Shane Burley writes:

Joshua Shanes, the director of the Center for Israel Studies at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, says that while the rightward shift among American Jews (Orthodox Jews in particular) began in the 1980s, it has been supercharged under Trump. Yet he notes that there is a voluntary blindness within the community to the obvious antisemitism of the conspiratorial right.

“American Jews don’t understand what actually threatens their lives,” Shanes told New Lines, adding that many Jews are focused on whether a political figure is “pro-Israel,” rather than looking for the kinds of antisemitism most connected to anti-Jewish violence.

Part of this shift has occurred within major Jewish organizations like the ADL, which has been “pushing a line that leans Trumpist” under the leadership of CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Shanes said. This fosters a dismissive attitude toward Jewish fears of far-right antisemitism and shifts the metric to one entirely centered on Israel, which can lead to a common defense of antisemites as long as they support Israel — which they do for their own Christian and/or Islamophobic reasons.

While some elements of the white nationalist right are open to embracing a Jewish anti-immigrant ally, this remains anathema to hardcore racists and antisemites like Richard Spencer. The anti-immigrant outlet VDare supported Loomer’s 2020 and 2022 congressional runs, as did AmRen’s leader Taylor and contributor DeAnna, who see Loomer as the kind of figure who links Middle America together with the issues that matter most to them: ending all nonwhite immigration.

Just as importantly, they deploy Loomer’s Jewishness primarily as a totem against Islam, drawing on the myth of eternal enmity between Israel and Ishmael. For Loomer and her supporters, Jewishness has less value in and of itself than as a weapon against the enemies of the West — with Israel as the West’s putative outpost in the Middle East.

When Ye (formerly Kanye West) began what is now his years-long series of antisemitic tirades, Loomer said that he does “have a point” and that “so many rich Jews have a fixation on trying to destroy America.” For Ye, in turn, Loomer is “one of the few” good Jews — a remark she has quoted proudly. [Continue reading…]