A few words on blood libel from this Jew and president of a Jewish not-for-profit organization who is also involved in education: Like many others impacted by Covid and rancorous politics, I continue to feel wounded and confused. In particular, I have felt the simplistic intersectional pressure to “compare” wounds, as though this whataboutism and us-vs-them can be done, or as though this has any utility. It cannot and it does not.
It does not help Jews for Asians to be attacked or killed any more than it helps Asians for Jews to be! Similarly, it does not help Asians or Jews for other peoples of color to be brutalized either. The age-old blood libel that Jews caused plagues, the murder of prophets or, more recently, that Jews are super spreaders of Covid are insidious and cause violence. At the very same time, the canard that Asian-Americans spread Covid is no less insidious or dangerous.
How one wishes these disgusting libels would cease. How one prays that the sowing of division among peoples would end. Most adults would do well to see children play and learn together without racial, ethnic and religious divisions. They might also do well to recognize that most workplaces, and some families and friend groups are ethnically, religiously and racially diverse
In my opinion, we need to move past the separation of divisive identity politics to a pluralistic mindset where each identity is respected, celebrated, and also has the basic privacy right described by Justice Louis Brandeis as the “freedom to be left alone.” #stopasianhate #stopjewhate #stopracism #freedomtobeleftalone #privacy #respect #allyship
Rebecca Sassouni
Great Neck
