Tag Archives: anti-Semitism

Guns and Poses

Posted on by under cancel culture, Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Palestine, princeton

For weeks now, the papers in Princeton have been full of news items about anti-Semitic graffiti discovered around town. In virtually every case, the reports have been vague to the point of deliberate concealment about what the messages have actually said. Here’s a typical example, from the April 29 issue of Town Topics:

On April 21 at 1:05 pm, officers responded to headquarters for a report of a threatening letter received at a religious organization on Cherry Hill Road. The letter, which was intended for a separate Jewish group that uses the location for gatherings, contained anti-semitic threats of violence. Investigation revealed similar letters had recently been sent to multiple Jewish organizations throughout Mercer County and Bucks County, Pa. The incident remains under investigation (p. 13).

Continue reading →

The West Orange Anti-Semitism Task Force: A Response

Posted on by under activism, Palestine

This is a statement given to West Orange Township Council, January 20, 2026. It’s the first of several I intend to give there on this topic. The comment of Sheila Lefkowitz from the November 12 meeting (mentioned below) appears at 1:33:33 of this video. My statement below appears around minute 49 of this video. I’ll discuss the responses to my statement in a later post. This article gives a good overview of the current state of discourse on this topic in New Jersey.

On November 12 last year, I spoke here on the matter of the Immigrant Trust Act. While I was here, a resident, Sheila Lefkowitz, rose to speak about the need for an anti-Semitism task force. I took strong exception to Ms Lefkowitz’s claims at the time, but haven’t had a chance to respond until now. Admittedly, three months have passed since then, but I think a response is in order, however belated.

Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: Tensions in Clifton

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense, Neutrality and Complicity

Readers of this blog may remember my earlier posts on the campaign for an Immigrant Trust Act (ITA) resolution in Clifton, New Jersey (Nov 5 and Nov 18). As mentioned in the latter post, I attended the November 5 meeting, but had to miss the November 12 one due to a scheduling issue. This is a guest post by my friend Jeff Hoey of Clifton, describing the November 12 meeting. Here is a link to the (tendentious, editorializing) Clifton Times piece Jeff mentions. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: Clifton Redux

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, migrant defense, Palestine

Chris D’Amato, Migrant Rights, and the Exploitation of Anti-Semitism
I mentioned the campaign for an Immigrant Trust Resolution in Clifton a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I had a scheduling conflict and had to miss the follow-up meeting yesterday. Below the fold is a depressing report from my friend Jeff Hoey, a Clifton resident who’s been leading the campaign. It’s a perfect example of the cynicism that masquerades as philo-Semitism nowadays–and also the right-wing virtue-signaling that passes itself off as “anti-woke.” I encountered a similar phenomenon when I spoke last week in West Orange, which I’ll describe here in the near future. It’s obviously a trend. Continue reading →

“All Aboard!”

Posted on by under Palestine

I asked a bunch of New Jersey state legislators–Andrew Zwicker, Roy Freiman, and Mitchelle Drulis–where they stood on S.1923, which “[p]rohibits investment of pension and annuity funds by [the] State in companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses,” and A.3882, which establishes the State’s official definition of anti-Semitism. I also asked each of them for an explanation of why they hold the view they hold. Never got an answer from any of the three, so I’ve decided to return the favor in the upcoming primary election by voting against them, even if they’re the only choices on the ballot. Hard to vote for people who insist on turning the state legislature into a forum for the defense of an apartheid state, but can’t be bothered to explain what they’re doing or why. Continue reading →

Three Passings, Three Losses

Posted on by under Memorials and Obituaries

Sometimes people you come to know in passing leave a more-than-passing memory. Three such people have recently passed away in quick succession, and I wanted to mark their passings. 

Many readers of this blog may know, or know of, Chris Sciabarra, The Famous Dialectical Libertarian of Brooklyn, but far fewer have had the privilege, as I have, of meeting his late sister Elizabeth (1952-2022). To the best of my memory, I met her only twice; it may in fact only have been once, but she was the kind of person who would have left a double impression from a single encounter. Continue reading →

Crazy Like a Foxman: The ADL’s Descent into Racist Sociopathy

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Abraham Foxman was for decades the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, and is currently its National Director Emeritus. Paul Surovell, a Facebook friend of mine, is a peace activist and Chair of South Mountain Peace Action in Maplewood, New Jersey. The exchange between them (below the fold) is both revealing and astonishing.

Revealing because despite using them all his career, Abraham Foxman literally has no idea what the word “libel” or the phrase “blood libel” actually mean. Astonishing because Surovell’s final accusation really is as obvious as he says it is: Foxman’s aversion to the very acknowledgement of Palestinian suffering seems to suggest either that Palestinian suffering doesn’t exist, or that it’s deserved even in children, or that even if it exists, it doesn’t merit acknowledgement. Why else would that be, except on the assumption that non-Jewish suffering by definition takes a back seat to Jewish suffering? How much clearer could the sheer dehumanization of Palestinians get?

Continue reading →

Anti-Semitism: A Pro-Palestinian Rejection

Posted on by under Uncategorized

In case anyone had missed the message, the cause of and movement for Palestinian rights is flatly incompatible with anti-Semitism. Put differently, there is no justifiable way of being in favor of Palestinian rights on anti-Semitic grounds or for anti-Semitic ends. When anti-Semites try to appropriate the Palestinian cause for their own purposes, or hijack the cause by attacking innocent Jews, consistent defenders of Palestinian rights are among the first–and loudest and clearest–to call them out. Here’s a piece from CommonDreams for anyone who still has doubts about the supposed “connection” between anti-Semitism and Palestinian rights (ht: Kevin Carson). There is no connection, just the wholehearted disavowal of one.

Continue reading →

Notes on the Jersey City Shooting (2)

Posted on by under Uncategorized

In an earlier post, I took issue with the widespread but premature tendency to “link” the recent Jersey City shooting to the Black Hebrew Israelite (or Black Israelite) movement. From what I’ve read, the tendency takes the form of inflating the shooters’ interest in the group into a “link to” the group (suggesting something like membership), the implication being that the group’s ideology helps explain the shooters’ motivations, hence explains the shooting (suggesting something like complicity by the group itself).

Continue reading →