The New York City Council recently passed a resolution to make April 29 “End Jew Hatred Day”. And why not? The 28th was National Pet Parents Day. The 30th was National Sarcoidosis Day. Don’t the Jew-haters deserve a day off too?
After all, they’ve been so busy. The New York Police Department’s figures show that reports of antisemitic hate crimes have more than doubled in the last two years. There were 263 in 2022, or one every 33 hours. Presumably many more attacks went unreported.
Sandra Nurse Credit John McCartenNYC Council MediaUnit
Sandra Nurse (John McCarten NYC Council Media Unit)
The NYPD is offering a $3,500 reward for information on the whereabouts of Perin Jacobchuk, a 32-year-old who allegedly assaulted a 63-year-old man in Central Park in broad daylight while making “numerous anti-Jewish statements”. The Anti-Defamation League is offering $7,500. I know who I’d call first.
Jacobchuk has ginger hair. I am not sure whether the Diane Abbott Scale of Racial Grievance would call this “punching up” (a good thing) or “punching down” (a bad thing). The man he attacked was punched, laterally, in the mouth.
Back at City Hall, the motion on End Jew Hatred Day passed 41-6. Two of the city councillors voted against ending Jew hate.
Four abstained while, like one of the reform- or simple-minded tsars of Russia, they thought it through again. All six are progressive Democrats. Their objections show exactly what their idea of progress is.
The no votes were Shahana Hanif and Sandy Nurse. Hanif, as the chair of the progressive caucus, is used to saying the quiet bits out loud. The motion, she said, was proposed by “far-right” Republicans, so she refused to engage.
Shahana Hani Credit John McCartenNYC Council MediaUnit
Shahana Hani (John McCartenNYC Council Media Unit)
This is New York City. The Republicans would be liberal Democrats if they lived anywhere else. True, the motion was proposed by a Republican, Inna Vernikov. But End Jew Hate is a non-partisan movement, just like hating Jews is.
Hanif seems to feel that not being hated is a privilege Jews must earn. “They have not stood up for Muslims. They have not stood up for trans New Yorkers,” she said.
The new “anti-racism” is the inversion of the bad old racism. Once, Jews were granted privileges if they shed their difference.
Now, Jews are expected to “check their privilege” with upstanding mortifications and confessions of “white-adjacency”, then “take a seat” and a low slot on the totem pole of identity entitlement. It’s progress, progressive-style. If we don’t play this rigged game, the bully’s logic goes, then we deserve what’s coming.
Hanif’s colleague Charles Barron abstained, citing the “inconsistency of the members of the Jewish community, particularly its leadership, in speaking out against hatred, like hatred of Palestinian people, like the State of Israel murdering Palestinian women and children and stealing the land”.
Jews, he said, also did “nothing about African people” when South Africa was under apartheid.
In 2013, the ADL said that Barron has maintained “close ties to radical groups like the New Black Panther Party, the largest organised black militant hate group in the United States”. This did not stop Barron winning a seat in the New York State Assembly in 2015.
Perhaps it helped.
Barron says he’s not “pro-antisemitic”, only “anti-the inconsistency of the Jewish community”. While the stiff-necked Jews persist in failing to match his uniquely high standards, they must be collectively punished. No days off for the Jews, and no days off for the haters!
Meanwhile, in the brain of the headless chicken that is the federal government, the ever-dynamic and articulate Joe Biden announced that his administration is developing “the first national strategy to counter antisemitism”. One of its goals is to “build cross-community solidarity against antisemitism and other forms of hate”. He might start with his own party.
Dominic Green is a contributor to the ‘Wall Street Journal’ and a ‘Washington Examiner’ columnist
