Profoundly disturbing
When I read Amy Goldblatt’s letter I initially assumed she was taking bits of history divorced from context and making some facile connections. Having somehow remembered that the world went to war against Germany after it invaded Poland — a conflict in which over 45 million civilians and over 16 million combatants were killed — she nonetheless references the death of 62 Gazans as unprecedented “base criminality.” She might have done better to simply chant the standard tropes comparing Israelis to Nazis as she does not even recognize the irony of comparing an invasion (that is, crossing the border) with a defensive action to protect and defend a border.
Just to be sure, Goldblatt makes it clear that she is not hiding behind the lie of being anti-Israeli, but is not an anti-Semite. So there is no misunderstanding, she gives us the chorus of Jewish “money, media, and influence.”
Although I read letters and columns representing many sides and opinions in NJJN, I find it profoundly disturbing that the paper turns its pages over to an anti-Semitic rant. To do so gives it legitimacy.
In another context, we might use Goldblatt’s letter as a teaching moment or an opening to a conversation. Unfortunately, so much of our leadership seems unwilling or unable to actually take the lead on this. While not as bold, their own equivocation and attempts to find equivalences undermine their authority to speak truth with moral clarity.
Jonathan Hirst
Summit
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