This vexes me.
Antisemitic messages were found written over a Pride Month painting on a rock near the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor this weekend.
— Combat Antisemitism (@CombatASemitism) June 6, 2021
A nearby synagogue has been the scene of weekly anti-Israel protests featuring antisemitic rhetoric for many years.
->https://t.co/WX18io4WHO pic.twitter.com/5kZoYc0LA3
Just for the record, this isn’t antisemitism. I saw this Saturday, soon after it was painted, while driving past with my kids on the way to the river. I’m one of the chairs of the Jewish safety committee for this area, so it’s safe to say that my anti-Jew radar is exquisitely well tuned.
“Fuck Israel” written on a public Rock that, for decades, has been a locus of political speech? That isn’t hate speech.
The fact is, Israel is a goddamned country. You can say the nastiest words in the world about Israel, and as long as you keep it about the nation-state of Israel, we’re all good. It’s just like how you can criticize China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo without being racist about it.
Meanwhile, standing outside a synagogue and holding a sign that reads “Israel Has No Right to Exist”? That is antisemitism. And folks have been doing it just a few hundred feet up the street from the goddamned Rock for 16 years and Ann Arbor has done shit about it:
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