Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.

There’s an old Gershwin song that goes:

“You like potato and I like po-tah-to. You like tomato and I like to-mah-to. Potato, po-tah-to, tomato, to-mah-to. Let’s call the whole thing off.”

Lately, the song has been singing in my head, and I’ve been wondering: what if we replaced the words tomato and potato with antizionism and antisemitism? Granted, the song loses its innocence, but honestly, I’d like to call this whole thing off, too.

Not because the words are identical or interchangeable. They aren’t. Rather, because we have become so consumed with debating the terminology, we seem to have lost sight of the horrendous reality underneath it: the vile persistence of Jew-hatred — a phrase that, even as I write it, makes my skin crawl.

Within the Jewish community, there is a serious and ongoing — ad nauseam — debate about how to define this moment. To the media, to our friends — our frenemies — at public speaking engagements, on podcasts, in our own heads. It’s exhausting.

There are brilliant, thoughtful, well-meaning intellectuals, writers, and activists who insist on drawing a bright line between antizionism and antisemitism. They argue whether criticism of Zionism or even opposition to Zionism as an ideology is not inherently hatred toward........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)