When I got the latest AARP magazine in the mail, I didn’t know whether to cheer or to cry.
Diane Keaton at 77 is the cover story, but in the lower right corner there’s a teaser headline for “The Oldest Hatred, Why Antisemitism is Rising and Why We Should Care.” Just turn to page 52 and find out! Right between the article on senior weight control and the one on managing your money in retirement.
In a Tevye-like mood I thought, on the one hand, isn’t it good that the growing issue of American antisemitism is getting mainstream attention? After all, you can’t get any more mainstream than the AARP.
On the other hand, I thought, isn’t it scary that the issue of American antisemitism is so awful, so pervasive, that’s it’s on the front cover of the AARP magazine?
I think it’s some of both.
Antisemitism has penetrated American society. It is a pandemic without a vaccine.
Here are some statistics and they are scary.
The Anti Defamation League released its report on anti-Semitic attitudes among Americans a couple of months ago.
Eight-five percent of Americans believe at least one anti-Jewish trope, up from 61 percent in 2019. Over all, anti-Semitic incidents rose 36% in 2022.
The American Jewish Congress also did a survey in the fall of 2022 and found that 40% of Jewish Americans feel their status is less secure than a year earlier.
That same survey found that nearly 90% of American Jews now believe antisemitism is a serious problem.
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism based at Cal State San Bernardino, reported that last year, Jews were the most targeted of all religious groups in the US.
While the AARP article struck me as random, a one-shot nod to the antisemitism scourge, something else occurred this past week that we all need to pay attention to and to support going forward.
Robert Kraft, businessman, philanthropist, owner of the New England Patriots football team, has taken the field and is championing a $25 million dollar project to fight Jew hatred.
The 81-year old billionaire has launched his “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” blue square campaign. Here’s the link.
The little blue square that’s at the center of the campaign represents the Jewish population of the United States, around 2%, yet Jews are on the receiving end more than 50% of the country’s reported hate crimes.
Like the AARP article, Kraft’s campaign is aimed at non-Jews. As it says on its website, it is “designed…to encourage all people to post and share the Blue Square to stand up against intolerance.”
The little blue square emoji can be reposted on social media, the pin worn on clothing as a reminder of the evil that antisemitism poses.
It’s incumbent upon all of us and upon all of our friends and all of our colleagues, to actively support Bob Kraft and what he’s trying to do.
His videos are top drawer stuff. The messages they convey are clear and they resonate.
The videos will play on TV, in high profile programs but they will also flood social media and that’s crucial.
The Center for Digital Hate found that five major social media companies took no action to remove 84% of anti-Semitic posts. Posts that denied the Holocaust. Posts with neo-Nazi images. Posts that included conspiracy theories about COVID. Facebook was the worst, failing to act on almost 90% of anti-Semitic posts on its site.
The Kraft initiative also includes a high-tech command center in Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts that monitors anti-Jewish hate online and on social media. It sees what’s going on in real time and shares the data with other organizations.
The significance of what Robert Kraft is trying to do is essential if we are ever going to put the anti-Semites back on their heels. He’s trying to mobilize the American non-Jewish population in fighting antisemitism. He knows that in order to try to stem the rising tide of Jew hatred, Jews can’t fight alone.
Kudos to Kraft. But it’s alarming that it has come to this perilous point.
Jewish Americans are indeed only a small blue square engulfed in a massive and menacing sea of hate. With people like proud Jew Bob Kraft and with the help of our fellow Americans, maybe, just maybe we will be able to keep our heads above water.
But, if we Jews are left to fend for ourselves, then we are doomed and so is this great nation.
2 thoughts on “The Little Blue Square”
Compliments to Robert Kraft, and to you for your reporting.
“Jew Hatred” has an alarming and harsh sound, and aims to evoke some outrage and a change for the better.
It is the needed, overdue successor to the polite sounding, subtle word and world of enduring antisemitism, and the impotent past and present measures of stopping it. Of course it will take more than a name change to stop the ongoing and growing verbal and physical attacks against Jews.
Whereas some use Israel as the rationale for their Jew Hatred, I shudder to think how much worse the hatred and acts against Jews would be without Israel. We know how that turned out in previous centuries.
God bless Robert Kraft. Great article but very worrisome.