The Texas synagogue siege was devastating – but, writes Eve_Barlow, the reaction to what was clearly an antisemitic act has traumatised Jewish people once more
The only thing more frightening than a violent act of antisemitism, is a violent act of antisemitism that the world is happy to ignore.
The news of this incident broke as it was happening, spread by Jewish media outlets and Jewish activists on social media. As is typical for the Jewish news cycle, when mainstream media picked up the story, they doubted its authenticity. The BBC, Guardian and Telegraph all reported the situation with quotation marks around the word ‘hostage’, because apparently it wasn't obvious enough that this was a hostage situation. Associated Press wrote: ‘Hostages apparently taken at Texas synagogue’.
As for Twitter pundits, where the previous week people with zero interest in Jew hate were laying into JK Rowling over the question of whether or not her depiction of goblins in Harry Potter was, causing it to trend with a hashtag. During this desperate moment for Jewish Americans? Crickets. The opportunists who used Jewish victimhood to attack a now controversial public figure had no business with this more prescient instance of antisemitism.
It’s evil that people have a hard time naming an attack on a synagogue an act of antisemitism. Wonder why a Muslim extremist would hold a rabbi hostage at gun point and force him to call another rabbi in a faraway state believing that other rabbi had some institutional power to free an imprisoned terrorist? It is because that terrorist believed Jews wield such power. It is because that terrorist spread the oldest antisemitic tropes. The terrorist didn't walk into a Starbucks.
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