Are anti-Jewish Jews, a new thing?

Fresno California

The always-pungent Melanie Phillips writes,

At a time when Iran is building its genocide bomb against Israel, when Arab children are being indoctrinated in medieval and Nazi Jew-hatred, when similar blood libels and deranged ‘Jewish conspiracy’ theories are now rampant throughout a ‘civilised’ world which will accordingly look the other way should the rockets start falling on Tel Aviv or Haifa, it is hideous beyond measure that some Jews (including Israelis on the left too) should themselves be lining up behind such forces of evil, providing them with the cynical and spurious camouflage of ‘Jewish conscience’ to enable them to do their infernal business.

She’s thinking, in part, of the hecklers from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) who tried to disrupt PM Netanyahu’s speech at the Jewish Federation’s General Assembly today. She continues,

Alas, it was ever thus. Most tragically, throughout the history of anti-Jewish persecution there have always been Jews who volunteered to do the Jew-haters’ dirty work for them. Like Jew-hatred itself, what we are seeing in the [Jews for Injustice Against Jews] is merely yet another mutation — of the racial treachery that has centuries-old blood on its hands.

For once I don’t agree with Ms. Phillips. I don’t think it was ever thus. I’m sure its possible to dig up a few Jewish Nazis, and there are those malshinim* that are mentioned  in our daily liturgy, but the wholesale abandonment of the Jewish people and their homeland by so many who are by some definition Jewish is unprecedented.

In fact, it would probably be correct to say that the anti-Zionist movements in the US and the UK are led by Jews as much or more so than by Arabs (a great deal of the money comes from Arab sources, but the public face of the movement is mostly Jewish).

Maybe the reason is that in, say, 1938, the Nazis weren’t exactly accepting of Jews who were willing to come over to their side. Today’s Nazis have learned how useful it is to have a chorus of fools who are prepared to say “As a Jew… [insert slander here].” So they are happy to let them join the dark side and receive their psychic ‘get out of Auschwitz free’ cards. All in the name of peace, justice, human rights and even, as Phillips notes, “Jewish conscience”.

JVP was recently added to the ADL’s list of the top ten anti-Israel groups in America. They have the distinction of being the only ‘Jewish’ group to make the cut.

—————

* Malshinim originally referred to ‘slanderers’ or informers who betrayed forbidden Jewish worship to the Romans. The shmonesreh prayer which is said three times daily on weekdays includes a request to frustrate their designs (literally, “for the slanderers, shall there be no hope.”)