The Daily Signal - How Black Lives Matter Is Contributing to Rise in Antisemitism

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

Tuvia Tenenbom, a bestselling author, playwright, journalist, and founder of the Jewish Theater of New York, has traveled the world to understand increasing antisemitism. He documents his experiences in his latest book “The Taming of the Jew.” Recent fighting between Israel and Hamas has brought the issue to the forefront with more than two dozen antisemitic attacks reported in the United States since May 10. Tenenbom attributes this troubling trend to the pro-Palestinian organization Black Lives Matter and its supporters on the American left and in the news media. Tenenbom, 64, also speaks about the antisemitism he personally has experienced. Publishers in America and Europe rejected “The Taming of the Jew,” prompting him to seek an Israel-based company. Now he is speaking out against cancel culture and urging Americans to take action before it’s too late. We also cover these stories: Moderna announces that its COVID-19 vaccine appears to be safe for youth. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy condemns statements by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene comparing mask and vaccine requirements to what Jews faced during the Holocaust. "Fast and Furious" actor and pro wrestler John Cena apologizes to China for calling Taiwan a country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, May 26th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, Rob Louis talks with Jewish author, journalist, and playwright, Tuvia Tenenbaum. They discuss anti-Semitism in America and the latest clash between Israel and Hamas. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top stories. Madonna announced Tuesday that its vaccine appears to be safe for adolescents.

In a press release, Moderna said the phase 23 study of its COVID-19 vaccine and adolescence has met its primary immunology endpoint. 3,732 young people between the ages of 12 and 17 participated in the study. Their blood work shows that the vaccine produced a similar immune response to that of adults who received the vaccine. Moderna also reports that no children who received the vaccine became infected with the virus 14 days after being immunized.

The drug company says they plan to submit the results of the study to the Food and Drug Administration in June and to request authorization for the vaccine to be approved for adolescents. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other Top House Republicans formally condemned statements by Representative Marjorie Taylor Green comparing mask and vaccine requirements to the conditions faced by Jews during the Holocaust. In a statement Tuesday, McCarthy said, Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. Let me be clear, the House Republican Conference condemns this language.

The condemnation comes on the heels of a series of comparisons to the Holocaust over the last several days, including a tweet shared by Green on Tuesday criticizing a grocery store chain that would begin marking vaccinated employees with a logo on their name badge. In the tweet, Green compared the vaccination logo to the gold stars worn by Jews during the Holocaust. Green responded to the criticism from Republican leadership in a statement of her own, saying their attempts to shame, ostracize, and brand Americans who choose not to get vaccinated or a mask are reminiscent of the great tyrants of history who did the same to those who would not comply. Actor and pro wrestler John Sina has apologized to China for calling Taiwan a country. Sina called Taiwan a country while doing an interview with a Taiwanese broadcast network known as TVBS to promote the latest Fast and Furious movie.

On Tuesday, Sina posted a video apology in Mandarin on the Chinese social media network, Weibo. The video was shared on Twitter by Joe Shu. Take a listen. I do a lot of Many times Seiner received a lot of backlash on social media after giving the apology. Journalist Clay Travis tweeted that the willingness of American celebrities

and large companies to bend the knee to modern day genocidal Nazis in China the year after China lied about COVID and unleashed it on the world is truly being on the wrong side of history. It's pathetic. Now stay tuned for Rob's interview with Tuvia Tenenbaum. They discuss anti-Semitism and the latest clash between Israel and Tamas. Virginia Allen here, I want to tell you all about the best job placement program for conservatives. The Heritage Foundation's Job Bank. The Heritage Job Bank

connects conservatives of all career levels to jobs with conservative employers all over the country. free. If you sign up, the Job Bank will send you new job openings every week and invite you to their virtual job fairs and career seminars. The Job Bank team also offers one-on-one career consultation. Signing up is easy. Just go to Heritage.org slash Job Bank and click on Register Today. We are joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by Tuvia Tenenbaum, a best-selling author, playwright, journalist, and founder of the Jewish Theater of New York. Tuvia, thanks so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me, and thanks for everybody who's listening.

Well, I want to begin with the recent violence that we've seen in the Middle East. The fighting between Israel and Hamas has led to an increase in anti-Semitism here in the United States and also in Europe. As somebody who has studied this issue, written about it, what are your thoughts on the trends that we've seen in the last few days? I mean, sadly, these are the things that I have written about, for God knows how many years. I mean, I've written also a book. I mean, the most recent book is called The Taming of the Jew. It's about the anti-Semitism in the Great Britain, in Ireland and in Great Britain, and the weak Jewish response to it.

But I have also written about what happens over there in Israel, Palestine, and in the United States. I've written some other book, Catch the Jew, the Lysiter Tell, whatever they are. And I have seen it before. I mean, I am also a German journalist. not just a author. And wherever I walked as a German journalist, and I said I am a German journalist,

and I talked to the people and interviewed thousands and thousands of them, and I saw it already, the budding of it, or whatever, the beginning of it. I mean, more to say it was not publicly before. It was there. It was, the anti-Semitism was under the surface. It's under the surface for God knows how long, for years and years and years. And now what we've,

see is what people think comes more than before, aided by some politicians, aided by the old tumult of Black Lives Matter and all that stuff. And when Black Lives Matter, for example, says, okay, we are with the Palestinians and free Palestine and Israel is apartheid state. And all of a sudden, you have the people, now they have the permission to save. They have the permission from the powers that be, who are called liberal, who are called, progressive or called whatever it is. And they say it now.

So if they say it, we can say it, and then we can go on the street. And we can say like they say it in London, for example, let's rape the Jewish women. Let's kill the men and rape the women. You know, it's an, and here in the United States, you have the most liberal or supposed liberal newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, whatever you have here. And they go around and they go like big, big, big on this issue, presenting to you, our bad Israelis, are good, the Palestinians are. They live so miserable.

And the Jews just want to have this Palestinian children blood. It's like we have gone to it as Jews, you know, for 2,000 years in Europe. We have been accused of loving and wanting little Christian children to slaughter them. to drink their blood or to make the matzah for possible. And now the Jews are in Israel, so there are no Christians, or not as many, they are Muslims. So now we want the Jews who want to do the same things. They've always done. They want to take little children, you know, that are not Jewish, and basically blow their brains out

and just enjoying to see the blood spilled on the floor. I mean, there is nothing new in it. it just became kosher. I mean, you know, you use the Jewish word, it became kosher. I mean, if you look history, if you look what happened in World War II, I mean, it was similar.

Sadly, it was similar. There was anti-Semitism in Germany. There was anti-Semitism in Europe. And then K. Mitler, who at that time was the big guy, you know, who decided what's small and what's ethical. And he basically said to the people, well, we don't like the Jews.

Let's kill them. Let's rape them. And why not? So we do it. And it's the same thing here. I mean, it's frightening. The similarity is frightening. The Jews were doing very well in Germany before the war. And then they never believed they joined the government.

They joined everything. And then they paid a price. They paid a big price. For me personally, 90% of my family was slaughtered, was buried in Auschwitz and some other camps before I was born. And now to see it again, to see it in New York, It is sad I'm talking to Jews here

And for example An Israeli Jew who's been in New York For God knows how many years And she speaks Hebrew And when we meet you speak Hebrew And she says to me Please let's not speak Hebrew on the street We are in the Upper East Side of Manhattan

And she's afraid to speak Hebrew In the Upper East Side of Manhattan We are in New York This is the bastion of liberal America Of progressive I mean, it's like I've said to you before. I mean, it's like I think progressive is a little bit humility. Humility, I ask from the people, you know, when you call yourself progressive,

I think it's very strange. I mean, it's kind of a chutzpah, because if you are progressive, what am I? I am a garbage. I am backward. I am wet. But anyway, that was it called themselves. They are now the elites, and they decide. And I know you open a paper, you know, like the New York Times, so you open a paper like the Guardian.

You know, this is the elite of the elite of our culture today. The left that always sprouted itself for being open, all-inclusive. There is no colors, no religions. We are all humanity. All of us, except for the Jews. And that's right, Mike. Tuvilla, you mentioned Black Lives Matter. Over the course of the past year, we have seen an explosion of Black Lives Matter support.

and I think now increasingly some people starting to question what the group's real motives are. Do leaders on the American left who have embraced this movement have any responsibility for the anti-Semitism that we're now seeing throughout the United States? Of course they do. They are the ones even now when Israel is facing, you're talking, you know, they made Israel look like Goliath and the Palestinians are like David. I mean, it's like al-a. I mean, Israel states, how many Jews out there? Like, 7 million Jews all together. I mean, to be just the Jews.

And how many Muslims who basically want to kill the Jewish state? I around hundreds of millions. So where is the Goliath and there is David? I mean, and just look at the facts. I mean, the simple fact. What happened lately? I mean, nothing was wrong with Hamas. I mean, everything was good.

Just days before all the thing exploded, Israel allowed Qatar to bring tens of millions of dollars. into the Gaza Strip, and Israel has been doing it forever and ever, you know, and they had nothing to complain about. I mean, and when you look at the West Bank, I've been at West Bank. I have interviewed many, many Palestinians.

I became very, very friendly, so to speak, which I bring Rajubu is the number two, basically. It's just under the president of Mshmoudab. and he thought I'm German He didn't know I'm Jewish And he shot me exactly as he do over there I mean it was ridiculous to see how much money He's going over there

So when I was there with my wife And in a group of team of video and camera people We travel around We travel around in Hebron Which is they called Khalil We travel around in Jerusalem of course We're in Janine in Ramallah Whatever you want

Nabilis And we saw an unbelievable unbelievable, unbelievable wealth. The Palestinians are getting so much money from Europe and from America. Amazing amount of money. I remember one time going to a village, a small village. There were five houses over there. And the road to the village was like five lanes.

I said to the people, why do you need five lanes? For a village of five people. And they said all the USA, the Americans built it. They have nothing to do. just pull money over money on the Palestinians. You see the restaurants are full to capacity, through the brink. You stand on the streets in Nablas or in Hebron, or wherever you are,

and you see the cars going around. Look at the cars. This does not belong, do not belong to officials. They belong to normal people. And you see Merit Stadies. You see Lexington. The CBMWs. Amazing things over there.

You see beautiful houses, beautiful eastern imagination, you know, architecture. Amazing stuff. You see there. You see young Palestinians, even in the West Bank, they cross to Israel every day, going to Hebrew University, going to the Chyong, going to Tel Aviv University. They pay nothing for that. Everything is paid for them. And then they say they are apartheid state. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? The left-leaning media, or call themselves sentries, whatever they are, believe in those things. And yes, congressmen and congressmen and senators basically calling to boycott Israel.

I mean, hello? I'm glad you brought up the media because I wanted to ask you a question about that. You, of course, are journalist yourself. You may be familiar with the story where the Associated Press was forced to terminate one of its employees who tweeted in with her personal opinion about the conflict there between Israel and Hamas. and I think more broadly we're seeing an increasing hostile tone toward Israel as somebody who went to journalism school myself. I know I experienced this from professors who were clearly one-sided on this issue. This must be a troubling trend for you as a journalist to see developing before your own eyes and your own profession. Yeah, I mean, it's just so to watch because being a journalist and I write for some main very prominent.

German paper back in Germany. And I see them, I know them, I see them in bars, in pops, in whatever you want, in restaurants. And I see them where they are staying and where they are writing. I mean, if any of them ever goes to Gaza, they're usually a station in Israel.

They're stationed in Tel Aviv or in Yaffa. And Tel Aviv, Yaffa, whatever you call it. And they go to the most beautiful restaurants. And I can see them actually doing this, you know, sitting on the beach, ordering the best of food, know, in Martaray restaurant, whatever, all kinds of restaurants, and I see them then opening their laptops,

and they start writing Gaza, March 22. I mean, it's like, what Gaza, March, you are not in Gaza, you are in Jepa, you are in Tel Aviv, you are sitting in a restaurant, and then they write about the worst things that the Jews were going to them. When they actually bother to go to the West Bank or to or to Gaza, they do it accompanied by either officials from the PLO or, officials from Hamas or all kinds of NGOs, organizations that are there to champion the Palestinian cause.

That's what we are. They never go by themselves. I joined them somehow to see what they're doing, and the people don't understand Arabic. They don't know if they're going. The interviews ask questions of some of Palestinians and the Palestinians answer. And then when the Palestinian, for example, says, you know, all the Jews are bad, kill all the Jews, the translator says, we are suffering very much by the end of Israel. It's translating something that doesn't even exist.

And when I went by myself to see it, I didn't see anything what's a report. It's amazing what happened to the media of our days and time. The media today is not a media. Journalists are not doing their job. They come with preconceived notions. They come with their prejudices. and they try to find people who will aid them to write more prejudices. So they go to this left-cleaning usually, NGOs,

and let's go together. It's frightening what you can see. I have seen them, you know, these NGOs that go to Yadbashem, which is the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and they say to them, those NGOs, basically debating and questioning if the Holocaust really happened, if the Nazis really kill the Jews, they say no, it's not true. And they tell them that what the Holocaust that's really happening,

and they say it in Yad Bashem, the Holocaust that's really happening, is the Israelis killing Palestinians, Jews killing Arabs. That's what they call journalism. These are the people they go away. From there they find the truth. It's frightening to see it But if you understand If you understand Arabic

And you hear what the people say to you And you go by yourself You know, not with somebody Taking you to have one to the most poor part Of town and say oh this is the Palestinians Where it goes in five minutes, let's go back Traveling have one more On your own

You can just take a car And or just walk by feet And see what's happening You see the first the pet-trust ones. You see the beautiful houses. All this we don't report. This is not journalism. No, it's certainly not... It's just embedded

anti-semitism. And I saw it like for the most recent book, the taming of the Jew. You could see it when you... And I go Iran and go in Britain, and I go in the UK, I go in Ireland. I present myself as a German journalist. And I ask people, even teenagers, not Palestinians, not Muslims, just no more. White.

And I said to them, is there anything you would like to change in life? Is there anything you would like to change in the world? And they said to me, free Palestine. Free Palestine. By the way, you know what it means? Free Palestine. It comes from Arabic. Palestine, Hoelie.

You know what it means? Free Palestine from the Jews. That's what it means. And now we are here in America, black lives matter, which proved itself to be actually a racist anti-Semitical group of people. And the media is, you cannot say anything. against Black Life Matter. Thank God I'm not working in a normal job in this country

because I would be fired for what I'm just saying. There is no freedom of expression anymore. There is a constitution in this country, but nobody regards it as anything that you have to walk with, you know, that you abide by. It's frightening to see what happens in this country. It's frightening to see. I mean, Jews in Boron Park are afraid, even in Boron Park.

They try not to move out of the main roads because they are Orthodox Jews, you know, ultra-Orthodox and they can be identified as Jews if you open the States. And then, okay. Yeah, we're certainly seeing these changes in the media and the activism of Black Lives Matter having a big impact on the Democratic Party in the United States. There's been a lot of chatter in the last week or so about the shifting nature of both President Biden, who seems to be pulled in a direction by the left. wing faction led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Taleb and others. What does this mean in terms of our long-term position toward Israel and its security and the Jewish people more broadly? If it's continuous, it's going to be, and it looks like it continues.

I mean, I don't think that Joe Biden decides on his own these days. I think he's basically given to pressure by the different groups and most often by as proven just by the few months that he's in office by this kind of progressive part of his party. But the problem is not just a progressive part of his party. Even the other Democrats. Where are the other

Democrats? Where is Chuck Schumer? For example. You know, where is he saying hello? Stop it. This is anti-Semitism? It doesn't do it. So even the other leaders in the Democratic Party, including some of them who are Jews, you know, have been tamed.

This is why the book is called the taming of the Jew, have been tamed and not to say anything against this. And you know what? It's a repeat of history. That's what happened in Germany 78 years ago. When you allow this kind of blind hatred to go on, what do you think

you're going to have? If this continues like this, if congressmen and women and the senators don't stop it, if the president doesn't stop it, And not only to don't stop it, to basically join the chorus. What do you expect it to be? What do you expect?

If you allow humans, human beings to behave like that, and you tell them this is the way you should be, and that's why you can call yourself aggressive, then it's just going to be worse and worse and worse. Well, I'm glad you're making that point about the importance of language, and certainly I think that there are many people who, like you, question that term that they use to describe themselves. Let's talk about your work now. You recently spoke to National Review about your recent book, The Taming of the Jew, which you've mentioned, and you stated that you've been unable to find an American publisher.

You're an author. This is not the first time that you've written a book. Did you experience problems in the past? And what can you tell us about this most recent example and why it is so troubling to you? It's very troubling to me. I mean, and now this book is just the fifth book. It comes in English, and it's available here in the United States. But it was not published in the United States because I could not find any publisher.

Either in the United States or in the UK, it's being published. It's been printed and published by a publishing company in Jerusalem in Israel. And then it's being shipped to the United States. That's why you can find it in Amazon.com. But it's not because it has been published or printed. the year. I cannot get it. I'll give you an example. I had in the UK

when I just finished writing the Taming of the Jew, and I got in contact to some British name, you know, like the book, and I got in contact with the Neil Blair Publishing, the Blair Publish partnership. It's called

the Blair Partnership. And this is an auto's agency that they represent also Jackie Rowling or Harry Potter, etc. which means that the top publishers in the world. And he asked me, and he asked me to send him the book. I sent him a book and he liked it.

And he said, okay, let me try to find a publisher for it. And he went to try to find a publisher. And if the Blair partnership is sending a book to a publishing company in the UK, they are going to read it and they are going to answer. So they read it and not one agreed to publish it. And they showed me, you know, from the agency showed me the answers that they got, because the answers did not come to me.

It went to them, you know, and they have been very honest with the agency. And the answers are something like, you know, we really love the book. It's a new voice. It's shocking to see the anti-Semitism in this country. But we don't think we can sell this book because it's about a dissimic. Or another publisher who said, for example, it's very unique. I was taken by it, but we've already published a book about anti-Semitism. We don't think we should publish another one.

I mean, the excuses, you know, why they don't want, out of the 15th that I have seen, only one publishing company said, the publisher said, I didn't like it, or I didn't think I want to publish it just because the other one so little. value high, journalism, great. I admire the hotel for the chances that it took, you know,

in finding this information. Everything was positive. But we are not going to publish it. No way. Wow. And just mind me, I have like, I have three Spiegel bestsellers already. Spiegel bestsellaries, it's like in Germany.

It's like a New York Times bestseller. I have out of the five, four of my books in Israel are bestsellers, two of them, number one bestsellers, including the most recent one. And I can find an American publisher. I have tried. I met with some agents. They liked my books, but basically I have been told, forget it.

So there's no American publisher who will publish this book. Well, if he took toast to power, and if you tell the truth of what's happening, nobody wants to try. Well, that is really disappointing to hear about that experience. Obviously, someone who has published multiple books as a writer like yourself, you certainly know the industry and have been through the process before. And I don't know if it's attributable to this cancel culture we find ourselves living through right now, or if you more directly attributed to anti-Semitism. But we appreciate the fact that you are still finding different ways to speak out and speak into these issues in a forceful way. But look at an example. You mentioned the article in the National Review.

Okay, to want public, people read it just like yourself. You think any editor or any publisher calls me up and said, hey, may I look at your books? No. They know what's in the books. Some of them read it. They don't want to. Yeah.

There's one big, big, big agent here in New York, and that's his name, because we never did anything together. And he just asked me for the book. He read the book. He has like a top, top agency here in the city. And he read the book. I gave him the book. He read it.

And then we had a meeting. And he said, you know, it's like, I just want to tell you, it's so unique. It's so wonderful, you know, from the time I started writing it, I did not take the book down until I finished it. It's an amazing book. But Mr. Tuviatanberman, I'm sorry to tell you, I am not going to be your agent. And I said, why? He said, because I know the market.

No publisher in this country will publish your books. What is this? This is council culture. You know, in ancient times we burn the books. You will find a better way. We don't publish them. And that's what it is. They basically try to stop you up.

And it's frightening. It's sad, but it's reality. It is. And I want to close by asking you this question, because in this age that we live in with the hurdles that you yourself have had to overcome to raise awareness about anti-Semitism, what advice do you have for our listeners or everyday Americans as they might seek to combat anti-Semitism themselves in their own lives? or what awareness can they help bring to others about this? Okay, one of the mistakes that I saw, and a lot of people are doing, is that when this anti-Semitism goes high, people try to argue with them logically, try to convince the other side,

try to show them that they are wrong. And this kind of, it doesn't work. This is not a way to do it. It just doesn't work, because the other side is not convinced by the anti-Semitism to logic, which the people don't know what Palestine is. They don't know what Palestine is. They just know that the next one to fight Palestine are Jews. Sadly, that's what they know.

And the anti-Semitism comes up. You cannot fight these people with logic, with articles, because they make no sense. They don't have the facts. The one who accuse Israel of everything, they have no facts. You know, all the people in Britain, you know, young people, they go around free Palestine, free Palestine. and I asked them a simple question, you know, basically very stupid question.

What's the distance? One of my questions, what's the distance between Jerusalem and Palestine? And the answer was, let me check it on Google. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's like, what's the distance between New York and the United States? I mean, I knew he's a check. The Google answer these stupid questions. The people don't know nothing.

It's just hatred that comes out. So the way to fight it back, is by the cold spade the spade. You know, you don't need to argue with them because they are not into logic. You just have to say to them, dear friends, you are racist. You are anti-Semites.

And to say to the Jewish brothers and sisters who are around, either like Antonin or Blinken or whoever it is, you know, and they are Jews or Bernie Sanders, and they come around with statements that are absurd. statements of every Nazi would love to make the statements publicly and just say to them, hello, you are just celibating Jews. That's who you are. There is no trust to you. And don't

teach us. And black lives matter, sorry to say, you know, they are a despicable group of people. That's who they are. And it's time to say the truth. And it's time to actually practice the American Constitution of freedom of speech. It's time to, what do you say, every American you talk to it. You say, what is America about? They always tell you freedom, freedom, freedom. What?

This is what you are part of? Use your freedom of speech. That's great advice, too, VIA. Thank you, and thank you for using your speech. The book, again, is called The Taming of the Jew. It's your most recent work. As you said, it is available on Amazon, even if you don't have an American publisher.

We'll leave a link to it in the show notes for our listeners who want to pick up a copy. Thank you. I appreciate and thank you for loving me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow.

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