This past weekend, I spoke to a Hadassah meeting – the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. The subject, of my choosing, was “What’s a ‘nice Jewish girl’ doing writing so much about Islam?”
The easy answer to the question I’d self-imposed was “Why not?” A perfectly reasonable answer, perhaps, but not with bigots like Peter King about to begin his witch hunt this week in the form of congressional hearings on the alleged “radicalization” of American Muslims.
The real answer is that it’s precisely because I’m Jewish that I find myself writing so much about Islam these days. Because as a Jew, I know the dangers of prejudice. And I can smell it a mile off. When I hear someone talk about “the Jewish mentality,” I know I’m listening to an anti-Semite. How else stereotype millions of people that way? Just as when I read someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali talking about “the Muslim mentality,” I know — no matter how pretty she is, how soft-spoken, and how compelling her life story – that I am listening to an Islamophobe.
And I recognize that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are two sides of the exact same coin: the stereotyping of millions of people by the actions of a few. That is, prejudice.
So it’s particularly painful, let alone absurd and self-defeating and dumb, to see that some Islamophobes are Jewish. And equally painful – and absurd and self-defeating and dumb – to see that some Muslims are anti-Semitic.
I have no statistics to say what proportion of Jews are Islamophobic or what proportion of Muslims are anti-Semitic (though I could doubtless make some up and throw them out there with such an air of authority that they’d be repeated ad infinitum until they achieve the status of “fact”). But the Muslim Brotherhood, for all the changes it has undergone, still distributes The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And while anti-Zionism does not necessarily mean anti-Semitism, there is a clear overlap, with a venemous hatred finding its outlet in what is now the more acceptable form of anti-Zionism.
So we need to be clear. We badly need it.
“Islam” did not attack the US on 9/11; eighteen people with a particularly twisted and distorted idea of Islam did. “The Jews” do not shoot Palestinian farmers in the West Bank; Bible-spouting settlers with a particularly twisted and distorted idea of Judaism do.
The Quran is no more violent or misogynistic than the Bible. In fact it’s less so. If you insist, as Islamophobes do, on highlighting certain phrases, then you should turn around and do the same with the Bible, which you will find ten times worse, with repeated calls for the destruction of whole peoples. Only the dumbest, most literal, hate-filled fundamentalist, Jewish or Muslim, takes the rules of ancient warfare as a guide to 21st-century life.
We have to stop this stereotyping. Now. All of us.
We have to recognize prejudice not only in others, but in ourselves, Jewish or Muslim.
We have to be able to see that the anti-Semitic trope of “the Jews” trying to take over the world is exactly the same as the Islamophobic one of “the Muslims” trying to take over the world.
We have to acknowledge that an Islamophobic Jew is thinking exactly like an anti-Semite. And that an anti-Semitic Muslim is thinking exactly like an Islamophobe.
We have to realize that American Jews need to stand up with Muslims against Islamophobia just as American Muslims need to stand up with Jews against anti-Semitism.
Because Islamophobia is, in essence, another form of anti-Semitism, and vice versa. And it’s in the direct interest of both Jews and Muslims — of all of us — to stand up and confront both forms of prejudice.
In the famous words of an anti-Nazi Protestant pastor during World War II:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
Phil 
Nancy McClelland 
Pietra 
Jonathan
You go girl!
I agree with much of what was said in this post and have no problem with a Jew telling others what they know about Islam. That is, when the information is correct and for the most part, Leslie is correct.. But I think that her knowledge may be confinded to Quran, with out much knowledge of Haditn. And it is kind of hard to separate one from the other because Hadith gives a better understanding of Quran. According to Hadith, the “ancient warfare guide” for Muslims is: no killing of women, old people, non combatant men, and children,no killing of priest, nuns, monks etc., no destruction of holy places such as churches, synagogues,no destruction of crop and livestock.
Considering that war is horror. Since it appears that war is here to stay. Some of that horror of war could be cut if armies and etc. followed this “ancient warfare guide”
What you are stating makes sense theoretically,
but practically I have seen very, very few people
ready to stand up with the Jews when anti-semitism
appears. Almost no Muslims.
BS
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/Feb2005/mosque.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/4/854131/-Film-on-Arab-Schindlers-who-saved-Jews-in-WWII-premieres-at-MOTLA
Agreed Herman. We should hope more people, especially the Left, speak out against Holocaust denialism that has gone so far where nation states actually sponsor conferences on whether the Holocaust actually happened or not.
To this day, I have yet read one single person condemn the anti-Semitic beliefs in many parts of the world who believe New York Jews were in on 9/11 and did not show up to work that day.
Most would rather ignore Antisemitism. This type of selective silence proves some are only interested in pushing their agenda rather than combating all forms of hatred and paranoia.
This is great. Wish you could have this conversation on CNN. Tm
Lesley, I like you. You have sight.
🙂
Herman, I’d like to think I’d stand.
Islam is the only faith tradition that declares “There is no Compulsion in Religion”. Its founder, Prophet Mohammed, created the Charter of Medina which protected the rights of both Muslims and non Muslims alike living in Medina. The 47 clause document contains all the characteristics of the preamble to the US constitution. Similarly, the charter of privileges gave protection and rights to the St Catherine’s Monastary in Alexandria, Egypt. This was all necessary because Islam was founded in an unjust and hostile environment and giving protections and creating protectorates was necessary. Today these cultural dynamics are still at play as are geo political issues and other complexities around the world.
You nailed it. You simply nailed it.
Hear hear.
I totally agree with you Lazely, and i am a very strict Muslim! 😉
I’m a Muslim who currently live in London. I studied Jewish Philosophy and the holocaust for A-Levels when I grew up in Hong Kong. I absolutely agree with everything you wrote in this blogpost. I am shocked by the level of anti semitism I find in the communities today and I guess you will find the same vice-versa.
Thank you for blogging this and hopefully we can all wake up and understand each other’s struggles in so many decades (and centuries). I think what the Muslims are going through today in the western world (at least here in Britain) has a lot of parallel with the Jewish emancipation in the 1800s and we have a lot to learn from each other.
May Allah swt bless you for your work.
I don’t know how much anti semitism is anti Israeli and anti Jewish…Islamophob is anti Islam, not anti Muslims or anti extremism.
Whoever had invented anti semitic had cleverly covered all the zionist and Israeli crimes under one flag of anti semitic and then made it a Taboo.
A stand up comedian in Chritian majority USA can easily make Jesus the butt of his joke but before making anti semitic remarks he will think twice.
IMO theres no equivalence between anti semite and Islamophob.
I have no idea Iran is making nuclear bomb or not but if they were making bomb then its the result of propaganda under Islamophob.
After 1979 revolution Iran ban on all nuclear activities but then they were forced into 10 years war with western supported Sadam.
War mongers in arms industry are loaded with money so same fear was used but as shiaphob.
In this video a Muslm is protecting a Jewish couple from Christian mob…Had he known their ID would he still protect them….answer is simple…..YES.
No Christian, no Muslim, no Jew is devoid of human feelings….all are made with same heart with bloody flesh which pump harder when witness human misery.
The only difference is greed for power and money…that desire of few benficiaries is trying hard to keep hostage the human feelings and to supress extra pumping of human heart…
The key is fear and promotion of fear through propaganda.
The war mongers in the name of religion are used as a tool…the beneficiaries are power brokers and Arms industry and Arms traders and media. I am afraid all three primary beneficiaries are zionist based, the secondary beneficiaries are Arab Tyrants, Kings and Dictators.
Alas, you demonstrate my point. Anti-Semitism is a Zionist ‘invention’? You might want to read some history.
Meanwhile, this from Jean-Paul Sartre, as relevant I think for Muslims as for Jews: “If Jews did not exist, anti-Semites would have had to invent them.”
I think I am getting closer
Perhaps anti semitism is just like Taliban and Al Qaida, as no one literally knows who they are and what they are but everyonee knows why they are.
Drawing U.S. Crowds With Anti-Islam Message
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: March 7, 2011
FORT WORTH — Brigitte Gabriel bounced to the stage at a Tea Party convention last fall. She greeted the crowd with a loud Texas “Yee-HAW,” then launched into the same gripping personal story she has told in hundreds of churches, synagogues and conference rooms across the United States:
As a child growing up a Maronite Christian in war-torn southern Lebanon in the 1970s, Ms. Gabriel said, she had been left lying injured in rubble after Muslims mercilessly bombed her village. She found refuge in Israel and then moved to the United States, only to find that the Islamic radicals who had terrorized her in Lebanon, she said, were now bent on taking over America.
“America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.”
Through her books, media appearances and speeches, and her organization, ACT! for America, Ms. Gabriel has become one of the most visible personalities on a circuit of self-appointed terrorism detectors who warn that Muslims pose an enormous danger within United States borders.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/us/08gabriel.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1299610962-NGSvRzNNaIjSLZ0vYlUW9Q
This article is linked to in the original post. Always a good idea to read before commenting.
forgive me for I am as clumsy as I could be.
I try hard again to find the link about this NYT article or anything about Brigitte Gabriel in original post but miserably failed.
[…] http://accidentaltheologist.com/2011/03/08/anti-semitism-islamophobia/ March 9th, 2011 | Category: MUSLIM DIALOGUE, […]
It’s funny as I was just having this very argument with a friend who happens to be… a vegetarian.
No, it’s not a joke. He was talking about how meat is bad, and brought up a video that made some valid points (animals raised on mega-ranches take lots of land and more resources than the average vegetable), and a lot of points that are subjective and meant to tug at a person’s visceral response (animals are tortured and killed just for human pleasure). My argument that the argument was self-righteous was taken as an indictment of vegetarians as a whole.
The politics of religion is the same action. That video that was posted isn’t the view of all vegetarians, and while most vegetarians would laugh at it and agree with some of the points, not all are vegetarians for the same reason and not all subscribe to the same beliefs; not all will find the entire argument True. Groups always carry with them a certain amount of prejudice against other groups, the question is really to what degree and whether it’s a prejudice that diminishes their ability to empathize with that other group.
What we have, in my opinion, is too many people who just can’t get past the concept that any large group carries many opinions. What one person or one part of that group says isn’t necessarily a Truth for the entire group, and very likely to be seen by some as ridiculous.
I maintain that the most dangerous food out there is processed food. Factory food. Food that is barely recognizable in any part as what it came from. The soda that’s really a corn and oil distillation. The steak that’s softened by force feeding an animal that is kept alive only by the use of large amounts of antibiotics.
I can’t help but see that as so true of the politics of religion. What’s dangerous isn’t the raw belief; the stories and tales that seeded the tree that has grown up and spread across the world; no, what’s dangerous is what’s been done when a branch is taken from the tree, chopped and processed into a new thing that is barely (if at all) related to what it was distilled from.
That danger is to the tree itself, in that it adds something that may be a poison. That danger is to the tree in how it is seen by the person on the outside; if they don’t know what’s been done to make that processed, transformed thing, then they may ascribe all the dangers as inherent within the tree itself (rather than the processing).
And that is the danger to those outside that tree’s canopy; ignorance and doubt are easy forms of belief that are hard to eliminate. If you’ve been taught that the tree is poisonous, it may take a stronger act than most could muster to risk grabbing a piece of fruit from the tree and eating it. Even when done, it will still take a long time to overcome that prejudice. See how many people still think that tomatoes are poisonous.
Things could be more complex than complicated as presented by Lavran.
Simplicity is the beauty of arguments and this simplicity adopted by all religions because religion is for masses not specifically for bunch of intellectuals.
Theres nothing beyond scope of right and wrong…a complex or complicated aspect of right does no make it wrong.
All the animals slaughtered for food are fast multiple and has short life span…when reaching a natural death their disposal may cause a serious problem and environmental mayhem.
Torturous slaughter is valid argument by a vegetarian….every living thing has to endure the pain of death one day…people should be careful to cause minimum pain when slaughtering as much as they can learn scientifically….unfortunately none knows the pain of death and pain of slaughter.
Disintegration of bones and losening of muscles with diminish senses as growing age, I believe is a mercy on mankind thats about time when natural death is happened.
So in my guess natural death for all living things should be less painful than slaughtered.
All of these are God sanctioned slaughters so argument can not be restricted to science only besides science can not prove for sure the amount of pain caused in both kind of deaths.
A vegetarian can not love the rats and roaches damaging his clean home and furniture.
Probably he will show mercy on a pop up snake in his household to capture and hand it over to wildlife…but roaches and rats he is forced to kill with poisonous torture.
A very valid example of Tree and its branches was given…..A branch when seperated does not seek its ID but try to make its own ID…An ID which has no roots is the root cause of all problems.
Religiously if we take Tree as one God and branches as group of people and leaves as people then it will be easy to understand the concept of Unity of God.
The one leaf or branch which detach itself from Tree is living a life of its own not a borrowed life.
This owned life knows its origin from father’s seed to mother’s womb then in being and vanished in darkness…this being which probably achieved status of self during the course of life but after death it becomes a number which was added once but now reduced.
A self which is not more than a number is not different from an ant which was crushed to death among its flock and this is the result of a branch which try to make its own ID after seperated from Tree.
Let me present an example to emphasize the simplicity of religion through simplicity of its personalities.
One day an old woman, who had for many years heard of the greatness and magnificence of the Prophet, came before him. She stood tongue tied in awe of his presence. The Prophet, softly, kindly and simply took her by the shoulder and said, “Why are you afraid? I am the son of that Quraish woman who milked sheep. Who are you afraid of?”
Though I am thankful to Lavran for generating such a beautiful idea of Tree and its branch to help me elaborate my views
True- things are always more complex. The main point to the vegetarian is that it isn’t any more unnatural for people to eat meat than any other omnivore or carnivore.
Complexity comes in with the addition of civilization (that is, living in cities). Then you have many food pressures- we know of no groups that were voluntarily vegetarian until after the introduction of cities and religion- and all of the reasons for a vegetarian diet are religious.
With wealth comes the ability and freedom to choose whether you’re a vegetarian or not, and with that also comes other reasons for being a vegetarian- and yet, almost all of them still center on man as apart from and different from nature.
That’s also a commonality of the monotheistic religions (well, most modern religions; at some point religions move from man being a special animal, but still an animal, to being something other than an animal); man as apart from nature.
Thus, one’s food becomes a choice. This is part of the “processing” I mention. That thought is as much a process as removing the fat from milk or monofarming corn. The thought process is no more “natural” than a million acres of corn, or the idea that man is not just another animal.
Continue the processing of thought and action and you can come to the point where raising an animal with the intent to eat it becomes morally suspect and the vegetarian starts thinking that the raising and killing is a callous act done in order to sate a taste for killing. When it’s really not that different from raising carrots with the intent to eat them; the main difference is that we see the animal as closer to us and, therefore, closer to god.
Why is it not possible for the carrot to have a soul? If it does, is it morally problematic to eat the carrot? Or would that God have designed the various animals and plants to do and eat what they do?
Again- it’s not the act, but the process by which one gets to that act. Very much like in religions, where all of the religions have the same basic rules and tenets, yet the process used to interpret them gives rise to all these opposing sects that become willing to denigrate or do violence to any “other”.
That, to me, is the genesis and life blood of prejudice. Ignorance fueled by a processed idea that labels itself a morality while demanding an action in violation and opposition to that morality.
All things are true in their essence perhaps you mean Truth about certain things is complex.
Truth of the matter is we don’t know how many things are living things of the total things known to us.
Anything which breath has a life and subject to feel the pain.
All the plants,vegetables,fruits,grass etc are living thing…sign of their life is they breath they get their naurishments and they grow….if not eaten mercilessly by a vegetarian in their lifetime they also die as they rots and thats their natural life span.
A vegetarian, if he must eat apple then he has to wait until its rotten or in other words completely dead to cause no pain to partially alive apple.
I see no difference between growing apples for the purpose to eat when they are ripe and still fresh and breathing AND breeding animals for the purpose to slaughter and to eat.
Grass is alive as long as its green and it subject to feel pain also….a proud vegetarian feel no remorse to tread torturously on a lviing thing.
All this fuss to complicate the simplicity of life into unnecessary complexity is the result of not having real issues faced by humanity and they are in abundance.
Some says stones also breath but this much I know from Quran that everything living or dead to our knowledge praise God but we know not.
I have no knowledge how other things are alive other than Human Being…are they ensoul or not…perhaps Lavran has more knowledge, he may enlighten.
Soul in Quran is described as Amre Rab “Decree of God”.
Amazingly in whole Quran nowhere plural is used for soul….so this is singular act of Al-Mighty to enliven a thing.
Self(Nafs) has plural in Quran which is exclusively for mankind not other living things.
So we are composed of three things…Body,soul and self.
When soul leave the body we are dead and we are left with body and self…in few hundred years body also disnitegrate..the only thing left is self which is resurrected on judgment day and according to Islamic faith body testify against the self which it used to carry.
The reality of mankind is SELF which is accountable not the body and soul.
Why do people claim anti-semitic as only referring to jews..
semitic is relating to people who are of the groups that speak of Afroasiatic languages that includes Akkadian, arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, and Phoenician.
so american english speaking jews are NOT semitic
but on the flip side.. christian and muslim arabs alike in the middle east are ALL semitic.. so if you discrimate against a middle eastern muslim, you are being anti-semitic
Strictly speaking, of course, you’re quite right, but such a definition then excludes the 80% of Muslims who are not semitic. You also ignore the fact that, though many centuries removed, Ashkenazi American Jews are semitic in origin, while Sephardi Jews are semitic in culture too.
I can see the ironic appeal of saying “Hey, we’re all semites,” but A. it’s not so, and B. challenging prejudice on the basis of strict definitions really evades the problem, and could even deepen it by leading to the weirdly racist game of trying to figure out what percentage of blood origin — a quarter? an eighth? a sixteenth? — makes someone black or Jewish or Arab.
Why do we have to discuss what semitic means instead of discussing the actual issue, you are right in saying that semic peoples are not only jews, but to answer your question, the term anti-semitism has been coined and generally accepted to mean prejudice towards jewish people. Would it make a difference if it was called anti-judaism or anti-jew or jewophobia instead?
we can also spend time criticizing the term islamophobia rather discuss the actual issue
As an African American Muslim, I say we can spend our time comparing and licking our wounds and arguing over semantics or we can come together for human rights. Rather than anti Semitic, Islamaphobia, racism etc. why not use the words humane and inhumane.
This is a really good article, and as a Jew I also see Islamophobia as the flip side of anti-Semitism. I shudder when I see members of my government targeting “the Muslim community” as a whole.
I do want to make one suggestion/correction to your article. You seem to imply in paragraph 6 that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is about anti-Zionism. However, it also speaks directly about Jews without connection to the modern movement of Zionism. I think the word “Zion” in the title refers not to that modern movement but to the biblical term for Jerusalem. It’s important that people should know that The Protocols is primarily anti-Judaism, not anti-Zionism.
I am extremely grateful for the way you have presented this issue. And I am touched by your ability to speak out with the analogy of Anti-Semitism.
I have read Quran for more than 25 years. Yes it speaks about how jews interacted
during the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but it also speaks about polytheism,
about christians and about muslims who accepted islam but in their heart planned against the Prophet , and they are the worst [….] If you truly understand Quran, ALLAH’s displeasure is on any one who violates his instructions and that of his Prophet…may that be a muslim even. So I agree with you that to take as all Jews are worst is actually UN-ISLAMIC.
In fact one of the wives of Prophet Muhammad was a Jew who accepted Islam….and sometime people would say that to her (that you were Jew) and Prophet (PBUH) would show great displeasure on such people. And one of the great companions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was Abdullah-Bin-Salam (blessing of Allah be upon him), who was a jew who accepted islam. And once a funeral of Jew (who had not accepted islam) was passing by and Prophet (PBUH) stood up in respect…and some people differed and the Prophet (PBUH) said his account was with Allah and as a fellow human being he demonstrated respect on his passing away.
I am sorry the comment became lengthy…But I really wanted to appreciate your
approach and share mine. We need more like you on both sides to put and end
to this cycle of hatred, blame and violence.
Well, any hate campaign against any community is deplorable. Those at its receiving end must fight this menace unitedly.
Sorry for delayed comment. I am a new comer to this very sensible blog.
As a non-radical muslim, I salute you .. We need such a balanced look
Thank you
To the author of this article.
Great article. I have posted it everywhere.
Keep up the good work.
God bless your kind soul
[…] Posted by Coyote Source: Anti-Semitism = Islamophobia The Accidental Theologist She makes good points No kidding. Some of us know this. And nice people like you come along […]