by oldschooltwentysix
Over the news wire comes the story of three people killed and one in critical condition following a shooting at the Brussels Jewish Museum on Saturday.
Many people I know are well meaning, but ignorant. They can say without hesitation that claims of persistent and increased antisemitism are overblown. So many of them are not Jewish and exempt from feeling it, and they are immune from most other ills that trouble humankind. They are insulated and from their safe perch it's hard for them to see Jew hatred unless it shows its violent side. Even then, they are apt to call it a reaction to Zionism or occupation or due to oppression or poverty.
Ironically, lots of these same people call themselves "anti-racist" and are ever so quick to support the slightest whiff of "microaggression" when directed toward others not Jewish. They see no disconnect in the way they apply ideas. To them the tiny Jewish minority is among the privileged, the oppressors like themselves. Discrimination toward Jews is just not the same as with other minorities.
The privilege concept involved here is a recent social construct, seen as motivation of all behavior to create a system of oppression, like by the Founders, for example, and white people generally through history. To illustrate, the Enlightenment was not about the introduction of science to further human knowledge and understanding, but privilege. America was not about religious freedom and liberty, but privilege. Slavery, through the eyes of these privileged, was only a Western sin, and the West can get no credit for acting to end it.
Other instances abound where one can show how skewed perceptions have become. Current notions and norms are used as the criteria to judge what occurred in a different time. But did man invent the wheel or the plow for the sake of this notion of privilege?
Back to the subject, there are less than 14 million Jews worldwide. Six million were exterminated less than 100 years ago, while the world mostly watched. Christian and Muslim antisemitism is not a social construct, but fact. In this environment, one hopes that more people will understand that warnings of antisemitism are real and should not be dismissed, especially by claims of intent to silence critics of Israel. Jew haters say that all too often. Others should disassociate from that view, not reinforce it, and accept that, though they are not bigoted toward Jews, others definitely are, and in numbers much greater than they imagine.
