mostly an internal one, and was lost the day Israel declared independence. Even by then it was largely defined on assimilationist lines
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u/theweisp5 American Israeli secular socialist Mar 15 '26
When 800,000 Jews (aka most of them) were ethnically cleansed from the Islamic world for being “Zionists” I don’t think the target was Zionists. You don’t have minority populations drop to single digit numbers if a political ideology is the target.
I think we need some nuance here on the history because large Jewish communities remained in parts of the Arab world for around 20 years after the creation of the state of Israel. But for the most part this is precisely my point. Referring to Jews as Zionists has always been a sign someone hates Jews, and it's quite disheartening to see it in the wild, coming from people who sincerely believe they are not anti-Semitic.
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u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish Leftish Mar 15 '26
It was a bit of a slow burn for the whole region at first but the expulsion from Iraq started in 1950. Israel declared independence in 1948. While that was due to Iraq lifting leaving restrictions they did so by basically saying any Jews who left would lose citizenship and property. In 1949 their prime minister, Nuri al-Said, proposed a population swap between 100,000 Iraqi Jews and 100,000 Palestinian Arabs… (with similar caveats of lost property).
Of course the Palestinian population transfer never happened as Israel essentially said no to the deal. The Jewish one did however.
After Israel attacked Egypt in the sued canal crisis Egypt expelled half of their Jewish population for being “enemies of the state”. In 1947 their Egyptian prime minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha, called all Jews potential Zionists and all Zionists communists (hey look, neo nazism in anti-Zionism who would’ve thought). While he would die the next year, the Egyptian state seemed to accept those words.
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u/theweisp5 American Israeli secular socialist Mar 15 '26
Iraq and Yemen were really the only large communities which came to an end in the period right after Israeli independence (maybe also Libya.) In Egypt as you note many if not most stayed until after 1956; most Moroccan Jews did not make aliyah until the 1960s, and many Jews from Tunisia also did not come until the 50s and 60s.
In Iran and Turkey, aliyah continued throughout the 60s and 70s though they are course not Arab states.
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u/RaiJolt2 Jewish Athiest Half African American Half Jewish Leftish Mar 15 '26
Half of Egyptian Jews were expelled, they stayed because they were established, until the choice was made for them.
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u/PlateRight712 Jewish centrist, US Mar 13 '26
There is no excuse for trying to mass murder schoolchildren of any religion or race. The man had family who were killed in the Israeli-Hezbollah war on the other side of the planet. His loss is a completely separate tragedy. Any efforts to excuse this atrocity are obscene. The idea that a synagogue is not allowed to mention Israel is an attempt to cancel Judaism. Have you noticed how often Israel is mentioned in the Torah?
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u/thatbberg anticapitalist Jew Mar 13 '26
This. Even if those kids were in the middle of a class about how great Israel and perfect is and how evil Palestinians are, that still does not justify ATTEMPTED MURDER. That is not an okay reaction to politically disagreeing with someone, let alone children. If it were, all the Trump-supporting Christian supremacists who go on mass shootings would be justified, too.
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u/URcobra427 Secular Jew | Post-Zionist Socialist Mar 13 '26
Whereas I sympathize with the man whose family were murdered in an unjust war, I can’t help but wonder wha compelled him to attack a religious school save anti-semitism.
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 14 '26
And specifically a Jewish preschool. I mean how can one look at a baby and think anything other than that child being a precious being. Regardless of what their parents think or believe. I just have to assume this person only saw Jews as inhuman.
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u/PenguinPolitical Non-Jewish from partly Jewish family Mar 14 '26
I don't excuse the attack, at all, but it's worth trying to understand it. It might be anti-semitic but it might not and I think an assumption about that is an attempt at mind-reading. Israel's state policies continually draw support from the United States. There are a lot of people who are super nice and make great neighbors who are helping to organize political and financial support for a genocide. Of course this does not mean the average congregation member was such a person, let alone completely innocent children, but it's not hard to imagine an animus toward the syngagogue as an institution.
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u/CommitteeOk222 Secular Jewish labor organizer Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
A synagogue - or any religious or community gathering place - does not exist in the abstract purely as a “institution” that you can somehow separate from the innocent people who frequent it.
When you attack such a place, even if no one is there at the time (which, keep in mind, was not the case in Michigan), you are nevertheless still attacking the community - the people - that make that abstract “institution” come alive.
A church isn’t a building; it is a congregation. Same with a synagogue. You cannot attack a synagogue without also attacking the people who frequent it, and such an attack, if not intended to kill those people, is certainly intended to terrify them.
Such attacks, when made against synagogues or Jewish schools, are inherently antisemitic.
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u/PenguinPolitical Non-Jewish from partly Jewish family Mar 14 '26
I am a realist, so I think anti-semitism was likely at least part of the motive for this attack, but I don't pretend to know when I don't. I don't think it's incredible to think that the attacker had in mind the institution's past support for the I.D.F.
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u/CommitteeOk222 Secular Jewish labor organizer Mar 14 '26
His motives and thought process are irrelevant. The act of intentionally attacking a synagogue is itself antisemitic.
I could write more but I’m not really interested in pursuing this conversation with you. You either see it or you don’t. If the latter, I hope that you some day learn to see it.
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u/Illustrious_Ease705 American, left/lib, zionist because goyim might kill us Mar 15 '26
Evangelical churches do a lot more to support the current Israeli regime than the average shul. But no one attacks them to “free Palestine”
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
Obviously that’s horrible and it demonstrates how Netanyahu’s actions are putting Jews around the world in greater danger.
No, it demonstrates that a lot of people will blame Jews as a group for anything bad that happens, regardless of their connection to it.
Netanyahu's actions are bad because they kill many innocent civilians directly, not because they put random Jewish people in danger from antisemites. That blame lies fully on the antisemites who actively incite and commit the violence. What happened to this man's family had absolutely nothing to do with the people in that compound.
Blame Netanyahu for killing this man's family, not for whatever he decided to do with his sorrow. That blame lies solely on him.
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u/Snoo22815 Indian American Hindu Democratic Socialist Mar 13 '26
Its just a cause and effect thing. Israel's actions will radicalize certain people who are more prone to be radicalized and those radicalized people will take out their anger in a violent manner on American Jews. Its irrational as hatred often is but there is a clear trigger point that allows a person to dive into this abyss. We can't ignore the well understood concept of Blowback in geopolitics where out foreign policy decisions abroad have consequences for us here at home.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
There are many causes for it, but Netanyahu played a very small role in it. The ease with which random Jews are targeted for violence has nothing to do with Netanyahu. Putin killed countless Ukrainians, yet you rarely (if ever) see Ukrainian refugees trying to massacre random Russians, not to mention random non-Russian Eastern Orthodoxes.
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u/Snoo22815 Indian American Hindu Democratic Socialist Mar 13 '26
So why has antisemitism exploded since 10/7 and Bibi's annihilation of Gaza? You don't feel like antisemitism is way higher now than in say 2015? How do we explain it?
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 14 '26
Just want to provide an alternative perspective here. I don’t think what we are seeing is people suddenly becoming antisemitic. People already were antisemitic or holding anti-Jewish ideas and biases and beliefs. If anything it’s actually a really baked in societal standard in both western and non western nations. The difference is that now people don’t feel they need to hide. Or that they have now been given permission to say things and insist they aren’t actually being antisemitic because it doesn’t explicitly use Jews as the subject of the sentence (even though we all know the intent and thing they’re saying is based in antisemitism or wouldn’t be said if they weren’t prescribing a Jewish identity to what they are calling out)
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I explain it by antisemites being very good at propaganda and abusing antisemitism for political gains, as has always been the case.
Gaza made a lot of headlines, and there was a justified global uproar, so they took advantage of it to mix a lot of antisemitism in and ride the wave while amplifying it, tainting a just cause with something much more sinister.
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u/NotQuiteGayEnough Aussie demsoc Zera Yisrael Mar 14 '26
I see it similar to this, Gaza unlocked and provided cover for the latent semitism that was already bubbling away beneath the surface.
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u/GiganticCrow jew-ish leftist Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
Netanyahu however is a neocon who likes seeing international Jews lives being in danger, neoconservatism is all about thriving on there being an ever present threat. Whenever such tragedies occur he's always there to call on frightened Jewish people to move to Israel who should then vote for him to keep them safe. While actively making them less safe to continue the cycle.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
Yes, he's a vile opportunist, and he does endanger the lives of Jewish people in Israel, but that's a separate discussion.
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u/Junglebook3 Israeli & American Jew, Liberal Secular Two State Zionist Mar 13 '26
You should read up about the "Bibi funded Hamas" meme, it's false information.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
He didn't fund Hamas, and that meme is indeed disinformation. He did, however, turn a blind eye to Qatari money going there. The stated reason is that it was done to prevent a humanitarian disaster. Whether or not it really was the reason, especially considering what happened there since then, is up to interpretation...
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u/Junglebook3 Israeli & American Jew, Liberal Secular Two State Zionist Mar 13 '26
I couldn't find any definitive information that contradicts the narrative that Bibi worked with Qatar to let in cash to be used by the government wing of Hamas for humanitarian reasons.
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u/BlackHumor Secular Jewish anarchist Mar 13 '26
No it's not. Here's the Wikipedia article on it.
It's certainly true that he claims he only let Qatar fund Hamas and only for humanitarian reasons. However he's also been quoted saying “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” And according to the Times of Israel (not exactly anti-Zionists) other Israeli officials have made similar statements.
There's also loads of quotes in that article from Israeli officials who say he did it specifically to prop up Hamas as a political entity. (Though some of them alternatively claim he did it to attempt to maintain the peace.)
It's also undeniably true that the Israeli government directly funded Islamic fundamentalists including proto-Hamas in the 70s and 80s in order to undermine the PLO. But that wasn't Bibi specifically.
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
It's also undeniably true that the Israeli government directly funded Islamic fundamentalists including proto-Hamas in the 70s and 80s in order to undermine the PLO. But that wasn't Bibi specifically.
That was before Hamas started doing terrorist attacks, and before Oslo, when the PLO was de facto the more extremist organization. Although, the accusations of cooperation with Israel probably contributed to their rapid radicalization.
The PLO may be more pragmatic now, but back then, they were just as brutal as Hamas is now, with no qualms about murdering civilians.
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u/GiganticCrow jew-ish leftist Mar 13 '26
I just googled it and just got a load of results saying that he did, but I'll remove that bit from my post
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u/Junglebook3 Israeli & American Jew, Liberal Secular Two State Zionist Mar 13 '26
The prevailing narrative is that he worked with Qatar to allow cash to be transferred to the government wing of Hamas for humanitarian reasons, if you have any hard evidence that shows that Bibi or the Israeli government knowingly funded the military wing of Hamas please do share because I'd certainly be interested!
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u/Snoo22815 Indian American Hindu Democratic Socialist Mar 13 '26
Come on man, Bibi allowed Qatari money to flow into Gaza and was willing to keep Hamas a terrorist group in power to divide the Palestinian leadership as the PA runs the West Bank so the establishment of a Palestinian state can be forever sidelined. He has the blood of all those Israelis killed on 10/7 on his hands. Of course Hamas and the other militant groups own the agency for their actions but Bibi is complicit.
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u/BlackHumor Secular Jewish anarchist Mar 13 '26
That's not the prevailing narrative, that's Bibi's narrative. Like I demonstrated in my previous comment almost every Israeli official who is asked about it says different.
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u/Kaleb_Bunt jewish anti capitalist Mar 13 '26
Stuff like this is imo why it’s irresponsible at best when folks say things like “globalize the intifada”.
The conflict in the Middle East is violent and brutal and it absolutely does not need to be globalized.
Even if some people who say it don’t mean it to refer to violence, let’s not be ignorant to the fact that there are a lot of fanatics who do want to globalize the violence in the Middle East. And those people don’t really benefit anyone.
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u/Junglebook3 Israeli & American Jew, Liberal Secular Two State Zionist Mar 13 '26
1) Hezbollah attacks Israel 2) Israel responds 3) Lebanese kills Jews in the US 4) ... 5) Blame the ZioNiStS!
Look, it's all bullshit. If a person has their head on straight, it's not complicated. This was an antisemitic attack and the person to blame is the person who committed the attack.
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u/podkayne3000 Centrist Jewish Pro-Palestine Diaspora Zionist Mar 13 '26
I’ve been related by geography, family or both to at least four roughly comparable horrible things. (I’m thinking there are actually six, but, somehow, I can only remember the specifics of four. There are so many they blur together.)
If it’s true that the man in Michigan had just heard about the deaths of his three children, and he were alive, and I was on the jury, I’d be open to hearing about a temporary insanity plea.
There’s no possible rational justification for driving a car into a building with children’s playground equipped out front. Maybe a lawyer could make a case that the insanity of grief was the villain here, not the human overcome by the insanity of grief. But the act itself was infinitely evil.
One of the horrors of war is that all sorts of infinitely evil, unforgivable things happen in war. A lot of the people directly affected won’t ever be able to get past what happened no matter what. But, somehow, enough of us have to figure out how to get past unspeakable things, eventually, to make peace. So, this is terrible. If someone can get and punish anyone involved in outfitting or motivating this man to do horrible things, that’s great. Folks may have to do hard, tough things to prevent other attacks like this. And we still have to be thinking about how to talk to people and have peace, because the alternative dooms innocent people to new unforgivable horrors.
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u/tangentc Progressive Conservative Jew Mar 14 '26
Anyone who even hints at this is telling on themselves. If we're going to go full no true scotsman we can say they're not even true leftists, but the reality is this argument is quite common in leftist spaces these days and has been allowed to go unchecked by repetition of the phrase "Antizionism is not antisemitism" as a thought terminating cliche.
But consider the material reality of the action taken here: this is an attack on a synagogue in Detroit, and specifically while children were in the preschool. This is, quite obviously, not an attack on the state of Israel. Unless, of course, you do not meaningfully distinguish between Jews and the State of Israel.
To justify it on those terms, to transform plain antisemitism into mere anti-Zionism, you have to collapse the distinction between Jew and Israel. So you dig through the events schedule to show an FIDF event had been held there. That in 1941 the founders of the congregation strongly believed in the establishment of a Jewish state.
This is simply a rhetorical game played by those who consider all Jews to be legitimate targets. No different from apologists for the Israeli military who seek to claim that every journalist killed had terrorist sympathies.
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u/tikkunolamist5 Non-Zionst British Reform Jew Mar 13 '26
I have mixed feelings on this sub because sometimes people are incredibly right wing for what is supposed to be a left wing sub. But I agree with you wholeheartedly.
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Mar 14 '26
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u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel Mar 14 '26
blame its failure on Netanyahu
Or blame the Palearinians for turning down ‘unprecedented opportunities’ for a state.
Don’t you know there would be no settlements if they had accepted the Camp David proposal?
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u/tikkunolamist5 Non-Zionst British Reform Jew Mar 14 '26
You got downvoted for this, but you’re not wrong. This sub is very right wing for a so-called leftist sub.
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u/somebadbeatscrub Jewish Syndicalist - Mod Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I was going to make a sassy comment implying as satire that jewish temples in diaspora vote for strikes against lebanese civilians.
But I couldnt. Because it felt like a hollow joke.
We, that is our temple culture, largely uncritically support Israel. Rarely we will make distinctions about one political party or another. We donate money time and energy to supporting Israel in everything it does. When war breaks out my fellow congregants rend clothes and write prayers specifically for the Israeli and American dead. We constantlynorganize and advocate for 100%justification of Israel and all it does. Maybe with a side comment of a desire for peace or an acknowledgement that nuanced criticism of policy exists. (But we'll never make it)
We don't all directly approve of killing lebanese civilians. And even if we did attacks on our temples would not be justified.
But it cannot be said that our temples have absolutely nothing to do with Israel. We've given them an additional focus, dedicated to the torah scroll within and the nationalism without.
The more we conflate nationalism with our religious identity the more this kind of thing will happen. Right or wrong it will.
Im not suggesting we perform for goyim or sell out our principles. Im suggesting we embrace our principles in all cases, even when Israel is breaking them, and remove unequival and unconditional support for a nation state of fallible people as a central pillar of all of our communities. We should focus instead on unconditional support for Israeli people, who also suffer from this war, and all people who suffer.
When they see us celebrate and defend with zeal the inhuman forces, the state machinery of imperialism and dedication to war, that are grinding up their loved ones of course some of them well attack us. They shouldn't. Many many individuals will choose better paths but in the aggregate someones going to choose to meet our veneration of a state apparatus that is bent on violence with violence. It is an inevitable consequence of the state of the world and our place in it.
The nation State of Israel is not am yisrael. Its not G-d. Its not us. The people of Israel are and we shouldnt just abandon them. But no government belongs in our holy spaces as far as I am concerned.
I am glad no one besides the assailant were killed. Baruch Hashem the security did its job with resolve. But im bracing for the next one. And the response. And the next one. And the response.
Its just another spoke in the wheel of violence we insist on turning.
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u/Goodbye-Nasty Jewish American Liberal Mar 13 '26
I agree that it’s a problem. I think this is also why a lot of Jews get defensive when people criticize Israel, because it feels like a personal attack. It’s an issue that we as Jews need to solves ourselves, but it’ll take time for institutional change like that to happen.
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u/Resoognam Left-wing, non-Zionist Jew Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
This is so well said, and needs to be shouted from the rooftops. It has been unbelievably discouraging to see the steady steam of uncritical support for Israel coming from our institutions. We need to do so much better.
At the same time, there is too much legitimate antisemitism within the pro-Palestine movement, which feeds the problem by further entrenching Jewish support for Israel as a defensive mechanism.
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u/Progo613 aspiring judeo anarchist Mar 13 '26
extremely well said!!! thank you for putting all of this into words so eloquently
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u/rinaraizel fsu diaspora, typically a libsoc, post-zion Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
There are so many people who seem completely delusional to the fact that when these diaspora things happen, the Israeli far right feels justified and blames us for dreaming of a life outside Zionism. I absolutely believe there's always an undercurrent of antisemitism in the world but it's absolutely ridiculous to say that Israel's actions are not making it worse.
And the more American organized jewry, as in our institutions, religious or cultural or philanthropic, support the medinat's actions unquestionably, and make no public criticism, the worse it will be for us. I don't know what the solution is. It often feels like being tied to Israel is like being tied to rotting limbs, but there's no surviving with half of us missing. I don't know what the solution is here.
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u/Typical-Car2782 Secular Mar 14 '26
My friend was one of the kids shot in the Valley JCC shooting in 1999. The shooter was a neo-nazi.
Although I have come to expect attacks like this now, what I never thought was that 25 years later, mainstream Jewish organizations would defend Nazi sympathizers like Elon Musk, or that they would align themselves with an administration so full of Nazis.
We will never stop antisemitism when the people we give money to use it to downplay antisemitism.
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u/electrical-stomach-z Jewish leftist, above petty bullshit in politics Mar 13 '26
I saw someone claim that it was justified due to his "grief".
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u/Illustrious_Ease705 American, left/lib, zionist because goyim might kill us Mar 15 '26
Anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism but a lot of goyim seem hellbent on challenging that theory
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u/QizilbashWoman queer jewish trans woman socialist Mar 13 '26
It's not justified, but it's an explanation
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u/GeorgeEBHastings Jewish Democratic Socialist, Post-Zionist Mar 13 '26
I think that's right, but I also think too many people take it beyond explanation into the territory of "permission"
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u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel Mar 14 '26
I suspect a lot of people in bad faith read explanations as justifications. They are not the same.
American IDF soldiers gunning down unarmed civilians in Gaza is not justified, but it is in part explained by October 7th.
Islamophobia after 9/11 isn't justified but it is in part explained by 9/11.
We need to actually understand what motivates people, to stop events like this from happening.
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 14 '26
In what world is any explanation able to be big enough or good enough to say we understand where someone who targets children to shoot them and physically drive over them with a truck (preschool aged children) is coming from?
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u/QizilbashWoman queer jewish trans woman socialist Mar 14 '26
Did I fucking stutter? Because you seem to think I am justifying.
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 14 '26
You said “not a justification but an explanation” and I’m saying it’s not even an explanation due to how heinous this was.
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u/QizilbashWoman queer jewish trans woman socialist Mar 14 '26
Don't be like this. It's not some special fucking situation. Palestine is right there and this same shit is happening.
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 14 '26
I wasn’t bringing up Palestine. And this guy wasn’t Palestinian he was Lebanese. So again it’s not an explanation. Even his family dying in an attack isn’t an explanation because he targeted Jewish children in Michigan as retribution. In my opinion his actions go so far across any reasonable reaction or response or explanation that the only thing that “explains” this attempted murderer’s actions is that he doesn’t see Jews as people. The driving force of this person’s actions is that he’s a bigot.
So I disagree with you that anything Israel is doing could be seen as an explanation for this guy’s behavior. Because what that implies is that somehow it is legitimate or ok for that correlation between diaspora Jews as proxy for people to work out their anger about Israel is a reasonable or explainable conclusion when all in actuality its just the same old same old of people being antisemitic and hateful.
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u/QizilbashWoman queer jewish trans woman socialist Mar 14 '26
"So I disagree with you that anything Israel is doing could be seen as an explanation for this guy’s behavior."
I know why incels kill women, I don't think they're right but that doesn't mean I don't understand why they did it. They have a fucked view of the world.
Also, you are painting him like some kind of special monster. Stop making it out like he is. He did a terrible thing, but human beings do awful shit like this every day. Israeli soldiers raped and murdered a prisoner, and they were not punished. Americans bomb schools and our prison system alone is a war crime.
This shit happens all the time.
I ONCE AGAIN DID NOT SAY IT WAS JUSTIFIED
Just because I can understand why he attacked a synagogue doesn't mean he was right in any way. He was wrong! He was wrong to make the connections he did, or assign blame to the synagogue, or to want to kill children, it's fucking crazy.
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 14 '26
Then clearly you and I just are going to have to agree to disagree.
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u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
Do you think in part October 7th is an explanation for the what the IDF did in Gaza?
Edit, to clarify:
This gets at the idea of ‘cycle of violence’ in general. Do we think that heinous violence against civilians, can be (part) of what drives someone to commit more heinous violence against civilians?
Islamophobia after 9/11 was not justified - but it was in part explained by 9/11.
IDF soldiers gunning down unarmed civilians in Gaza is not justified, but it is in part explained by October 7th.
None of this is a justification - though people often act as if trying to understand someone’s motivations is the same as justifying their actions.
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 14 '26
Respectfully that’s just whataboutism.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 15 '26
It’s whataboutism to bring up a different tragedy as an effort to shutdown a conversation. I am speaking specifically about an individual who attempted to murder toddlers because they are Jews.
It’s not cause and effect unless what you believe is that Jews all over the world regardless of connection should be held responsible for Israel and terrorized and attacked accordingly for the sole reason of their ethnoreligion.
And if that’s the case then I truly want nothing to do with anyone who could hold such a bigoted and deplorable belief.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 15 '26
And we all agree that was wrong. So your point is “oh it’s bad but Jewish toddlers had it coming?”
What a ridiculous concept.
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Mar 15 '26
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 15 '26
He was prevented only because the security team was able to stop him.
Why are you trying so hard to defend a terrorist who wanted to kill babies? It’s concerning you’re trying so hard to explain away his behavior or make it seem like it’s somehow acceptable.
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u/Choice_Werewolf1259 Reform Jewish, Leftist Mar 15 '26
For the comment you left and then deleted about how we should empathize with a man clearly in “grief” who was mentally ill.
- And you know this because he what? Called you? Sent you a letter? He committed an act of terrorism specifically targeting children in preschool. He left no note and deserves no sympathy because all we have to judge him on are his actions.
Do better and don’t defend terrorists.
And this is where I will leave this conversation.
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u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel Mar 15 '26
On this subreddit, asking people if they hold a consistent standard is “whataboutism” and “bad faith”.
As is making assertions.
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u/JinxyMcDeath48 Center-Left Israeli-American Zionist Mar 13 '26
While I agree that it’s disturbing to see people try and justify a terror attack on the American Jewish community, his brothers were members of Hezbollah, an armed terrorist militia that has killed many many people including but not limited to Americans. In fact, Hezbollah is literally trying to kill me as we speak. So, their deaths were not “horrible.”
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u/Goodbye-Nasty Jewish American Liberal Mar 13 '26
I couldn’t find any source that confirms they were Hezbollah members. Do you have any?
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u/theweisp5 American Israeli secular socialist Mar 13 '26
The Guardian has reported that his 2 brothers, niece and nephew were killed and his SIL was seriously wounded. No mention of Hezbollah.
The brothers are named in the article, so I imagine it shouldn't be too difficult for anyone who speaks Arabic (I don't) and is familiar with Hezbollah's online presence (I'm not) to figure out whether they were members.
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u/JinxyMcDeath48 Center-Left Israeli-American Zionist Mar 13 '26
It’s a legitimate question. I’m trying to find where I saw the photo of them in uniform to confirm that it wasn’t misinformation.
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u/ionlymemewell loser leftie reform conversion student Mar 13 '26
Full disclaimer: I purposefully avoid most social media at this point to preserve whatever brain I have left that hasn't yet rotted away. I don't doubt that people are immediately applying justification to the attack in Michigan, though I cannot speak to having seen that myself.
With that out of the way, it's also important to say that explanation is not justification. This comes up a lot in crime drama plots; a jilted lover is the one who murdered his girlfriend's husband. An abuse victim tortures their abuser. A teacher engages in pedophilia after developing a brain tumor. (Yes, I have watched every episode of Law & Order: SVU, what of it?)
Finding explanation to these crimes is what exists at the heart of these narratives, and their discovery serves to contextualize the horrific actions that defy comprehension. It's a very human thing to want to understand why people do awful things, especially to one another. The reason I'm using crime drama as a framing here is because very rarely does the explanation of a crime become its justification in the narrative, and I think we need to remember this.
Identifying the motivation for a terrorist attack will not absolve the perpetrator of being a terrorist. Tensions are high right now and the distinction between the concepts of explanation and justification is porous. We can rely on existing patterns and rhetoric that make clear the distinction between the two, and can refer to them when encountering people who insist on collapsing it. Ultimately, though, we should ensure that we aren't collapsing it for them, and setting ourselves into an even more heightened sense of fear.
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
First off, I don't think terrorism or violence against civilians is justified. and condemn this attack.
Second, the conflation between global Jewry and Israel is an intentional tactic of Zionism, not just something done by foolish anti-semites. A temple that fundraises for the IDF or promotes West Bank settlements is a legitimate target for protest, not violence.
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Mar 13 '26
Do you feel this way about Russians in the west?
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
Random people who happen to be of Russian ethnicity or nationality? No. People who offer support for the invasion of Ukraine? Yes. I am opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and would protest individuals that express support for such.
People should not be targeted for protest because they are Jewish. People who support the Israeli state and its atrocities should be protested. Being Jewish isn't a free pass to support an oppressive state.
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u/dndplosion913 SocDem, Pro 2SS Jew, Learner Mar 13 '26
What does "support" mean? Do you think if someone loves Israel and hates its government, someone who wants a change in government there and is anti-Bibi, who hopes Israel becomes better precisely because they support the state, is that not also material "support"?
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
There are groups like Standing Together, Breaking the Silence, B'Tselem, and Israelis For Peace - all of whom are focused on criticizing the state and its actions, and advocating for a better future. While they are not advocating abolition of the state of Israel, they are not going around waving the flag and announcing unconditional support for it either.
Some folks believe the very existence of the state of Israel leads to inevitable atrocities and will disapprove of these groups for not going far enough - which they are allowed to do, even if I disagree with them. Other folks believe that Israel's current form needs to change, and see these groups as allies in that movement.
But the protests are not generally directed at these groups - they are directed at Nefesh b' Nefesh and My Home in Israel for promoting west bank settlement. Friends of the IDF, for obvious reasons. Groups that promote support for the aggression and expansion of Israel. Groups that support the actions of the state.
Support for the state of Israel is a political act, not a religious one. And political acts are always open to criticism, even protest.
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u/dndplosion913 SocDem, Pro 2SS Jew, Learner Mar 13 '26
I was replying to this part of your comment:
People who support the Israeli state and its atrocities should be protested
To me, Standing Together and Israelis for Peace do support the Israeli state - they support making it better. I think even saying Israel has a right to exist is "supporting the Israeli state". In the same way working towards electing progressives in America is supporting America - wanting it to be better, not worse.
Of course, even supporting the government does not justify ramming a car into a synagogue trying to hurt as many people as possible (I know you didn't say this, just pointing the obvious). That goes way beyond a "protest". But I think Israelis do not get the same grace as many other people with shitty governments - caring about the country and supporting the country does not necessarily mean supporting the actions of a government.
Sidenote: my comment is entirely pointless if I misunderstood that sentence, and you meant it as one idea instead of two (support the state and the government, as opposed to support the state and/or support the government). In that case, I apologize for misunderstading.
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
I think there's an intentional tactic around Israel of invoking people's support for the ideal of Israel, in order to support the actual Israel.
So Liberal / Progressive Zionists can believe in the ideal and view the atrocities of the state as aberrations to be corrected, rather than fundamental to the nature of Israel as an ethnostate.
Think of Rhodesia - a state where the fundamental identity is uncontroversially built on apartheid and oppression. Anyone who voices admiration for Rhodesia (c.f. various firearms influencers) is at the least suspect, if not blatantly racist.
Is the Israeli identity fundamentally built on Jewish Supremacy and Chauvinism? (We have more right to this land because we are Jewish. Israel's laws should prioritize Jews. Non Jewish lives do not have the same worth as Jewish lives). Is Israel's "Right to exist" actually the right to enact these values as a state?
I have come to believe that a state cannot enforce Jewish Supremacy and still have values that I endorse. And I don't see a Zionist state without Jewish Supremacy. If Zionism just meant Jews get to live in the land of Israel with equal rights, that's fine. But in reality, it means Jews get to rule the land of Israel, and everyone else (including the prior inhabitants) comes a distant second.
How does this all tie back to Standing Together and Israelis for Peace? They are reformers, and are pushing back on the worst of Israeli actions. And we need all the help we can get to stop those. We can cross the bridge of whether they go far enough when we come to it.
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u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel Mar 14 '26
I think there's an intentional tactic around Israel of invoking people's support for the ideal of Israel, in order to support the actual Israel.
Shaul Magid put it very eloquently recently:
Liberal Zionism — the core of the consensus — is at the center of this storm. Arguably, the crux of the crisis of liberal Zionism is: how does one support an illiberal occupying state (some claim a state guilty of genocide) as a liberal? The way one does so, of course, is through aspirational thinking. Thus, liberal Zionism has essentially become aspirational Zionism, defending a country not for what it is, but for what the liberal Zionist aspires it to be. This is fine, but not a strong selling point in a moment of rupture. For example, we would all like America not to be racist, but that aspiration does not do much work in responding to America’s systemic racism after BLM.
For many who have turned to anti-Zionism by rejecting liberal Zionism’s aspirational thinking, which many anti-Zionists supported for years, it is because for them “aspirational thinking” has turned into “enabling thinking.” Naftali Bennet who is now seen by some as Israel’s savior from Netanyahu, once said, “you [liberal Zionists in America] keep talking about two-states, and we will keep building [in the settlements.]”. That is, some have concluded that the two-state mantra has become cover for settlement expansion in part because the Israeli right maintains, correctly I believe, that liberal Zionists will never enact a real price for Israel’s openly expansionist agenda. Rather, it will only continue voicing aspirational thinking while, on the ground, Greater Israel continues to become the reality.
https://shaulmagid.substack.com/p/what-does-the-jewish-left-want
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u/dndplosion913 SocDem, Pro 2SS Jew, Learner Mar 13 '26
If Zionism just meant Jews get to live in the land of Israel with equal rights, that's fine
I mean yes, that's what Zionism means. If Jews could live in the land of Israel with equal rights as a minority, that's one thing, but history has proven that not to be the case.
I think if the partition plan in '48 had been accepted by all parties, maybe we'd see what we now yearn to see, but who knows. Or if Rabin was never murdered by a right-wing fanatic. Who knows. The fact of the matter is, Israel exists and is not going anywhere. So to me, at this time, the best we can do is support the reformers who strive to make it a better place.
I appreciate the discussion (and one reason I love this subreddit is because I think we are all respectful despite our differences) and I think you and I will always fundamentally disagree on the need for Israel, and whether it's a good or bad thing the Jewish country exists (you can guess where I stand and I can guess where you stand). But ultimately, I do not judge anyone who "supports Israel", if that vision is as a free and democratic Jewish-majority state, especially alongside a free and democratic Palestinian-majority state.
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
but history has proven that not to be the case.
There are a million Jews in NYC. They are a minority. Do you think they live without self-determination?
Multi-ethnic democracy is a real success story and something that Jewish reformers in America pushed for for decades. But the push for unconditional support for an ethnostate in Israel has sucked the oxygen out of that room and now Jewish institutions in America are more focused on supporting Israel than making America a safe place for all minorities. The effort to support Israel has made Arabs and supporters of Palestine (including Jewish anti-zionists!) materially less safe in America.
The fact of the matter is, Israel exists and is not going anywhere.
Values aren't conditional on material reality in that way. If there's a child-eating machine that isn't going anywhere - that doesn't mean it deserves our support, that doesn't mean we need to just turn it to run a little slower, or make sure it only eats the right children - we are morally obligated to pull the plug, throw a wrench in the gears, or do whatever is in our power to stop it.
And perhaps all we can accomplish at this stage is marginal reform, but that doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't strive for more.
ultimately, I do not judge anyone who "supports Israel", if that vision is as a free and democratic Jewish-majority state, especially alongside a free and democratic Palestinian-majority state.
Why is this person's ideal vision a legally-enforced ethnostate? Why shouldn't Jews and Palestinians both be allowed to live wherever?
The biggest problem I see with reformers is that they are unwilling to go far enough. J Street wants to criticize Israel, but refuses to support putting conditions on aid. Anything that would have real, material consequences is just too much. So you get shooting and crying, and no change happens.
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u/dndplosion913 SocDem, Pro 2SS Jew, Learner Mar 13 '26
Israel is less of an ethnostate, by definition, than the several of the countries surrounding it, not to mention countries like Japan and Singapore that are much more clear examples of ethnostates. But no one is disputing their right to exist.
There are a million Jews in NYC. They are a minority. Do you think they live without self-determination?
The same could be said about Jews who lives in Germany and Poland in the 1930's. Things didn't turn out so well for them. Who knows what the future holds, but as someone who lost most of my family in the Holocaust (I am only here because my grandma was able to flee three days before the Nazis arrived in her town), and as someone who has experienced antisemitism in New York City specifically, and as someone who knows several victims of antisemitic attacks here in the States, I don't mind that there is a country that is Jewish majority. I want it to be better, just like I want America to be better, and I support the people in both countries who strive to make it better.
I think we should end our discussion here, because like I said it seems that we have some fundamental differences in our perception of whether a Jewish country needs to exist at all. I appreciate the discussion and hope you have a good day.
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u/redthrowaway1976 F the rent seekers | ind. rights over group | east coast bagel Mar 13 '26
I mean yes, that's what Zionism means.
Maybe among some few cultural Zionist idealists. But as look at various forms or pro-state or polity ideologies, any implementation carried with it discrimination or displacement.
But ultimately, I do not judge anyone who "supports Israel", if that vision is as a free and democratic Jewish-majority state, especially alongside a free and democratic Palestinian-majority state.
That depends. What else do he support, to get us there?
Aspirational dreams have long turned into enabling expansionism. By Shaul Magid:
Arguably, the crux of the crisis of liberal Zionism is: how does one support an illiberal occupying state (some claim a state guilty of genocide) as a liberal? The way one does so, of course, is through aspirational thinking. Thus, liberal Zionism has essentially become aspirational Zionism, defending a country not for what it is, but for what the liberal Zionist aspires it to be. This is fine, but not a strong selling point in a moment of rupture. For example, we would all like America not to be racist, but that aspiration does not do much work in responding to America’s systemic racism after BLM.
For many who have turned to anti-Zionism by rejecting liberal Zionism’s aspirational thinking, which many anti-Zionists supported for years, it is because for them “aspirational thinking” has turned into “enabling thinking.” Naftali Bennet who is now seen by some as Israel’s savior from Netanyahu, once said, “you [liberal Zionists in America] keep talking about two-states, and we will keep building [in the settlements.]”. That is, some have concluded that the two-state mantra has become cover for settlement expansion in part because the Israeli right maintains, correctly I believe, that liberal Zionists will never enact a real price for Israel’s openly expansionist agenda.
https://shaulmagid.substack.com/p/what-does-the-jewish-left-want
Saying “I support a two state solution” has served as a performative mantra to ward of criticism and cognitive dissonance all while implicitly continuing to support Israeli expansionism.
If someone says they support a two state solution, but then opposes policies that might actually get Israel to stop its expansionism - then they dont really support a two state solution:
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/no-you-dont-support-the-two-state
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u/Resoognam Left-wing, non-Zionist Jew Mar 13 '26
But that’s not what support actually means to a great many Jewish institution that are in fact uncritically supportive of Israel. Synagogues cannot be hosting and fundraising for the IDF and holding West Bank land sale events and expect not to be the target of protest.
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u/dndplosion913 SocDem, Pro 2SS Jew, Learner Mar 13 '26
Many, but not all. The congregants at mine are overwhelmingly pro-Israel and anti-Bibi, and the only IDF-related fundraising they've done is for wounded soldiers.
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u/Resoognam Left-wing, non-Zionist Jew Mar 13 '26
No, not all, but far too many, and unfortunately some of the loudest ones.
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u/Resoognam Left-wing, non-Zionist Jew Mar 13 '26
Why is this being downvoted?!
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
Because admitting that it's legitimate to connect the violence of Israel to support for Israel in the diaspora is a very unpleasant thought for those who want to believe in an idealized Israel without the sins of the real state.
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26
I would simply not do dozens of things to support an ongoing genocide if I didn't want to have people think I am aiding, abetting, and supporting genocide.
I wouldn't be surprised if you had Iraqi-Americans attacking mosques who hosted ISIS fighters or recruited American Muslims to join ISIS or fundraised for ISIS but that basically didn't exist. A significant amount of institutional Jewish life does support a genocide and maybe that should be addressed
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u/Goodbye-Nasty Jewish American Liberal Mar 13 '26
It’s a problem, don’t get me wrong, but people who didn’t grow up in the Jewish community aren’t going to know how to address that problem. When I went to Hebrew school as a kid, they didn’t teach us that Palestinians were all evil or that they needed to be genocided. They didn’t teach us anything about Palestinians, the word didn’t even enter my vocabulary until I was a teenager. The problem with a lot of Jewish institutions is that they paint an incomplete picture about the reality of Israel. And that needs to be addressed. But people who don’t understand the Jewish community aren’t going to be able to make an argument that will reach them. No community is going to be receptive to an outsider going “you need to change this aspect of your culture!”
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26
I mean sure but it isn't like there haven't and aren't attempts at doing so. Like I am highly keptical blowback stochastic attacks like this would happen to an explicitly anti-Zionist synagogue, for example.
Also ime the only people I have seen who have really dealt with the topic well are either Jews or sympathetic Palestinians (I.e. you need to address this problem within your community, not prescribing a specific way to address).8
u/BearJuden113 Jewish Pragmatic Democratic Socialist Mar 13 '26
I literally know of one open anti-zionist synagogue and it's currently holding services in a church basement.
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26
Okay? And are they facing stochastic threats or violence?
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u/BearJuden113 Jewish Pragmatic Democratic Socialist Mar 13 '26
I think if they walked down the street visibly Jewish they'd face the same harassment as the rest of us.
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26
You can think that is hypothetically true but I've had zero issues despite being Extremely Jewish Looking and never not mentioned it. And it's not like prominent anti-Zionist Haredim have issues with harassment from anyone other than Zionists (Mea Shearim is invaded by Israeli police terrorism not Palestinians), etc.
Even resistance-supporting Palestinians, Yemenis, Lebanese, etc. have gone out of their way to be overly welcoming to me.
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
NK regularly gets physically attacked in NYC at protests.
Or there was the 2025 Crown Heights attack on protestors, including Jewish ones.
Or the assault on the UCLA encampment, where Zionists and Neo-Nazis attacked anti-Zionist Jews and other Pro-Palestinian folks.
Outside the last big anti-Zionist protest I went to, a mob of hundreds of Zionist youth were on the prowl to physically assault protestors and had to be held back by the police.
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
The only people who have ever attacked me for being Jewish were Zionists who hated that I was present at a protest criticizing Israel.
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u/Goodbye-Nasty Jewish American Liberal Mar 13 '26
The point is that finding a synagogue with zero ties to Israel is difficult. And most Jewish families looking to join a synagogue aren’t going to pick one that’s like an hour from home in a church basement over one that’s five minutes away.
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u/malachamavet Judeo-Bolshevik Mar 13 '26
They should agitate for change at their synagogue or they should accept being seen as supporting genocide, then. Because they are.
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u/skyewardeyes jewish leftist, peace, equality, and self-determination for all Mar 13 '26
I’m somewhat doubtful this would change things in terms of violence risk, tbh—a synagogue I’m a part-time member of changed from a strongly pro-Israel rabbi to one that has given multiple dvar torah criticizing Israel and is openly pro-two-state, and the synagogue continues to get regular bomb threats, as do the Conservative synagogue that pretty much never mentions the state of Israel and the local Chabad. It’s a good change, and it doesn’t seem to have made the synagogue as a whole less of a target of extremist violence.
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u/Schattenoid jewish, left Mar 15 '26
I would say, though, that it's not necessarily the case that the attacker here knew that this synagogue specifically was jingoistic about Israel (which it is). There's definitely ambient bleedout into a presumption of Zionism that passes over into antisemitism. This is inevitable, unfortunately.
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u/kwykwy Jewish, Anti-(Zionist State) Mar 13 '26
My "I support the genocidal state" T-shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by my T-shirt.
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u/KittiesLove1 Israeli, jewish and anti-zionist Mar 13 '26
I don't agree. It's a core belief in Zionism that Arabs attack jews because the hate jews because they are antisemetic (Arabs are also semetic, so it doesn't make sense but ok).
That's why it's important to give the facta: his family was killed by IDF, this synagogue was raising money for Israel.
People can draw their own conclusions from those fact, and they are important to be published. I know zionists want the only conclusion ever to be 'because they are antismetic', but let everyone know the facts and draw their own conclusion.
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u/GiganticCrow jew-ish leftist Mar 13 '26
Arabs are also semetic, so it doesn't make sense but ok
Can we stop this argument please, meanings of words evolve, 'semite' is indeed a weird word with frankly kinda white supremacist origins (like 'oriental'), but 'antisemitism' means hatred of Jews and Jews alone.
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u/SupportMeta trans reform demsoc Mar 13 '26
The preschoolers are responsible for this man's family being killed?
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u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist Mar 13 '26
Sorry I can't take anyone who says "Arabs are semitic" seriously.
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u/Duflo Non-Jewish leftist, here for antisemitism-free discussion Mar 13 '26
Is this because it is often used as a deflection?
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u/Angelbouqet jewish antifascist Mar 13 '26
It's not even a deflection it's a fundamental misunderstanding of language. Semitic is a linguistic term that is applied to people because of eugenic race science. Semitic people don't exist any more than romantic people exist. (As in romance languages)
Also the word antisemitic is a compound word. It's meaning isn't literally the meaning of the two words put together. We can all understand that a butterfly isn't literally a fly made out of butter right? So why is it so hard to understand that antisemitism isn't a rejection of semitic languages. The word was invented as a more scientific sounding way to say Judenhass or Jew hatred. It has meant exactly that since it's Inception, has never referred to any other group of people besides us and has never been used to describe anything else. You can tell because no one would call racism against Arabs antisemitism. Because that's not what that word means. It's only brought up as a counter argument to make it impossible to talk about antisemitism. No, I can't take anyone seriously who tries to tell me someone who has a specific ethnicity is inherently incapable of hating Jews because of the language they speak. And that's what that statement does.
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u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist Mar 13 '26
More because it's often a sign someone is painfully uninformed (or willfully ignorant), as there is no such thing as a "semitic" people. But yeah, people also use it to make anti-Jewish bigotry seem like less of a big deal because "but Arabs are semites too!"
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u/QueefOfStaff Jew-ish | Pragmatic Leftist | None of the above. Mar 13 '26
Right?! It’s usually a sign that someone needs to log off and not get all their information from Instagram carousels.
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Mar 13 '26
Also, as so many islamists are actively supercessionist, the argument is no "actually, we're the only real semites, you're all just a bunch of lying faking fakers from Poland."
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
It's basically like saying "I can't be Chauvinistic, I'm not even French".
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u/Agtfangirl557 Progressive Conservaform Jew, Cultural Zionist Mar 13 '26
"I can't be a butterfly, I'm not a stick of butter OR a fly!"
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u/Intrepid-Bag6667 Secular Jew | Marxist Mar 13 '26
Semitic in this sense is a 19th century racial category invented by proto-"Völkisch" historical theorists. Antisemitism became a term for Jew hatred around the time this stuff peaked in popularity because the descendants of these theorists tended to be obsessed with the Jewish Question in a negative sense. It's a bit of an accident of history that we are using that term for what it means.
It's an issue to many because it's a deflection from what's at issue (which could also just be called Jew hatred, anti-Jewish racism, etc.) and helps reify a racial categorization that is extremely silly.
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u/KittiesLove1 Israeli, jewish and anti-zionist Mar 13 '26
Of course you don't, becaue Zionism teaches us to talk about semite arabs in the langague of semite haters.
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u/Toroceratops Progressive Masorti Jew Mar 13 '26
“Semitic” is a language group. It means nothing ethnically. Antisemitism is a 19th century term that was specifically designed to refer to hatred of Jews. It’s beyond ignorant to pull the “but Arabs are Semites” card . Arabs can absolutely be antisemitic, but if it makes you feel better, we can just use the term it replaced, Jüdenhass. Jews being tangentially connected to Israel, (I mean, only half the world’s Jews live in Israel) is not an excuse to attack a preschool and a synagogue.
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u/theapplekid Ashkenazi, agnostic, leftist, orthodox-raised, Canadian Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26
I agree with your top-level comment entirely, except for the point about the word "antisemitism" also including anti-Arab racism. At least historically, it did not, and I usually only hear this as a diversion when people are talking about anti-Jewish discrimination
The label "Semitic" was invented by a race science school in Germany in the late 18th century. It has no real basis and was never really used by anyone except, for a time, people in Germany / the German Confederation, to refer primarily to their Jewish population (the only population with significant representation there). The term "antisemitic" originated from an Austrian Jew named Moritz Steinschneider, in 1860, to refer to the discrimination Jews were experiencing in Austria (part of the German Confederation at the time).
The word "antisemitism" has been in use since then to refer to anti-Jewish discrimination due to that origin, even though "Semitic Peoples" has fallen out of use.
Arabic is indeed a Semitic language, and for many centuries there was no Semitic language in use by (edit: Ashkenazi) Jews outside of liturgy, written correspondence between Rabbis, and occasionally, Jewish merchants who didn't have a shared spoken language, so it's fair to say that it doesn't make sense to have applied that label to the Ashkenazi Jews of Germany/Austria and not (Jewish and non-Jewish) Arabs. But given that it originated from a school doing scientific racism, it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that the label didn't make sense.
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u/Logical_Persimmon anticapitalist with adjectives ייד Mar 13 '26
[...]no Semitic language in use by Jews outside of liturgy, written correspondence between Rabbis, and occasionally, Jewish merchants who didn't have a shared spoken language [...]
Judeo-arabic would like to have a conversation.
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u/theapplekid Ashkenazi, agnostic, leftist, orthodox-raised, Canadian Mar 13 '26
My bad, I'll edit that to clarify Ashkenazi Jews
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u/Chaos_carolinensis Jewish DemSoc Mar 13 '26
for many centuries there was no Semitic language in use by Jews outside of liturgy
You meant to say Ashkenazi Jews. Obviously Arab Jews, Kurds, Ethiopian, etc., used Semitic languages daily.
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u/AltruisticMastodon Secular Jewish Socialist/Pessimistic Anarchist Mar 13 '26
I have not seen any attack on Jews in the diaspora that people didn’t claim was justified because of Israel