The 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was just marked around the globe, but unfortunately the lessons of the Holocaust have not sunk in. American Jews have a right to be frightened by the recent exponential increase in blatant acts of anti-Semitism.
To make matters worse, much of the rhetoric feeding the rise in anti-Semitism is coming from the left, including, unfortunately, the Democratic Party. The Democratic debate held last week in New Hampshire made it patently clear that the New Democratic Party has broken away from the traditional Democratic Party of yesteryear.
Tom Steyer said in New Hampshire that he would reverse U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Steyer, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren said they would put strong conditions on any military aid to Israel. Warren said, “Today, the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and the increasing normalization of proposals for Israel to annex parts or all of the West Bank are the most immediate dangers to the two-state solution.”
Warren went a lot further at a separate campaign function last week, when she nodded along, smiled and said “yeah” as a questioner slandered AIPAC as an “unholy alliance” of “Islamophobes,” “anti-Semites” and “white nationalists” that perpetuates bigotry. Without blinking, Warren then agreed to boycott this year’s AIPAC conference.
Warren has attended at least four AIPAC events in the past; it is bewildering and frightening how fast the political world can change. It can literally change overnight. This is what scares American Jews.
Unfortunately, the Jewish people have been down this road before. It started in biblical times when “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know of Joseph,” and continued in modern times with the rise of Hitler in Germany.
I am sure there is a great deal of soul-searching going on in the Democratic Party today, but the party’s lurch to the radical left—and towards anti-Israel sentiment—is a recipe for disaster. American Jews have good reason to be afraid.
Dr. Joseph Frager is first vice president of the National Council of Young Israel.
