Musing: When Hatred Deserves the Worst Label

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The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles recently posted the offering of one Liami Lawrence, in which he celebrates the new Israeli government’s lack of “fat men in their black coats” who “write out blank checks for their rabbis and yeshivas” – yeshivas, he continues, whose students “sit back and pretend to study… and make babies.”  He insinuates that charedim in Israel don’t pay taxes, that they “force” women to sit in the back of the bus in charedi neighborhoods and that their behavior can be characterized as “schnorring, lying and cheating.”

Often, and rightly, bemoaned is the use of terms evocative of Klal Yisrael’s worst enemies in personal or political discourse where it has no place.  Taking a hard line on defense or the budget should not render anyone open to being called a Cossack or a Nazi.

But then there are cases where, were a word replaced with “Jew,” the yield would be something recognizably Streicherian.

Mr. Lawrence’s eruption qualifies, I think, for that distinction.  And the Jewish Journal bears responsibility for spreading the hatred here.

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