Antisemitism after the Washington Murders

What would the Rebbe say?

At the moment two young Israeli diplomats—Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim— in their twenties, the prime of their lives, Yaron reportedly about to propose to Lynn, were shot to death in front of a Jewish museum in Washington DC by a man yelling “Free Free Palestine,” Sheryl and I were in our weekly class at Chabad of Nashville, the local branch of the Chabad Lubavitcher movement.

Our teacher was the witty and personable Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel (the above portrait is of their deceased leader, the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, made by ChatGPT).

Rabbi Tiechtel was recounting the story of Doña Gracia Nasi, a woman born wealthy in Lisbon in the early sixteenth century who moved from city to city across Europe in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition and the subsequent Portuguese version, bravely helping her fellow Jews survive being expelled from one country after another.

Sheryl and I, born into reform Jewish families, have been taking courses at Chabad for a couple of years as kind of make-up classes for ignorance of our own religion stemming from the blandness of the Judaism we inherited.

All that time, antisemitism had been metastasizing like the cancer it is. It’s everywhere now. Whatever kind of Jew you were from atheist to Hasidic, the haters don’t care. They hate on and will, despite what happened in Washington. (I have been working on a novel on that theme, but I am stuck with a dilemma. What can I add to the subject? It keeps getting worse.)

When we returned home that night and heard that news from DC, we were once against devastated as we were recently when the Houthis hit Ben Gurion, only weeks after our trip to Israel. Neither of us could sleep. I was on X in the small hours of the morning as the rumors flew. Was this obviously deranged young man, Elias Rodriguez, affiliated with this or that pro-Hamas or pro-Palestinian organization? Or was he a member of something called the People’s Congress of Resistance (shades of the 1930s) and if so had his membership lapsed? Did it matter? He still did what he did.

One thing that has become clear is that the antisemitism is coming from high and low places simultaneously. They reinforce each other. Meanwhile, the mainstream/legacy media, national and international, prints with barely a question whatever lie or dubious statistic Hamas wishes to promulgate.

This incentivizes many of Western Europe’s most important leaders to demand all sorts of self-destructive actions from Israel that make on think of that old joke— “The Europeans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” (That Hamas takes all the food never seems to bother them. They still blame Israel for starving the Gazans.)

Does the attitude of these leaders help encourage the Elias Rodriguez’s of the world to take innocent lives? Of course, it does. It gives them cover from the highest places. Only later does the media say, as do many of our Democrat politicians almost in unison, that they “abhor antisemitism and all forms of hatred,” the latter meant, consciously or unconsciously, to water down what they just stated. No wonder Trump characterized Schumer as a Palestinian.

On the other side of the pond, these same Euro leaders are so desperate to distract from the continuing decimation of their own societies through Islamic immigration that the only thing they can think of is to blame the Jews. It’s the hoary canary in the coal mine routine, rinse and repeat.

Among the most execrable is French president Emmanuel Macron whose current popularity in his home country is a record low 21%—talk about distractions. He behaves as if oblivious to his country’s shameful history, including those two nights in July 1942 (“The Velodrome d’Hiver Roundup") when a significant percentage of Parisian Jews, many of them children, were taken from their homes to be shipped off ultimately to the death camps, not to mention the infamous Dreyfus Affair, the burning of over 10,000 handwritten Jewish books in front of Notre Dame in the days (1248) before the printing press and so forth.

Lately, according to the Jerusalem Post, instead of France seeking an end to homicidal Hamas, we find this: “France, Saudis seek to disarm Hamas, keep it as political entity”.

What?!

The JPost explains: “Saudi officials have reportedly been in contact with Hamas leadership as part of the efforts, the sources stated, adding that it is unclear if France has also been in direct contact, especially as the European Union recognizes Hamas as a terror organization.

“According to the sources, allowing Hamas to ‘retain a degree of political power would make it more likely to accept disarming,’ and the objective of the talks is to transform Hamas into a ‘purely political entity that can still play some role in future Palestinian governance.’”

Purely political entity? How many question marks (or interbangs) am I allowed to put after that without losing any kind of reputation as a writer?

They are talking about Hamas that came to power in 2007, violently put paid to their opponents in the Palestinian Authority and spent the intervening years arming themselves to the teeth while devoting the donated billions not for the good of their people but to construct the mammoth underground Gaza Metro whose only possible purpose was the destruction of Israel?

They are going to forego arms?

For how long? Six minutes?

It’s impossible to know how Macron could believe such a thing or that he has any kind of moral compass. One can think the same of the UK’s Starmer and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez each of whom lives in terror of what they had done to themselves and their countries.

Sánchez reviles Israel as much or more than any European leader despite what even the New York Times admits—some 20% of Spain (and the Iberian Peninsula) has Jewish blood. This is due to so many (Marranos and Conversos) having hid their heritage during the Inquisition and after. I witnessed this myself when I lived in Southern Spain many years ago and was struck by how many of my neighbors “looked Jewish.”

The 20% number could be an understatement. Perhaps a great deal of Europe at large has Jewish blood, given the unhappy history of the continent and all that has transpired there and continues to this day.

It has already been happening here in the USA as well for some time. We all know that—and not just at Harvard and Columbia.

But following what I am learning in my Chabad classes, I am trying not to let these things upset me more than they already do (which is unfortunately a lot). I also try to ignore or at least downplay, rather than engage in useless attacks towards, what we might call the Nouveau Antisemites on the right, some of whom were once my friends. You can guess who they are.

Despite the tragic deaths of Lischinsky and Milgrim, we survive. The best way to honor them is to do just that. Am Yisrael chai—the people of Israel live and all that. But nevertheless be as careful and vigilant as possible. Violent monsters of all descriptions lurk. We need to stop them whenever possible. But in doing this, always think positively. (This is a message to myself as much as anyone.) Hating what hates you is the easy road. It also dominates your mind with the worst possible energy.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe liked to talk about the Divine Spark that is in even the worst of us. I try to remind myself of that in moments like this.

Sheryl and I extend our deepest sympathies to the families and friends of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim. May their despicable murders do at least something to awaken their enemies high and low, from Emmanuel Macron to Elias Rodriguez and beyond, to the immorality of their actions.