Generally, politicizing tragedy is a scourge that should be avoided. But sometimes, the cause of the tragedy is so obvious that it becomes impossible not to trace it back to politics.
For the last few years, parts of New York, including much of New York City, have become hotbeds of anti-Semitic attacks against Jews at random, ranging from beating Jews in the streets to throwing bricks into synagogue windows.
However, this week saw a new, unprecedented wave of anti-Semitic attacks in New York. An elderly Jew was beaten by a Latino assailant in broad daylight in Midtown Manhattan. A few days later, a homeless black attacker hit a Jewish woman in the face with a bag of groceries in front of her son. And over the weekend, multiple Jews were stabbed by an African-American attacker near a Monsey synagogue during a Hanukkah celebration.
This is horrifying, to say the least. I grew up in Monsey. To say I never thought I’d see the day a tragedy such as this one would occur in my own hometown is an understatement.
But this should cause Jews, both in New York and throughout the country, to truly question who in power has their best interests in mind. And it’s becoming increasingly obvious that, try as they may to deny it, it is the Left that truly has no interest in helping to stop this epidemic of anti-Semitism.
To his credit, however, after the Monday attack, far-left New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted the following:
Hate doesn’t have a home in our city.
In light of recent anti-Semitic attacks, the NYPD will increase their presence in Boro Park, Crown Heights and Williamsburg.
Anyone who terrorizes our Jewish community WILL face justice.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) December 27, 2019
Still, leftists, even Jewish ones, pounced:
in a decision that impacts both Black and Jewish New Yorkers, how many Black Jews have you consulted before deciding occupying Black and Jewish communities with more NYPD makes everyone safer?
— rafael (@rafaelshimunov) December 27, 2019
One may wonder why Jews would be upset by this. After all, it seems insane that Jews would be against the notion of protecting their own co-religionists. But the Left’s obsession with race and identity politics leads directly to this logical conclusion.
To the Left, African-Americans and Latino Americans are a perpetual victim class, no matter the progress each community makes over time. As such, leftists feel a visceral guilt about these communities and will excuse any action in which people of these ethnicities participate. And even though Jews are a minority as well, their disproportionate success in America puts them on a pedestal above other minorities, such as African-Americans and Hispanics. As such, leftists will side with the supposed “oppressed” group, no matter what the truth actually is.
Even The New York Times admitted the conundrum for progressives in fighting anti-Semitism, noting that “[I]t is the varied backgrounds of people who commit hate crimes in the city that make combating and talking about anti-Semitism in New York much harder.”
How else do you explain New York’s new law abolishing bail, which clearly will lead to spikes in crime, rampant witness intimidation, and more criminals out on the streets? Or the fact that the endorsement of Rev. Al Sharpton, infamous for his role in the Crown Heights riots of the early 1990s and the 1995 Freddy’s Fashion Mart massacre, is a de facto gateway to qualifying for the Democratic Party presidential nomination? Or that Democrats in the House leadership have met with the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, and none have denounced him as the racist he so clearly is?
The answer is that intersectionality and identity politics are sacred cows to the Left. It is a golden rule that the color of a perpetrator’s skin is always more important than the actions they take. As such, as long as the culprit is not a white supremacist, as white Christian males are on top of the intersectional totem pole, Jewish blood becomes cheap to the Left.
We as Americans cannot let this stand. The cancer to the civil society that is identity politics must end now.