{"id":2707,"date":"2021-06-07T13:14:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T17:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=2707"},"modified":"2021-06-07T12:24:16","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T16:24:16","slug":"this-isnt-antisemitism-but-straight-talk-its-really-hard-to-argue-that-ann-arbor-gives-a-shit-about-its-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2021\/06\/this-isnt-antisemitism-but-straight-talk-its-really-hard-to-argue-that-ann-arbor-gives-a-shit-about-its-jews\/","title":{"rendered":"This isn\u2019t antisemitism\u2014but, straight talk: It\u2019s really hard to argue that Ann Arbor gives a shit about its Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This vexes me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Antisemitic messages were found written over a Pride Month painting on a rock near the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor this weekend.<br><br>A nearby synagogue has been the scene of weekly anti-Israel protests featuring antisemitic rhetoric for many years.<br><br>-&gt;<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WX18io4WHO\">https:\/\/t.co\/WX18io4WHO<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/5kZoYc0LA3\">pic.twitter.com\/5kZoYc0LA3<\/a><\/p>\u2014 Combat Antisemitism (@CombatASemitism) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CombatASemitism\/status\/1401473699736326148?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 6, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>Just for the record, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlive.com\/news\/ann-arbor\/2021\/06\/anti-semitic-graffiti-found-painted-on-rock-near-university-of-michigan.html\">this <strong><em>isn\u2019t<\/em><\/strong> antisemitism<\/a>. I saw this Saturday, soon after it was painted, while driving past with my kids on the way to the river. I\u2019m one of the chairs of the Jewish safety committee for this area, so it\u2019s safe to say that my anti-Jew radar is exquisitely well tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<strong>Fuck Israel<\/strong>\u201d written on a public <a href=\"http:\/\/tourtheten.com\/michigan\/traditions\/school-traditions\/painting-the-rock\/\">Rock<\/a> that, for decades, has been a locus of political speech?&nbsp; That isn\u2019t hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The fact is, Israel is a goddamned country.&nbsp; 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\u2019re all good. It\u2019s just like how you can criticize China or the Democratic Republic of the Congo without being racist about it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, standing outside a synagogue and holding a sign that reads \u201cIsrael Has No Right to Exist\u201d? That <strong><em>is<\/em><\/strong> antisemitism. And folks have been doing it <strong>just a few hundred feet up the street<\/strong> from the goddamned Rock for 16 years and Ann Arbor has done shit about it:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"686\" src=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/anti-Jewish_protest-AnnArbor-MI-2019-1024x686.jpg\" alt=\"anti-Jewish protest in Ann Arbor, MI, around 2019\" class=\"wp-image-2710\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/anti-Jewish_protest-AnnArbor-MI-2019-1024x686.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/anti-Jewish_protest-AnnArbor-MI-2019-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/anti-Jewish_protest-AnnArbor-MI-2019-768x515.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/anti-Jewish_protest-AnnArbor-MI-2019-1200x804.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/anti-Jewish_protest-AnnArbor-MI-2019.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlive.com\/news\/ann-arbor\/2019\/12\/ann-arbor-synagogue-protests-will-continue-despite-lawsuit-leader-says.html\">source<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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. A nearby synagogue has been the scene of weekly anti-Israel protests featuring antisemitic rhetoric for many years. -&gt;https:\/\/t.co\/WX18io4WHO pic.twitter.com\/5kZoYc0LA3 \u2014 Combat Antisemitism (@CombatASemitism) June 6, 2021 Just for the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2021\/06\/this-isnt-antisemitism-but-straight-talk-its-really-hard-to-argue-that-ann-arbor-gives-a-shit-about-its-jews\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;This isn\u2019t antisemitism\u2014but, straight talk: It\u2019s really hard to argue that Ann Arbor gives a shit about its Jews&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[11],"tags":[587,547,467,305,83,53,321],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2707"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2717,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2707\/revisions\/2717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}