Antisemitism ‘normalized’ in Connecticut and beyond
Officials say the man who killed 10 at a Buffalo supermarket this month wrote extensively about “replacement theory,” the conspiracy theory that Jews are systematically replacing white people with Black people.
Perhaps the first In 2017 there was a rally in Charlottesville, Va., at which white men wearing khakis and polos, carrying tiki torches, chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
When asked about replacement theory, Michael Bloom, executive director of the Jewish Federation Associates of Connecticut, reminded me of Charlottesville.
“This is the new reality,” he said. “This is an unfortunate new reality I would say for all communities.”
The idea that Jews control global goings-on, including government and entertainment, is nothing new. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a made-up “handbook” of some Jewish globalist cabal) is centuries old now, and it in turn was borne out of yet older conspiracies.
The existence of conspiracy theories about the Jewish community, Bloom said, is “just becoming more normalized.”
Avinoam Patt, director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut. agreed. “It has been sort of normalized, mainstreamed,” he said.
While conspiracy theories like the one espoused by the alleged Buffalo shooter used to be found in “the dark corners of the internet,” Patt said “there is 100 percent a sense that we're seeing a creep into more acceptable political discourse.”
There is a direct connection, he said, between the normalization of antisemitic conspiracy theories and incidents like the Buffalo massacre.
“We can see the direct connection between extreme rhetoric leading to extreme violence,” Patt said.
Before Buffalo, in 2017, men chanted “Jews will not replace us” at a rally in Charlottesville, Va. Patt said that could be connected through ideology to the 2018 attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, as well as other incidents.
“This idea that you had to defend in this case white America from invading immigrant hordes,” he said. “It's not surprising. I think what's alarming is the degree to which it continues to be normalized.”
Patt said conspiracy theories can be traced back to the so-called “Protocols of the Elders of
Zion,” a sham document from the early 1900s that purported to be a handbook for a mythical Jewish cabal in control of world events.
He said at its base is the “idea that there is sort of this world Jewish conspiracy, designed to undermine the white race, and that also sort of Jews are the puppet masters that control other immigrant groups, other minority groups, other other races.”
Antisemitism is not limited to any one part of the country. “The Jewish community is aware that this is everywhere, including Connecticut,” Bloom said.
“We know it's here in Connecticut,” he said. “We are fortunate that we do lie in a state where we have hate crime laws; we are fortunate to live in a state where our political leaders speak out about hate crimes.”
Antisemitic propaganda not only has a foothold in Connecticut, according to Stacey Sobol, the Connecticut regional director for the ADL, but is stretching its elbows.
“In the last four years in Connecticut we have seen a 20-fold increase in white supremacist propaganda,” she said. “In the first quarter of this year we have had more hate incidents than in all of 2021.”
There are several regions in Connecticut, but Sobol said ADL, which tracks hate incidents in all 50 states, has recorded antisemitic incidents in every nook and cranny of the nutmeg state.
“I wish I could tell you it was in one part of the state,” she said. “It is all over the state.”
Earlier this year, at the request of the university provost, Patt created a class in antisemitism in response to what he said was a visible increase in the number of antisemitic incidents on campus, “including antisemitic graffiti and a swastika that was spray-painted opposite the UConn Hillel,” a Jewish student organization.
The course, held online, drew more than 1,600 students.
“What happens is, when we hear about antisemitism on college campuses, or antisemitism anywhere, we sort of gravitate to focus on the bad actors, which we should. We have to understand why this is happening and how we should respond,” Patt said. “But I think it's also quite rewarding to see that there are so many students, and generally in society, so many people,
who are interested in making a difference and figure out how they can play a role in not just being bystanders but either learning more about it, learning how they can be allies.”