This Jew Will Not be Fooled Twice
Shalom Chaverim -
Someone must have invented a time machine because I feel like I’m back in 2017. That’s the only way to describe what it was like when, earlier this week, Elon Musk created an early Rorschach Test less than 24 hours into Trump’s second term. His hand gesture that was a Sig Heil, a Roman salute, and an “autistic stim” (please don’t cancel me, I don’t know how to call it) all at the same time led to our first media freak out. Yes, we can mark our first notch underneath the Study Group desk with the title of “Everyone Freaks Out” because the media remembered that hating Jews is actually a bad thing.
I have no idea whether it was an Sig Heil, a Roman salute, or any other descriptor—and, to be quite honest, I simply don’t care. Let me be very clear, though, that right wing Jewish hate is alive and well, and Members of the Tribe need to keep our antennas pointing in that direction. Just because the Left has proven that Horseshoe Theory is now Horseshoe Fact doesn’t mean that the other side of the horseshoe has become any less of a threat. In reality, there is no more “left-wing antisemitism” and “right-wing antisemitism” because they’re all just saying the same thing. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Jake Shields, Nerdeen Kiswani, Mel Gibson, David Duke, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayatollah Khamenei are the Spiderman Meme of Jew Hatred. They’re all attacking Jews for controlling Hollywood, claiming we run underage prostitution rings in the tunnels of Brooklyn, are European colonizers who stole land, and are the Illuminati. It doesn’t matter who they vote for any longer because the hatred is all the same—the only difference is whether they say “Zionists” or “Jews” as they vomit their disgust with 15,000,000 people. Subscribe
Just scroll through any social media platform and you’ll see that people of all races, religions, and every other identity that is “not Jew” has something spiteful to say about one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Both Black women and dudes so white they’re see-through will discuss the privileges of being Jewish in America. Palestinians who can trace their lineage back to the Greeks who became Levantines and Frenchmen who can trace their lineage to the Gauls that surrendered to Rome will tell you that Jews are European colonizers stealing land. It’s not that the line isn’t blurred anymore—the line was blown up by one of Hamas’s failed rockets. Jew hatred just exists at this point and it is no longer partisan.
Which is why I don’t really care what Elon did, and I certainly don’t care to listen to millions of Americans and a media apparatus that hasn’t cared about Nazism (and its core ideology of hating Jews) for the last fifteen months. What if Elon did heil an Austrian Painter? Multiple U.S. Congressmen have been advocating for the eradication of seven million Jews. What if he has power in the administration? So did Maher Bitar, a former president of Students of Justice for Palestine. He controls one of the largest social media apps in the world? TikTok… never mind.
I’m not here to “whatabout” what he did. I’m here to say that I’ve lived with open Nazism for over a year promulgated by the same people who are now freaking out about a hand gesture. Even worse, the same people who were either silent about, or participating in, this Nazism are now asking why Jews aren’t speaking out against Elon and the Nazism in the administration. I’m here to say that over the past fifteen months, there have been hundreds of incidents of Jew haters who have committed actual acts of violence against Jews so please keep your extra set of pearls because I don’t want them. I spent over a decade believing that the people who were terrified of Nazism did so out of a genuine understanding and empathy for the Jewish experience during the Holocaust. In the last fifteen months, those same people have downplayed the Holocaust, equivocated the Holocaust, doubted the Holocaust, dismissed the Holocaust, or even weaponized the Holocaust against me in order to commit ANOTHER HOLOCAUST.
For a decade, I acknowledged that I was a “white-passing” person who was privileged due to the color of my skin, my gender, and even my religious community despite the obvious red flags in their ideology. However, I did so because I believed those advocating for it genuinely deserved to be lifted up and that they would be my ally when the moment arrived. For a decade, I was an ally because that’s what allies do: stand with others so that they may stand with them when situation reverses. Not only did they abandon me as an ally—they betrayed me to join my enemies, and then gaslighted me that everything was fine. Within twelve hours of the Simchat Torah Massacre occurring, the Left was already accusing Israel of committing genocide; ironically, it took them the same amount of time to accuse Jews of remaining silent now that Nazis were back in the White House.
While Elon’s gesture was stupid and disgraceful, it pales in comparison to the actions of Progressives that legitimately mirror those of Nazi Germany. Progressives have ostracized Jews out of the highest echelons of academia as the Germans did; they have shamed them out of cultural circles by creating blacklists just as the Germans did; they have desecrated, vandalized, and destroyed Jewish places of worship just as the Germans did; they have literally attacked and murdered Jews on the street just as the Germans did; and they did so with impunity because they had a propaganda machine working in their favor… just as the Germans did.
The Progressives fooled me once into believing they were my allies and they were my friends. They fooled me into believing they actually cared about Nazism.
They will not fool me again.
This is a guest essay written by Z.E. Silver, who writes the newsletter, “Gam V’gam.” Find him on X @z_e_silver. Follow his Substack here.
