Why Americans Must Fight Antisemitism

Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN that COVID-19 spike clusters were “predominantly ultra-Orthodox.” This was in response to protests by the Orthodox Jewish community against social gathering restrictions they viewed as violations of their religious freedom. “They have never complied with the rules,” Cuomo said in a conference call. He went on to say “Maybe money works,” when discussing withholding funds from non-compliant Orthodox communities. Antisemitism represents a threat not just to Jews, but to all minorities, and to American civilization itself, says Dennis Prager, the founder of Prager University, a conservative advocacy group. “The moment civilization begins to disintegrate,” he says, “the Jews are the first victims – never the only, but always the first. “Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. But tens of millions of non-Jews were also killed. Many of these people believed, incorrectly, that Hitler had a Jewish problem. But that was not the end of it. “It is often asked how the most culturally advanced country in Europe… the country that gave us Bach, Beethoven, Heine, and Schiller, [could] give us Auschwitz. “One answer is that advanced culture and advanced morality are not the same. The Nazis loved classical music. “The other, more important answer is that civilization is fragile.” Civilization is fragile, Prager says, because it is composed of humans, and human nature is profoundly flawed. “It takes a great deal of effort and a great deal of time to make a decent society. But it takes little effort and little time to destroy a society.” What is going on in America, he says, is the willful destruction of our culture. It’s being done in the name of social justice, but the goal is political. And politics is never about justice. It is about power. History tells us that there is a recognizable progression to cultural revolution. It begins with an attack on traditional ideas in universities. This builds until those traditional ideas are accepted as not just wrong but evil. This then morphs quickly into an attack on free speech. You have a choice: Embrace the new ideology and become part of the virtuous avant-garde. Or reject it and announce yourself as the enemy. Once free speech is gone, the culture, which has been holding the society together, disintegrates, along with the diversity of thought and cultural expression that created it. “Why, then,” Prager asks, “does this [current radical left-wing effort to destroy our culture] not frighten America’s Jews? Do they not know how much Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the rest of the left loathe Israel? Or do they not care?”