Jewish Telegraphic Agency (8/10/22): “Calls for violence have accompanied antisemitic slurs and conspiracy theories.”
The Florida federal judge who signed the warrant for the FBI to raid former President Donald Trump’s property is Jewish, and the far-right is terrorizing him and his community as a result.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (8/10/22) reported that “Bruce Reinhart…has been hit with a wave of antisemitic threats online,” including death threats. And the synagogue whose board he serves on has been attacked as well, the Forward (8/9/22) reported:
What began with Lenny Dykstra, a retired New York Mets legend, questioning the nature of the Conservative synagogue’s Judaism, spilled over onto right-wing social media platforms and message boards, where users published the judge’s name, address and personal information. Threats have been directed at Reinhart’s children and supposed family members as well.
On Thursday, a synagogue member told the Forward that the synagogue’s beachside Shabbat service had been canceled…“because of the social media hate.”
Specifically, Dykstra said on Twitter, according to the St. Louis Jewish Light (8/9/22):
“I hope you all weren’t expecting that the synagogue where go-ahead-and-raid-Trump Judge #BruceReinhart is on the board of trustees is one where the congregation keeps kosher, observes the sabbath, etc. You can bet they’re into ‘social justice’ of course!” Dykstra tweeted to his nearly 87,000 followers.
This is a funny little twist of antisemitism that many non–Orthodox Jews are all too used to: Christians using a professed love for the Jewish religion to vilify Jews whose religious practices are less observant. It’s not a coincidence that many less devout Jews happen to be more progressive in their politics than more religious communities.
Fanning the flames
Daily Beast (8/12/21): “[Fox‘s Brian] Kilmeade took to Twitter not to apologize but rather to claim that the fake image was shown on the news network purely as a goof.”
Fox News fanned these flames on Tucker Carlson Tonight when, as the Daily Beast (8/12/21) reported, “fill-in host Brian Kilmeade” used “a fabricated image of two separate photographs appeared on screen depicting [Reinhart] on an airplane receiving a foot massage from convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell,” and that “it took Sean Hannity of all people to plainly spell out the image’s inauthenticity.” In a more reality-based smear, Fox News (8/9/22) insinuated the judge was politically biased by reporting on his past support for former President Barack Obama.
USA Today (8/10/22) reported on the threats against Reinhart, but didn’t mention the anti-Jewish nature of the torment.
Two Jewish communities—Illinois’s Highland Park (CNN, 7/27/22), and the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh (WHYY, 10/22/21)—are still reeling from mass shootings, the latter of which was, as FAIR (10/30/18) reported, explicitly inspired by anti-Jewish and anti-immigrant talking points in the pro-Trump far-right media.
Interestingly, in the Highland Park shooting—much like in the case of the Florida judge—the Forward (7/7/22) noted that mainstream media coverage of the attack ignored evidence of the targeting of a Jewish community, making it out to be a random suburban attack that “could happen anywhere.” “Jews pleading for them to talk about our community and how it was affected were completely ignored,” Elad Nehorai wrote.
There’s a disturbing echo of the Tree of Life shooter’s obsession with the Jewish immigration agency HIAS in Dykstra’s complaint about the Florida synagogue’s concern for “social justice.” And the far-right outrage over the Trump raid has already proven capable of turning violent, as one January 6 insurrectionist was killed by law enforcement attempting to attack an FBI office in Cleveland (WXIX/AP, 8/10/22).
One would think, then, that the anti-Jewish threats against Reinhart would be bigger news.
No longer outliers
Of course, the corporate press does like to talk about antisemitism—sometimes. The Wall Street Journal (1/17/22) said that antisemitic violence from Muslims and the left wasn’t being taken seriously because “Islamist and left-wing terrorism are closely associated with the Democrats.” The Murdoch paper (5/24/21) also said Democrats were fueling antisemitism with their criticism of the Israeli government.
The New York Times (4/26/22) has reported on legitimate upticks in threats against Jews, but that paper and others have also been found to have erroneously framed antisemitism as an extension of legitimate criticism of the Israeli government (FAIR.org, 8/26/20).
The media’s failure to adequately portray what has happened to Reinhart isn’t just a blow to him and his community—it’s a failure to expose how deeply fascistic and hateful the far-right following of Trump’s base actually is. It’s easy to dismiss the threats as meaningless outbursts. But Trump’s base has shown itself to be extremely violent and to act on those threats, from the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally to the January 6 insurrection.
The reason why Reinhart’s role in the FBI is causing such a fervor in the Trump movement isn’t just that he signed the warrant, but he represents the kind of “Jewish problem” the far right perceives in the American government. There’s a steady white nationalist mythology that while Jews are not the public face of liberal, democratic order, they are its puppet masters behind the scenes. Unaccountable to the electoral system, they spend their days thwarting Trump’s efforts to establish Christian dominion in the United States.
Trump himself has stood accused of using antisemitism in his political rhetoric (Vanity Fair, 12/17/21; FAIR.org, 1/28/20), and even though he is out of power, we find more and more Republican candidates and elected officials with connections to antisemitism (CNN, 5/6/22, 7/28/22; New York Times, 6/10/22; New York, 1/28/21). In short, these posters threatening the judge are simply no longer outliers on the right; their values are represented as normal within the party.
Hopefully, Reinhart and his community will experience no physical harm as a result of these threats. But such menaces continue to fester in an ideology that has, indeed, broken out against Jews as well as other minorities. Media need to care about that.
The Jews and antisemitism in general have been the world’s scape goats for centuries. Good piece Ari and Fair.org
Fairly certain that women and indigenous populations were treated much worse.
Could you please explain exactly how you came to that conclusion?
Blanket statements such as yours tend to embolden the Right-Wing extremists
Oh priceless regarding your fashionable, blanket statement, requesting Veronica provide proof but you don’t.
Let’s start with 6-7 million Jews who died during the Holocaust and WW2 for starters. Questions ?
How many tens of millions of indigenous people were (and continue to be) killed and/or forced off their lands (like in Palestine) in order to serve the needs of colonial interests?
NOTHING fashionable about whitewashing 500 years of worldwide historical oppression in order to serve the agenda of a radical religious group.
Thank you Barry, never did I expect such an ignorant response from anyone. Seemingly we live in a world of denial of actual facts. Sad.
Why did you present the contradictory nouns “Jews and antisemitism in general,” as equivalent terms within the text of your original statement?
For the record, as a Muslim American and regular reader of FAIR, I reject all Holocaust deniers and find them deplorable.
Why am I not surprised Bradly Grower is off the rails once again. His style and criticism is similar to the common circular argument of the twitter world. I imagine he assumes everyone reading fair.org agrees with the his twisted, baseless, false thoughts. He is like a naughty brother in a bad dream ‘fall in line with my propaganda or I am gonna tell Dad’ as he actually pretends to right about everything. Pretty pathetic.
Fucking seriously?
“Your genocide isn’t all that bad compared to some other genocide” is the argument you wanna go with here?
Any claim that a single group has been “the world’s scape goats for centuries,” is problematic… but hey, don’t let that stop you from adding your usual obscenities to the thread.
Problematic or not, the counter-argument that “your genocide wasn’t so bad; have some perspective, Jews!” is fucking ridiculous and morally-atrocious.
Do you believe creating a fictitious quote is sufficient to win an argument?
My phrasing is fair and reasonable restatement of your argument.
Brad, I think we have smoked out and discovered you a clueless antisemitic turd. No further dialogue on your part is necessary (stop digging) as everyone here has your number.
john
Just because you are commenting on FAIR does not permit you license to put words into the mouths of others… and call that process “fair.”
John do you know the old dumb trick in asking, “When did you stop beating your wife?” That’s what you do here, with a tiring dose of outragey foul language that you may think is effective or tough when it’s just stupid. I do appreciate you holding off on all-caps.
You seem to like a pissing contest. You have a lot in common with Dykstra with regard to how you communicate.
Sad to say, but this is the “new normal” in American online discourse.
So fuck off and don’t interact with me, if you don’t like the way I write.
It wasn’t a leading question: Bradley started this off by explicitly comparing the repression Jews have suffered over the centuries to other repression other groups have suffered. It’s bullshit whatboutism and I called it out. Don’t like it? Then engage on the merits.
john,
The claim was that Jews have been the world’s scape goats.
That singular claim dismisses the suffering of all other groups.
Looking forward to an obscenity-free reply… if you can manage.
“john” – If you reread your reply to me; you use if/then structure to tell me to “fuck off,” which should end any conversation. But then you schizo-switch to light debate, then beg to be “engaged on the merits.” That’s not sound hasbara!
Based on this dude Bradley’s response, its just another part of a growing cancel culture trend that brings to mind this quote from George Orwell’s “1984”:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” Wild times we live.
Riley Roberts,
My previous reference was to long-standing historical trends which clearly overshadow in complexity and number, the horrific atrocities of Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Regime.
No memory hole on my end. What about on yours? I believe Eric Arthur Blair might be disappointed in your perversion of his words.
Fairly certain that there is no ongoing holocaust of Jewish victims in the 21st century… meanwhile the same colonial oppression to which I previously referred continues around the planet, even day.
‘No memory hole on my end’ LOL just a major ass hole. Go away troll.
You have it backward, it is the endless repetition of any one disaster to a people, to the exclusion of the myriad others, that rewrites history.
The inclusion of comparative like events is what is known as context, and it does not diminish, but serves to enlighten. Orwell would agree with me.
But please, show me up with a list of ten+ titles of serious non-fiction history you have read in the last 2-3 years.
Does Ari Paul contend that if Judge Reinhart were a Mormon then loons on 4chan would not tap ignorant comments into their keyboards against him? Cuz I’ll maintain if that were the case, he’d ignore it.
If you make online noise about a Jew in power you are terrorizing them. If Amnesty International reports the IDF murders children in Occupied Palestine at an alarming rate, it’s antisemitism. I think on balance while plenty of people are crass toward Jews, Jews have a protective envelope that more than matches the work of the loons.
I’m very familiar with people insulting Jews, I was the victim of that as a kid and it’s wrong. But in fact in a relatively free society with endless garbage venues to talks smack, it happens. In this case it’s not a big story, it’s one piece of a puzzle of bad behavior by unlearned people with broken communication skills. I happen to have a weakness for telling born again Christians they are lunatics. Pardon me now, I have to flip some pork chops I have going on the grill.
J.Smith,
“Does Ari Paul contend that if Judge Reinhart were a Mormon then loons on 4chan would not tap ignorant comments into their keyboards against him? Cuz I’ll maintain if that were the case, he’d ignore it.”
If you know so much why even ask at all? You can’t have it both ways you can’t pretend to be intellectually omniscient while simultaneously asking questions that expose how ignorant you actually are…you probably have your head shoved so far up your own bum you can’t even imagine that you are missing something, getting it incorrect, or not making sense.
Bradley Grower is a chatbot – it replaced the “tim” or “Tim” chatbot. Sorry everybody, we’ll talk to the I.T. department to see what can be done about ratcheting down the “site grower’s” cynical, revanchist prose.
Great. While on that case, ask your “we” to request they also prevent you from posting off topic snipes calling others bots.
Lol….no you didn’t just say “….prevent you from posting off topic snipes….”
Must be the pig grease pumping through your arteries then clogging up your synapses. What else could’ve made you forget so soon about your own “off topic snipes?” Oh what was it….let’s see:
“Pardon me now, I have to flip some pork chops I have going on the grill.”
See “Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement” to learn why your insult-dependent post is ineffective prattle.
J.Smith,
Thank you for your participation.
J. Smith,
“….insult dependent post is ineffective prattle.” This is a self-contradictory statement, since it had the effect of soliciting prattle of the same kind from you.
“Graham’s Hierarchy of Disagreement” Oppy is okay.
Go watch the two-part Iain McGilchrist interview he did for The Essentia Foundation, it’s free on YT.
All nations have had a horror set upon those of different religions or beliefs—and that does go towards all the suffering of indigenous people around the world too.
At the moment, the terror in the Middle East is hitting the Palestinians—-although this terror has never ceased since it began in 1948. England has a responsibility towards this behavior too. in getting Jews to Palestine The irony being that Hitler also helped many Jews to move to Palestine.
Read this book: THE SEVENTH MILLION, ( by Tom Segev) and find more important information and actual information of the history of this area.Sadly, many in the Israeli government often seem to act as the Nazis did against them—-but today the Palestinians are recipient of this treatment.