First came the Manchester synagogue attack – then the antisemitic response 

Immediately after news broke of the Manchester synagogue attack on Thursday – during which two Jewish people were killed and three were seriously injured – I began checking the comments under posts about the story.

It’s depressing to admit that I could predict what I was about to see.

Sure enough, comment sections were full of antisemitic statements and conspiracy theories of Jews, many suggesting Jews (or specifically Zionists in this context) committed the attack themselves.

Sadly, this has become the norm. I have worked in social media for counter-hate speech charities for the past decade, so I’m very accustomed to seeing racism and conspiracies online.

But it has terrified me to see what were once fringe antisemitic positions become so widespread and normalised in recent years. 

Many will point to Israel and the war in Gaza as a reason for that shift, but my belief is that too many people have shown time and time again that they have a seriously problematic understanding of what antisemitism actually is.

For those who haven’t seen the news from Thursday morning, a man drove a car into members of the public outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in north Manchester. He then started to stab people, before being shot by police.

The incident happened on Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Many observant Jews fast, not only from food, but from all forms of technology. As a result, some would’ve had no idea what happened until sundown, when they switched on their phones. 

For many of my friends and colleagues, this incident validates a deeply-held warning, one which reverberates across Jewish communities. A warning that points, not only to the Holocaust – in which two-thirds of European Jews were murdered – but also to centuries of persecution.

I consider myself on the progressive left and it has long been evident that many in that space around me have a deep, nuanced understanding of different types of discrimination and racism, from outright discrimination to microaggressions. 

But for some reason, when it comes to antisemitism, many people’s understanding stops at ‘a hatred against Jews’. 

Antisemitism has a complex history, with a huge variety of tropes and conspiracies attached to it. Like Jews controlling the media, being the puppet masters of world events, of degrading culture, or carrying disease, or bearing some kind of collective responsibility for the death of Jesus. 

I’ve even seen the blood libel – a historical antisemitic conspiracy theory that accused Jews of using Christian blood (particularly that of children) for religious rituals – reentering online spaces. It is a trope that began in the Middle Ages but has had a modern revival as the base for movements like QAnon or accusations that the ‘deep state’ included Satanic pedophile trafficking rings.

When Gary Lineker was fired after sharing a post with a rat emoji, many people’s reactions were that they had no idea that it was linked to antisemitism. That, for progressives, is just not good enough.

After the shooting of Israeli embassy employees in Washington or the Molotov cocktail attack on Jews in Colorado, the same comments were everywhere on those social media posts – false flag accusations, suggesting that Israel had orchestrated the attacks to turn public sentiment towards Jews.

I’m not blind to understanding why many progressives struggle to be effective anti-racists when it comes to antisemitism. Unlike other forms of racism, it portrays the minority group as supposedly being rich, powerful, and oppressors, which is instinctively the opposite of the type of people we are trained to support.

There’s also no denying that, for many people, understanding the distinction and the connection between the state of Israel and Jews feels so complicated that they simplify it to suit their own narrative. That simplification often means reducing a complex relationship into a problematic binary – either holding all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel, or pretending that Israel has nothing to do with Jewish identity at all.

At the end of the day, I feel increasingly exhausted trying to convince fellow progressives that if they do not take the time to study the nuances of antisemitism or if they don’t respect its complexity in the same way they often do for other types of racism, then they are going to be incredibly ineffective allies.

They might even contribute to letting antisemitism around them go unchecked. In fact, many will share something antisemitic without realising it.

We see the results of this daily. I deplore attempts by those who call the pro-Palestine marches inherently antisemitic. But, at the same time, when a placard with an antisemitic message has been highlighted at the marches, it’s been depressing to see how often this is dismissed.

I am passionately pro-Palestinian rights, safety, and security, as well as for the Palestinian people’s dignity to live and thrive in their own state. I don’t see for a second how that can stop me from calling out antisemitism when I see it. 

When Jews go onto social media after events like earlier this week and see these comments – or the lack of others calling it out – it can leave them feeling even more isolated. It is our duty to educate ourselves so we can spot racism when it appears and call it out, so a minority group can feel supported and safer.

That is what being an ally is all about.

If you call yourself anti-racist, you cannot stop at only seeing ‘I hate Jews’ as the only form of antisemitism.

You must learn the full story of it – or risk letting it flourish in plain sight.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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