I know what blatant antisemitism looks like.

Because I write and speak about the Holocaust, Nazi-looted art, Jewish history, and the experiences of my grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, I receive social media comments that leave little room for interpretation. Some attack Jews simply because they are Jews. Some invoke the Holocaust. Some are explicit enough that Meta has removed them as hate speech.

Those comments are, strangely, the easy ones. There is little question about what they are.

The harder conversation concerns antisemitism that does not announce itself so clearly.

Ironically, it centers on someone I had just seen as the Hulk in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. I enjoyed the movie and have long enjoyed Mark Ruffalo as an actor. None of that prevents me from taking issue with what he has said, just as criticizing his words does not require me to call him an antisemite.

In criticizing the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger, Ruffalo focused on the enormous wealth behind David Ellison’s acquisition, his father Larry Ellison’s connection to Oracle, and Oracle’s technological support for Israel. He also raised concerns about the media power the merger would create and warned that this “profoundly scary technology” could one day be “used on you.”

Paramount said his comments invoked antisemitic tropes. Ruffalo rejected that characterization as “appalling and fundamentally dishonest,” arguing that criticism........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)