To me the interesting and important question isn't: Is Jeremy Corbyn "An Antisemite"? It's: how does antisemitism operate on the British Left (and in wider society) in 2018?
Not being personally invested in Corbynism and not remotely interested in internal Labour Party politics, but being a Jew on the left, I find it dispiriting that all discussions about antisemitism in public discourse are mostly just Labour Party proxy wars.
And just become platforms for opportunist liberal and reactionary scumbags to act as if they care about antisemitism.
antisemitism is a central oppression that structures modernity and has shaped our world. it acts as a latent or direct theoretical underpinning for how many people (with varying politics) understand global capitalism and world events. ppl need to take it seriously.
I tried to write about this in 2016. Maybe I'll share some good links at some point.
theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=14738
theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=14738
okay i said i'd share some good links so here are a few:
this by @alanalentin will help you to understand the roots of the sanctimoniousness of liberals pretending how much they care about antisemitism. you should follow Alana if you don't already and learn from her as i have. theoccupiedtimes.org/?p=14225
Moishe Postone, who died last week, has done some amazing work on antisemitism and value theory. some of his conclusions are possibly overdetermined but this pamphlet is well worth reading. libcom.org/library/anti-s…
David Rosenberg's book on Jewish responses to antisemitism (AS) in the 1930s is a concise & well observed history of AS of Mosley & British Society & how Jews responded & struggled internally as a stratified community. Read it & hear David speak here: soundcloud.com/storiesofstrug…
Patrick Wolfe's book Traces of History (@VersoBooks) has 2 chapters related to racialisation & Jewishness. One on 19thC European antisemitism, the other on Zionist settler colonialism. He died soon after publication but here's a talk on his Zionism chapter soundcloud.com/status-7/saree…
Revolutionary Yiddishland (also @VersoBooks) is amazing & everyone should read it. It's about the Bundist, Communist & Left Zionist Jews of the Eastern European Pale of Settlement & their huge role in working class struggle & revolutions over the 19th & 20thC.
these lives & sacrifices & deaths in the pursuit of internationalist working class emancipation are continuously erased by handwringing philosemites who act as though Israel was inevitable & European capitalist nationalism is the saviour of the Jews, not their primary tormentor.
feel totally ground down and frustrated by how shit much of the left is on antisemitism. but this is an opportunity too. there are few better frames than the issue of antisemitism for understanding & educating about capitalist social relations, nationalism and colonialism.
