Antisemitism | Antizionism | Soviet history | Israel | Sr Fellow Z3 Institute @z3_project | @centre_as | @ISGAP1 | @TabletMag | @jerusalemcenter | Personal acct
Nov 29, 2023 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
🧵Over the last few weeks I’ve watched some of my worst predictions come true about the destructive effects of conspiracist antizionism and the fear & loathing of Israel that have taken over portions of the left in recent years. It didn’t start in recent years of course - it’s simply when it all finally exploded to the surface.
I know about it personally because I was born & raised in the USSR, where these ideas were born & propagated. I’ve been researching it since 2019.
Here’s a 🧵 of everything I’ve written about it, in chronological order: How & why these ideas were developed, what effect they had on the lives of Soviet Jews, how they got pushed out to the global left & the developing world—and how it all relates to us today. Some of these pieces are now taught at universities. Several are part of book collections.
We can’t understand the explosion of anti-Jewish hate & support of Hamas that we are seeing in the US today unless we understand this history.
“We Soviet Jews Lived Through State-Sponsored Anti-Zionism. We Know How It Is Weaponized.” March 7, 2019 forward.com/opinion/420508…
Jun 5, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Note that there is a history of neo-Nazis & Holocaust deniers endorsing prominent leftwing politicians for their “antizionism.” For example, David Duke & Nick Griffin have heaped praise on Corbyn & Ilhan Omar for that. Would guess that it’s part of what’s going on here.
The caption about Corbyn “speaking the truth”confirms this. Far-right antisemites particularly appreciate the “truth-telling” about “Zionism” on the left. In contrast to the left, they get that antisemitism & “antizionism” are two sides of the same coin.
Jan 11, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Some historical background: The USSR first equated Zionism w/antisemitism in 1965 at the UN. It continued to make this equation for the next 25 yrs, also equating Zionism w/racism, fascism, colonialism etc. They used this comparison as a tool against troublesome Jews at home.
What’s fascinating about @PeterBeinart’s piece is how closely it follows the explanatory logic of Soviet antizionist literature. It even relies on the same references to Pinsker, the exact same quote from Herzl’s diaries, etc., decontextualizing them in the exact same way.
Feb 3, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
What I find morbidly fascinating in this brilliant interview is not only this Amnesty official’s ignorance about Israel but his entirely conspiracist view of it. It just reeks of your basic fat-right antisemitism. A few quotes below. timesofisrael.com/amnesty-to-toi…
To start off, it turns out that Israel’s complexity is a ploy meant to prevent conscientious Amnesty officials from easily exposing its evil nature: there’s a “complexity of laws, policies and practices that’s difficult to disentangle,” Luther complains.
Jan 13, 2022 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
This is a crucial part of this excellent thread. Right here we can see the intersection of Soviet global antizionist propaganda w/Arab anti-Israel propaganda - & the mutually beneficial relationship between the two. THREAD
The Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Org (AAPSO), which translated & distributed Sayegh’s brochure, was a Soviet Front organization founded & run by the Soviet Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee (SKSSAA) [photo from Richard Shultz, The Soviet Union & Revolutionary Warfare]
Jan 11, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
How “being more vocal & committed to fighting oppression has led” @bigduck… to boycott Jews. American Jews who still think they can sit this moment out need to wake up. If this can happen to Shalom Hartman, it can happen to anyone. Take it from a Soviet Jew.
“Big Duck is not antisemitic & profoundly rejects antisemitism.” I wince. The Soviets used to say just this as they excluded Jews from entire spheres of professional & social life.They weren’t antisemitic—just antizionist. Not their fault that Jews were suspect, b/c Israel
Jul 4, 2021 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
How many tweets would it take to build a🧵of all the environmental disasters Soviet state socialism left behind? I’ll list a few in no particular order to help out this depressingly uneducated Labour Party millennial. Please feel free to add more.
The Aral Sea used to be the world’s forth largest lake. After the USSR reversed 2 major rivers that fed it in order to irrigate Central Asian cotton fields, it began to shrink & is now virtually dead. columbia.edu/~tmt2120/intro…
Jan 28, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The great @EmilyBenedek1 with a devastating report on California’s new CRT-based ethnic studies curriculum. Read the whole thing tabletmag.com/sections/news/…
“The Jewish Journal points out that Jews are the only group in the curriculum for whom the term “privilege” is used. And this privilege is not earned by way of talent, or educational and professional attainment, but rather trickery.”
Aug 3, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
There's been this weird thing going on on Twitter with people advancing arguments that 2+2=5. Haven't followed it closely (too crazy) but just came across a fascinating quote, circa 1928, from a US journalist who reported from the USSR during the first 5-Year Plan--->
“The slogan ‘The Five Year Plan in Four Years’ was advanced & the magic symbols ‘5-in-4’ & ‘2+2=5’ were posted & shouted throughout the land. The formula 2+2=5 instantly riveted my attention. It seemed to me at once bold & preposterous — the daring & the paradox...
Mar 6, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
I’m glad they looked in the archives, but any Russian with a memory of the USSR could have told them that this is exactly what the Soviets would have seen Sanders as: an opportunity for their propaganda & influence machine. nytimes.com/2020/03/05/wor…
The Soviets loved Western leftists like Sanders, the ones who could do their propaganda work for them w/o their having to do the heavy lifting of recruiting & training figures of influence or spending money on them. Internally motivated fellow travelers were the greatest gift.
Dec 11, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Absolutely on belonging to the Jewish nation or the Jewish people. Also, it’s misleading to compare the use of the word “nationality” in this context to the Soviet nationality policy, as some have done out there in the twitterverse.
In the USSR, Jewishness was indeed viewed as a “nationality.” But the Soviets fought tooth & nail against acknowledging that Jews were a people or a nation. Doing so would have meant that US & Israeli Jews who were fighting for Soviet Jewry to rejoin the Jewish people had a case.
Nov 7, 2019 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
50 yrs ago a group of daring Soviet Georgian Jews openly asked for freedom to live in the land of their ancestors—Israel. Through their letter to Golda Meir & the UN, they led the way in an unprecedented rebirth of Jewish identity among Soviet Jewry.
The Letter of the 18 was not an appeal for help in the face of racial-based antisemitism or religious persecution. Nor did it make a case based on the principle of family reunification—the one argument that moved Soviet authorities to permit an exit from the country
Sep 15, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I finally got around to reading this brilliant essay & highly recommend others do the same. It’s about a very special section the Soviets created in 1918, made up entirely of Jews, to persecute other Jews—the Yevsektsiya. bit.ly/2mfMuwZ
Dara Horn writes that in Yevsektsiya’s brief and bloody lifespan, “one finds the origins of today’s supposedly novel concept: Jews who are of course not anti-Semitic (how could they be? they’re Jews!), but simply anti-Zionist.”
Aug 22, 2019 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
THREAD on Trump’s dual loyalty remarks. I put together a few specific examples of Jews being targeted for dual loyalty, esp related to loyalty to Israel. Listing them here, along w/ further thoughts on the subject. /1
In 1952, 13 members of the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were executed on Stalin’s orders on charges of treason & foreign espionage. The group had worked tirelessly for the USSR, raising millions of dollars abroad during World War II to support Soviet war effort /2
Aug 20, 2019 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Excellent piece. Some context: tokenism twrd Jews has a very long tradition on the left. The Soviets cultivated & excelled at it. Esp after the 6 Day War, they actively used Jews in their anti-Israel propaganda campaigns to show that they weren’t antisemitic, just anti-Zionist
The Omar/Tlaib presser yesterday especially made me feel like I was back in the USSR. Back in the 1960s-80s, the Soviets would also organize public events to condemn Israel & Zionism & trot out their token Jews to support their points.
Jul 3, 2019 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Here’s what’s fascinating about this video. It’s being run by RT, Russia’s state-run propaganda channel. Early in it Galloway points out the Red Army’s role as the savior of European Jewry. It’s a point that’s been for years central to Russia’s propaganda. 1/10
This point is an offshoot of a broader one—that the Red Army saved Europe in WW2 & therefore Europe & all of the free world owe it.This point is of personal import to Putin, & we’ve seen it deployed in various ways, as I wrote here: wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russ… 2/10
Apr 23, 2019 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
One of the great things about Twitter is that you get to meet amazing people here you’d never meet otherwise. (Yes, I choose to be positive!) One such person I just met is @beilis_jay, grandson of Mendel Beilis of the Beilis Trial fame. jpost.com/Jewish-World/J… 1/
Beilis was a 39-year old father of five living in Kyiv in late 19th-early 20th century. His 1913 blood libel trial captivated the world. He was charged with ritual murder—the killing of a 13-year-old Christian boy to use his blood in the making of matzah. 2/
Mar 6, 2019 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
A longish THREAD on Soviet anti-Zionism & some of its echoes today. As a note, I lived the first 19 years of my life in the USSR & so have personal experience w/some of this. 0/
Russian Jews like to note that #Stalin got his stroke on Purim—a Jewish holiday celebrating the demise of an evil plot to annihilate the Jews. He died 4 days later—66 years ago today. 1/
