CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Conservative Media Giant Creates a New Antisemitic Stereotype

The American right has a long history of stereotyping Jews in pernicious ways.

Vice President Dan Quayle, running for re-election in 1992, denounced the Hollywood “cultural elite” for contravening traditional American values. In response, actor Billy Crystal said, “Every time they say the phrase ‘Hollywood elite’ you can hear the unspoken word ‘Jew.'”, a sentiment which, according to essayist Frank Rich, was echoed at the time by many entertainment executives.

Those who resisted the Civil Rights Movement saw Jews as the evil geniuses behind this disciplined, effective movement. The American Right at times has blamed Jews for feminism, communism, socialism, the labor movement, and more.

Now we have a new right-wing antisemitic stereotype–the Crybaby Jew. The Crybaby Jew is perpetually aggrieved, equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and acting as if disagreeing with a Jew is the same as threatening a Jew.

The influential conservative Free Press, founded in 2021 by Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief of CBS News, is the leading purveyor of this new antisemitic stereotype. Its purpose is to encourage American Jews to fear the left and view the Republican Party as the only safe place for Jews.

To whip up sentiment against the left, the Free Press exaggerates and distorts otherwise anodyne events to make them look like anti-Jewish hate. In doing so, they speciously depict American Jews as crybabies.

The Free Press’ most recent effort–Olivia Reingold’s How Vermont Became Ground Zero for the Anti-Israel Movement–is typical. The Press tells us Jews in Vermont are “buying weapons and guard dogs” because Vermont has become “hostile territory” where Jews are “fearful”.

One Jewish resident says, “People in Germany one day didn’t wake up and ship people to gas chambers”, that he feels like he’s “wearing a bright yellow star attached to my jacket”, and that for him and other local Jews, Vermonters are “leaving us with exactly one option: Move to Israel.”

Another says Vermonters “want to kill me”, while a third compares recent events in Vermont to the Second Intifada. What caused such fears?

Four small towns in........

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