Thoughts on Antisemitism

For John, BLUF:  We need to separate the real from the paranoid.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The great anti-Semitism panic of 2017

While it is The Wash Post, it is the column "The Volokh Conspiracy" and the author is Mr David Bernstein, on 8 March.

Here is the lede plus one:

I’m not insensitive to anti-Semitism.  Despite growing up in Jew-friendly New York City, I experienced my share of it — kids throwing rocks at my Jewish Day School bus, anti-Semitic graffiti on our home’s fence, among other incidents.  And as Volokh Conspiracy readers know, I’ve blogged quite a bit about anti-Semitism.  I’ve mostly written about anti-Semitism coming from the far left, but I’m not at all naive about the existence and virulence of anti-Semitism on the far right.

Nevertheless, I’ve been rather taken aback by the panic in the Jewish community over American anti-Semitism since Donald Trump won the election.  The recent spate of hoax bombing threats to Jewish community centers and other Jewish institutions around the country has been a precipitating factor, but the fear is drastically out of proportion to the threat; no bombs have been found, and there are no indications that there is any real physical threat to Jews.  By contrast, in the past decade or so there have been actual murders at a JCC and a Jewish federation office without precipitating such panic.

Mr Bernstein has a point.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff