An Open Letter to Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman

by Dr. Josef Olmert-South Carolina

Let me state at the outset-I agree with almost every word in your moving open letter, hence a question can be raised as to why I care to respond to you. Well, I do it, because I believe, that in this case, a half truth is worse than a whole lie. No, dear Michael and Ayelet, you did not lie about the Trump Administration and its attitude towards Jewish concerns. I am with you on this issue, writing consistently for more than a year about the dangers of a populist, nativist candidate to the Jewish community. I evoked the legacy of people like Father Coughlin, and I cautioned my fellow Jews about a candidate who is so enthusiastically supported by David Duke, a candidate whose supporters bent over backwards to prove, that he was not another Hitler. I thought, that candidates for the highest position in the world, in the country which is the beacon of democracy, can have a ‘’somewhat’’ better certificate of ideological Kosher than not being Hitler. Surely Donald Hitler is NOT an Hitler, and that is a valid statement also after Charlottesville. In fact, I have no intention of categorizing President Trump as being antisemitic. I think he is not, at least I sincerely hope so.

That said, I strongly believe, that where there are Swastikas, there are no ‘’both sides’’. Where there are Nazis marching, there is only evil, and there are no nice people there. Whether these people wanted to, among other things, to express their protest against the removal of the statute of Robert E Lee , is totally dwarfed in significance, bearing in mind, that they marched on Friday night, chanting their anti Jewish slogans. All this with torches lit, 30 January 1933 in Berlin reincarnated. When any Jew, in fact, any person of conscience and humanity, sees THAT on display, then there are no ‘’sides’’, and elementary moral clarity is needed here-condemn the Nazis, call them by name, caution the public about them, tell the Jews and the entire world -Never Again. President Trump did not do that, and all people around him should have protested, Jews in the first place. So, dear Michael and Ayelet, what do I want from you? Why do I write to you, and why do I look you in the white of your eyes, and charge you with telling only half truth.

Here it is why-Because you know, you should know, that antisemitism in America is on the rise, and FBI reports clearly indicate, that Jews are the most targeted community of all in the country, and a lot of this antisemitism comes from the Left, from Progressives, and I , for one, have not heard your voice about it. The American Left Wing is not completely antisemitic, but too much of it is. Being anti-zionist is the excuse, but this is a very thin veil, and anti-zionism , IS antisemitism, and on this score, extreme Left and Right are in agreement. I need to be very honest here- the difference between large segments of the extreme Left and Right, is that in the latter they celebrate the murder of six million Jews, whereas in the former they expect it to repeat itself by leading to the destruction of Israel and the ensuing genocide of the more than the six million Jews living there.

So, Dear Michael and Ayelet, I will not bother you and our readers with the long list of examples of genocidal Left Wing hatred towards Israel, but I definitely tell you, that attacking Trump and the Jews around him over Charlottesville and its implications is right, but attacking ONLY them, and totally ignore the red Nazis shows to me , at least, that your moral and national Jewish compass is in serious default.