Whether browsing through newspaper headlines or scrolling through Twitter, there is no escaping the grim reality that anti-Semitic hatred is again on the rise around the world, including here in Australia. In fact, it has broken into the mainstream in a way not seen in decades.
Experts say it’s not so much that the oldest hatred is back. Rather, it simply never left, but today those who harbour anti-Semitic beliefs are becoming much less inhibited in shamelessly expressing and acting on them.
We’re seeing this in popular culture. In late November, the North Melbourne Football Club drafted Harry Sheezel – set to become the first Jewish athlete to enter the AFL since 1999. An occasion that should have been a tribute to Australian multiculturalism was spoiled by numerous anti-Semitic slurs transmitted through radio talkback and comments online.
Meanwhile, in the US, rapper Kanye West (aka “Ye”), with almost 50 million followers on social media, has become a volcano of anti-Semitic rhetoric recently, threatening Jews, praising Hitler and engaging in Holocaust denial.
Disturbingly, West’s actions were defended by some public figures, and similar ideas were spread by other celebrities such as basketball star Kyrie Irving. Even more shockingly, West was later invited to a friendly dinner, alongside a white supremacist who has also spewed Jew hatred, with former US president Donald Trump at the latter’s estate.
Read the article by Colin Rubenstein in The Australian.