What Ignited Antisemitism in North America?

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The justifications used throughout history to hate, exclude, abuse, and murder Jews have been many and varied. In Christian countries, Jews were accused of murdering Jesus, of poisoning wells, of slaughtering Christian children whose blood was needed to make matza (unleavened flat bread required for Passover), and of bringing the Black Plague. In post-Christian, National Socialist countries, they were accused of being communists, but more importantly, an inferior race; in post-Christian, Communist countries, they were accused of being capitalists. 

In Islamic countries or wherever they have spread, Muslims believe that Islam is supersessionist, that it has superseded Judaism and Christianity, proving them inadequate or incorrect. For that reason, Jews and Christians, while recognized as “People of the Book,” i.e. the Bible, must be subordinate to Muslims. Islamic supremacy is a basic and absolute feature of Islam. Jews and Christians in Muslim countries are given the status of dhimma, or “protected,” as long as they fulfill their ritual and material obligations as subordinates. (Dhimma is a privileged status compared to “infidel,” who under Islam may lawfully be killed, enslaved, kidnapped and ransomed, or ignored.) Disobedient Jews and Christians, such as those who claim autonomy and self-governance, may be justly killed. 

In all of these cases, threats to the social order and to the well-being of the population were projected onto Jews. By identifying a small minority of the population as the cause of these threats, it was possible to “purify” society by punishing, expelling, or exterminating this minority “scapegoat” population. This imaginary solution to intractable social problems or uncontrollable natural phenomena provided some emotional comfort and even satisfaction to the rampaging majority. We know that at least some Nazi SS did not enjoy shooting unarmed Jewish women, children, and elderly Jews, but they were told, and presumably many believed, it was their duty to the Motherland. 

Antisemitism is integral to the worldwide Islamic jihad (holy war) in support of Islamic supremacy. This jihad is carried out by diverse means according to circumstances. Jihad in contemporary Europe is not advanced by military invasion, but by “immigration jihad” which aims to occupy European countries and, aided by a high birth rate, take over through electoral politics. In the meanwhile, Jews are attacked throughout Europe by Muslims, usually on an ad hoc basis. A recent exception was the planned and organized Amsterdam pogrom, which was directed at both visiting Israelis and local Jews. After the success of this pogrom, due partly to the lack of response of the police, we can expect to see more pogroms throughout Europe in the future. 

In the Middle East, Muslim terror armies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and various Shi’a militias, inspired and supported by Iran, plan to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jewish people. The Hamas invasion and Hezbollah attacks of 2023-24 are attempts to bring these plans to fruition. If successful, the disobedient Jews, violating Islamic supremacy by autonomously governing their own country and winning wars against Muslim armies, would be eliminated. Jews violate Islamic doctrine in another way: lands once ruled by Muslims must always remain under Muslim control. (Which is why Muslims say that Spain and Portugal rightly belong to them, and some look to return to dominance in those countries. That may happen through immigration jihad.) 

The jihad is carried out in North America by different means, because Muslims are a small minority. Muslim action groups lobby for condemnation of Israel through BDS, the “boycott, defund, and sanction” movement, and “Apartheid Week” demonstrations. These have been centered on universities, and many non-Muslim students and professors are committed to the cause as a matter of justice. The widespread celebrations following the Hamas atrocities committed against Israelis, Israeli Americans, and Israeli Canadians were manifested in marches, sit-ins, occupations, and blockage of passage at many North American universities. Attacks on Jews were both indirect, such as not allowing them onto campus or into certain campus facilities, such as libraries, and occasionally direct, including taunts, threats, and physical attacks. 

Antisemitism was not native to the United States. The Founding Fathers saw their Christian faith as the basis of their society, the rights granted by God inherent in the people, and saw the faith of the ancient Hebrews as the foundation of their faith. Many had studied Hebrew and were knowledgeable about Judaism. Hebrew was a common subject of study in America’s early colleges. Canada is a slightly different story. In Catholic Quebec, however, the ancient “Christ-killer” epithet lived on in the 20th century, repeated from the pulpits. Even in the new secular Quebec, antisemitism continues as a reflex in the French population. While Jews in Quebec had always been subject to discrimination, violent attacks on Jews were rare. 

But the United States and Canada have changed: antisemitism is now respectable and increasingly popular. This is seen in the public enthusiasm for the rapes, torture, and murder of Israelis by Muslim terrorists; in the arson, firearm, and bomb attacks on Jewish schools and places of worship; and in the increasing number of violent attacks on Jews in the streets or wherever they are found. 

Why exactly have non-Muslim Americans and Canadians actively turned against the Jews and Israel? 

The answer is to found in the “progressive” ideology that dominates both countries under the Obama-Biden-Harris Democrat administration and the Trudeau Liberal administration. These administrations have adopted neo-Marxist theories about the nature of society, and have put into place policies to correct alleged “injustices” as specified by those theories. The heart of these theories is the understanding that every society is characterized by a class conflict between evil oppressors and innocent victims. Political policies, priorities, and regulations are directed to punish and exclude the oppressors and to raise up and benefit the victims. 

These theories were pioneered and advanced by feminists beginning in the 1960s, claiming the oppression of all females by the evil male patriarchy. Note that this formulation disregards North American polities’ much touted respect for individuals and individualism in favor of the collectivism of huge demographic categories. This approach also rejects the basic American idea that people succeed through capability and application, replacing it with the claim that any disparity between categories must be the result of prejudice and discrimination. For feminists, males are the unworthy recipients of statuses and benefits. 

The neo-Marxist class conflict theory was also attractive to North American blacks and others who championed them. Blacks were statistically “underrepresented” in various prestigious positions in education, politics, and other professions. This was attributed solely to discrimination. All BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) were believed to be suffering from discrimination. The villains in this case were the majority whites, but also successful minorities such as Asians, deemed “white adjacent,” and Jews, labeled “hyper-white.” In this case too, success was regarded as the result of discrimination against BIPOC. Success was seen as the result not of effort and achievement, but of theft. 

Championing of females and BIPOC provided impetus to the gay liberation movement. LGBTQ2S++ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, two spirit) faced restrictions and prejudice in the face of “heteronormativity.” The movement strove for public acceptance and the removal of legal and informal restrictions. Disparities in legal status and public acceptance were said to be due to prejudice and discrimination by heterosexuals “straights.” 

Females, BIPOC, and LGBTQ2s++ were classed together as “marginalized,” “underserved” victims of oppression in a unified “social justice” movement. This movement was politicized by the Biden Democrat administration in the U.S. and the Trudeau Liberal administration in Canada. These administrations institutionalized the “social justice” movement and its operationalization in “diversity, equity, and inclusion” largely by means of executive orders and financial incentives. This was seen clearly in mandates for government offices and agencies, government-adjacent organizations such as universities, granting agencies, and professional organizations. An entire new profession of bureaucrats was invented to enforce “social justice” policy: DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) mandates and restrictions. These DEI political commissars imposed “social justice” policies and punished any deviation or opposition. 

What “social justice” means in practice is the institutional favoring of the new “protected classes” of females, BIPOC, and LGBTQ2s++, plus some others, such as Muslims, and the demeaning, sidelining, and exclusion of men, whites, Christians, and Jews. Reverse discrimination is the order of the day, and is clearly expressed in the advertisements for new posts which explicitly exclude males, whites, heterosexuals, and anyone not on the “protected” list. Jews, now considered white, are disappearing from those institutions. The results can be seen in the statistical dominance of females in government offices and among university students, professors, and administrators, and the absence of Jews. “Social justice” was labeled “anti-racism,” but in fact is the new racism with different victims.  

In the social justice scheme, Jews are doubly guilty of oppression, because they support Israel, which is characterized as a “white, colonial settler, imperialist society” that had displaced and oppressed the “indigenous, people of color, the Palestinians.” These characterizations are factually incorrect, but facts do not seem to matter to enthusiasts of the social justice religion. They only know that there are good guys, the innocent oppressed, and the bad guys, the evil oppressors. In this procrustean model, anti-colonialism on behalf of the indigenous people of color requires that they condemn the snow-white Israelis, and the newly “white” North American Jews that support them. If that were not enough, Israelis defending themselves against Hamas, which vowed to exterminate Israelis, were accused—against every dictionary definition, treaty, and historical example—of “genocide.” No imaginary violation by Jews goes unclaimed. 

The ongoing pogrom in North America against Israel and Jews is inspired by the ongoing, worldwide Islamic war against Islam-non-compliant, disobedient Jews. North Americans from Islamic backgrounds and foreign students from Islamic countries are the spark that lit the kindling of the pro-Hamas pogrom across North America beginning on the 7th of October 2023. But what was the source of the fuel for the fire of the pogrom, the multitudes of non-Muslim North American university student, professors, and administrators, as well as the activists and NGO employees? These are the woke warriors, the activists for “social justice” striking out at the white, colonial settler, evil “oppressors” who victimize the innocent and helpless “people of color” Palestinians. Waves of mostly college girls mobilized to celebrate the rape, torture, and murder of Jews and to worship the authors of those atrocities, Hamas, the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Among all of the evil oppressors, why the Jews? Why not the much more prevalent male and white oppressors? It has proven easy enough to demonize, sideline, and even exclude whites. But they still make up the majority of the population: 60% in the U.S. and 70% in Canada. Woke attackers would be seriously outnumbered. Men only make up around 50% of the population, but who is going to assault them—the angry college girls?

Jews are attractive as a target because they are a small, weak, and scattered population, given to religion, professions and commerce. They are not dock workers or teamsters, who could presumably protect themselves from raging college girls. As a small and weak “oppressor” population, they make an ideal target. Ideal to bring “social justice” without too much risk. And, when it is Jews, the Muslims are happy to pitch in. 

Once again, Jews are universal villains and vulnerable scapegoats in an imaginary morality drama. Once well-poisoners, child-murderers, God-killers, a sub-human inferior race, and anti-social capitalist-communists, now a colonial settler and apartheid enforcer, a violator of “social justice” and guilty of “genocide.”  Feminist intersectionism has done its work well.