For Jewish Left, a Conflict in Brooklyn Exposes Bitter Split Over Anti-Semitism

A group of Jewish activists pamphleted an open mic event held last week at Brooklyn Commons, a progressive gathering space in Boerum Hill, condemning the venue’s leadership for partnering with “anti-Semities and white nationalists” — and the scene descended into chaos.

The crowd shouted. Cellphone cameras clicked on, cameras flashed. One man raised a chair over his head threateningly; a pile of papers, a coffee cup and music stand were wielded as weapons.

“I had never seen anything like it a progressive space,” said Michael A. Gould-Wartofsky, a protestor who was yanked off the stage. “I had seen it in neo-Nazi rallies, but never on the left at this tenor. People started … calling me a fascist and a Zionist Jew.”

Organizers at Brooklyn Commons, who protestors say forced them out of the venue amidst the uproar, declined to comment — and some Jewish activists denounced the protest.

28 Sep daniel sieradski ✔ @selfagency On Monday night, a group of progressive Jewish activists went to an open mic at @BrooklynCommons where they were called Zionists & assaulted Follow daniel sieradski ✔ @selfagency Here is video of @mgouldwartofsky being assaulted at @BrooklynCommons. 6:31 AM - 28 Sep 2016

3 3 Retweets 3 3 likes 28 Sep daniel sieradski ✔ @selfagency Here is video of @mgouldwartofsky being assaulted at @BrooklynCommons. pic.twitter.com/Lad4xROfSK Follow daniel sieradski ✔ @selfagency And another video of @mgouldwartofsky being assaulted at @BrooklynCommons. 6:32 AM - 28 Sep 2016

3 3 Retweets 2 2 likes No one was hurt, but the incident comes just weeks after Brooklyn Commons hosted anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theorist Christopher Bollyn for a September talk — a move widely condemned by leftist Jewish groups. The Commons did not directly answer charges that Bollyn was anti-Semitic, but did stand by their decision to host him — saying that the rental space was never meant to be a “cozy cocoon” for leftists.

The entire fiasco also prompted wider soul-searching within parts of the Jewish left, as activist groups struggle to distinguish political criticism of Israel from what they see as more deep-seated anti-Semitism. Anti-occupation groups IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace — whose members themselves are branded as anti-Semitic for their criticism of Israel — scrambled to condemn Bollyn rhetoric.

On the heels of the Bollyn event, JVP issued a “policy statement” defining anti-Semitism, seeking to distinguish “real anti-Semitism” from “problematic definitions,” like the ones leveled against them.

Follow Rebecca Vilkomerson @RVilkomerson .@jvplive released today statements on anti-semitism-what it is&what it isn't. We hope it will be useful resource! https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/fighting-antisemitism/ … 1:49 PM - 8 Sep 2016 Photo published for Fighting Antisemitism | 2016 Fighting Antisemitism | 2016 Our own commitment to fighting all forms of oppression grounds our organizing for justice for all people. jewishvoiceforpeace.org 45 45 Retweets 35 35 likes The new policy statement was put to the test just weeks later.

JVP condemned Miko Peled, a leftist Israeli writer, for expressing what they said were anti-Semitic views on Facebook. Other leftists pushed back, one condemning Vilkomerson as a “Zionist in the closet.” A few days later, the JVP dialed back its condemnation of Peled.

Gould-Wartofsky, who is a PhD candidate at New York University and also wrote a book chronicling the early days of the Occupy Wall Street protests, said that he would not seek to report the altercation at Brooklyn Commons to police.

He suggests that what’s at stake is competing definitions of anti-Semitism and the thorny question of when anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism.

“I have seen anti-Semitism on the left before,” said Gould-Wartofksy. “There are corners in the left that interact with the far right and see themselves on the same page.”

Not everyone at the Brooklyn event saw things from Gould-Wartofsky’s perspective. In a public Facebook post posted after the event, Mitchel Cohen, a Brooklyn Commons supporter, called Gould-Wartofsky’s group “white fascists” who disrupted a “gathering of mostly people of color” and “ranted at the people of color and leftists there.”

The group called themselves “Jewish Antifascist Action,” Cohen noted, but charged: “the so-called ‘anti-racists’… were as racist as can be.”

Dear jj,

If you read my bio, which is here to see in FreeRep, you might think differently.

But, I think it is CUTE, silly, and sloppy, to start throwing labels at someone that you know nothing about. It is demostrative of a more liberal knee-jerk reaction, and not one of someone who just might think a moment, before typing words, which, with your inference to coming from a higher learning background, i had deduced.

I am no member of any ‘conspiracy’ other than being a Nativist, with a Native American heritage, (not the same thing, if you were not knowledgeable) which not all Americans can claim with certainty.

So, as i wrote, it is the BLOODLINE, not what religious sect, defined him.

As far as i was taught, and has held true, he was a Jew.

Defining someone as Jewish according to bloodline is exactly what the Nazis did in their notorious Nuremberg Laws. It set the stage for a genocide of millions.

Plus, one's bloodline alone does not necessarily influence one's ideology, especially in the case of Marx, whose writings obviously show contempt for that bloodline.

I didn't call you a Neo-Nazi or an untermensch. I called one of your sources this.
My father and all four grandparents are Holocaust survivors. Their extended families were largely wiped out. Other members of my family were murdered by the communists and my mother's father survived a gulag. One of his brothers was not so fortunate, and another died soon after from cancer, which was likely caused by the mining he was forced to perform.
Members of my family are being inexorably ethnically cleansed from Sweden because of Multiculturalism, leftist antisemitism, and Muslims. This issue is dear to me. If it weren't a philosophical issue, burying my grandmother was made a horrendous experience by the vermin taken in by the regime in Stockholm. Aside from the normal security risks at the synagogue, the chapel at the cemetery had visual burn marks from being torched by Muslims. As we buried my maternal grandmother, some boys and teenagers came by on the other side of the gate. They shouted "here are some stones for the graves" and pelted us with rocks. A family friend at the funeral was still limping due to the beating she recieved by Muslim students at her school. She was forced to retire, and her husbands store was closed due to repeated vandalism. (The authorities refuse to prosecute the teenagers involved).

I am rather emotional about this. I not only disagree with Lerner, but consider her the most wicked of Kapos. In fact, to call her such is a disservice to Jews forced to work with the Nazis, most of whom did what they could to keep as many Jews alive as possible. She is a full Quisling helping to import Muslims and silence Jews.
The Elites of Europe are trying to create Eurabia. It has been an antisemitic project since day one. Bat Ye'or makes this case clear. The people you look to cannot refute this, so they simply ignore it.

PS. You may be interested in the works of the late Lawrence Auster , including his discussion of criticizing Jews without being antisemitic.

Lawrence was an agnostic Reform Jew, who became Catholic.
You might also benefit from reading Frontpage Magazine and the collections of Daniel Greenfield

Dear justiceseeker,

re:
“Defining someone as Jewish according to bloodline is exactly what the Nazis did in their notorious Nuremberg Laws” (I still say he was a Jew.)

What about all this ‘ancestry dot com’ nonsense?

In this time and date, would that not describe how ‘the family name’ has always been defended, until the last few decades? Family inheritances by bloodline? Family succession by bloodline ... wasn’t that one of the stipulations in the feudal codes?

Bi-racial kids ending up with sickle cell anemia, Barr-Epstein, and other peculiar anomalies previously identified as residing within certain racial groups, alone?

And for the record, there are only 3 (three) races, Caucasian, Negroid, and Mongoloid. (For example, mexican is not a race. it is a nation.)

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