Fight against bigotry must also include anti-Semitism

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson is known for his skills on the football field, but this month he received national attention for his harmful words off it.

We are referring to his decision to post on Instagram an anti-Semitic quote, falsely attributed to Hitler. It’s not worth repeating.

Needless to say, to repeat an anti-Semitic quote that you didn’t know was spoken by Hitler would qualify as awful. To credit Hitler with an anti-Semitic quote because you want to ensure he receives proper attribution is awful — and awfully stupid.

After his comments were widely condemned, including by the Eagles organization, which fined him, Jackson apologized multiple times. But former NBA player and San Antonio Spur Stephen Jackson defended him with his own anti-Semitic venom, saying that DeSean Jackson was “speaking the truth.” (He later apologized.)

No, he wasn’t. Both Jacksons spoke ancient lies whose poison is responsible for the slaughter of millions.

There is a lot to unpack here: The jarring boldness with which the anti-Semitism was pronounced. A general malaise in response to anti-Semitism that we have witnessed across this nation, something writer and former Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar described as “a shrug of meh-rage.” The disturbing rise in hate crimes committed against Jews in recent years. And a reminder that expressions of hate must be challenged.

DeSean Jackson, for his part, appears to be genuinely apologetic, surprised at the response to his comments and open to being educated. He reached out to a Philadelphia rabbi and spoke with New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, who’s Jewish, who reached out to Jackson and proposed they educate each other by going, together, to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Jackson also spoke, via Zoom, with a 94-year-old survivor of Nazi concentration camps and accepted his invitation to visit Auschwitz.

The Holocaust survivor, Edelman and the rabbi’s graciousness in offering to educate Jackson, and his willingness to accept, demonstrates that ignorance must be combated before it escalates into hate and violence. This is the way forward.

In its annual report on anti-Semitism, released in May, the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, counted 2,107 hate crimes in the U.S. against Jewish people in 2019. That’s a 12 percent increase from 2018 and the highest number recorded since the ADL began keeping track in 1979.

Of the three major attacks on the Jewish community in 2019, one was committed by a white supremacist in Poway, Calif., and another by an antiSemitic Black Hebrew Israelite sect in Jersey City, N.J.

There were 270 incidents attributable to hate groups or extremists, most of them white supremacist organizations. Of these incidents, 212 took the form of anti-Semitic flyers, banners, stickers or written messages. And let’s not forget the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

As with racism, any and every message of antiSemitism must be challenged. Whether they’re expressed out of hate or, as appears to be with DeSean Jackson, ignorance, they perpetuate harmful and demeaning stereotypes of Jews that are casually accepted and repeated.

Over the past week, some Twitter users were using the anti-Semitic hashtag #JewishPrivilege, updating the centuries-old slur of supposed Jewish control of money, politics and media at the expense of others. This received pushback from Jews and allies who noted that “privilege” included concentration camps and being targets for physical and verbal assault, as well as discrimination.

In this time of renewed conscience to confront and eradicate all forms of bigotry, anti-Semitism must be included.

Jeenah Moon / Getty Images Even before this moment, anti-Semitism was on the rise in the United States, prompting this New York City protest in January.