‘Evolving Strain’ of Antisemitism Is Emerging on Left, Argues Israeli Think Tank in New Report
Posted on 16 March 2021
MARCH 16, 2021
A new report on progressive antisemitism was released Tuesday by a top Israeli think tank, arguing that a new form of antisemitism is becoming increasingly powerful in left-wing ideology and activism.
The Reut Group — which works in areas of national security, Israeli-Jewish relations, and socio-economic development — issued the paper on a new form of “erasive antisemitism,” a term coined by writer and activist Ben M. Freeman, that is gaining traction in progressive discourse.
“Erasive anti-Semitism is a de-facto undermining of Jewish narrative self-determination: the very right to define Jewish identity, experience, and vulnerability according to concepts and language that reflect the unique nature of Jewish vulnerability, including that it tracks differently from other dominant experiences of oppression,” lead author Daphna Kaufman told The Algemeiner.
This brand of antisemitism “negates the rights of Jews individually or collectively to define their own identity, experience, and vulnerability,” the paper argues — in part, because of paradigms that frame Jews as “powerful white oppressors,” it “lumps them within the dominant majorities it delineates.”
“Erasive anti-Semitism does not necessarily feed on hatred,” Kaufman said, and is often an unintentional consequence of accepting those paradigms. “However, a marginal fringe does purposefully advance anti-Jewish and anti-Israel agendas utilizing its tenets, exploiting contemporary progressive paradigms to challenge Jewish inclusion and support for Jewish and pro-Israel agendas on the left.”
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