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‘Riverway to the Sea’ July 18-August 7, 2025 • Pinchas • 22 Tamuz 5785 • Vol. 24, No. 24
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These people aren’t fooling around GLOBAL FOCUS
BEN COHEN
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In 1892, nativist antisemites complained: Why don’t Jews rebuild Jerusalem instead of invading New York?
ews in the West are facing a gradually unfolding witch-hunt, spurred by fanatics and zealots no less venomous than the Puritans who drove the Salem Witch Trials. Let me make crystal clear the goals they are striving for. •They want Western publics to regard Israel as the greatest misfortune plaguing the world today. •They want Western publics to recognize Zionism as a political cancer as dangerous as fascism and racism (but not communism), as expressed in their slogan “Dismantle Zionism.” •They want Western publics to adopt the cause of Israel’s elimination as a noble aim that will advance human rights. •They want their governments to cut all diplomatic, commercial and cultural links with Israel and impose punishing sanctions in their place. •They want Western civil society — universities, unions, media outlets, organizations and campaigns pursuing social justice, religious groups, intellectuals, health workers, lawyers and a myriad of other sectors — to embrace a total boycott of Israel. •They want to criminalize Israeli citizens and diaspora Jews who serve in the Israel Defense Forces. •They want to criminalize Israel’s political and military leaders. •They want to outlaw Zionist political and social organizations, youth groups and charities. •They want to strictly police Jewish communities in order to eliminate the presence of any Zionist affiliations — meaning that Jewish schools, synagogues, community centers, kosher markets and restaurants would be prohibited from using or trading in Israeli products, displaying the Israeli flag, reciting the prayer for the State of Israel on Shabbat and during festivals, carrying out Zionist education programs, teaching the history of Israel and assisting with aliyah. And make no mistake: Any Jewish resistance to these measures would be met with a merciless response. Public condemnation. Media vilification. Fines. Arrests. Eventually, worse, if we let them. hese witch-hunters have been on the margins of democratic societies for decades, coming to the fore on those occasions when the violent Palestinian objection to Israel’s existence returns to the boil. See The ‘Riverway to Sea’ on page 2
Jewish replacement theory, shouted in 2017 by torch-bearing marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, was featured in this 1892 cartoon that proclaimed: ‘Instead of returning to the holy land to build up Jerusalem and to restore the glories of their race, the chosen people are coming to the metropolis of the new world.’
is taking a summer break. B’ezrat Hashem, we will return after Tisha B’Av, on Wed. Aug. 6.
This political cartoon, one of a series of antisemitic works appearing in Judge magazine in the 1890s, was titled, “Their New Jerusalem.” It shows Jews driven from Russia by persecution coming to New York City in rags and becoming prosperous due to their “Perseverance and Industry,” and in the process forcing established New Yorkers to move West (that’s the Jewish replacement libel echoed in Charlottesville a century and quarter later). Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, restored by Adam Cuerden, via WikiCommons
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