Fears rise on fame-backed antisemitism
A surge of anti-Jewish vitriol, spread by a world-famous rapper, an NBA star and other prominent people, is stoking fears that public figures are normalizing hate and ramping up the risk of violence in a country already experiencing a sharp increase in antisemitism.
Leaders of the Jewish community in the U.S. and extremism experts have been alarmed to see celebrities with massive followings spew antisemitic tropes in a way that has been taboo for decades. Some said it harkens back to a darker time in America when powerful people routinely spread conspiracy theories about Jews with impunity.
Former President Donald Trump hosted a Holocaust-denying white supremacist at Mar-a-Lago. The rapper Ye expressed love for Adolf Hitler in an interview. Basketball star Kyrie Irving appeared to promote an antisemitic film on social media. Neo-Nazi trolls are clamoring to return to Twitter as new CEO Elon Musk grants “amnesty” to suspended accounts.
“These are not fringe outliers sending emails from their parents’ garage or idiots no one has ever heard of. When influential mainstream cultural, political and even sports icons normalize hate speech, everyone needs to be very concerned,” said Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, a leader in South Florida’s Jewish community.
Northwestern University history professor Peter Hayes, who specializes in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, said normalizing antisemitism is a “real possibility” when there is a “public discussion of things that used to be beneath contempt.”
“I’m very concerned about it,” Hayes said. “It’s one of the many ways in which America has to get a grip and stop toying with concepts and ideas that are potentially murderous.”
Trump hosted Ye — the rapper formerly known as Kanye West — and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes for dinner at his Florida home on Nov. 22.
Fuentes was a Boston University student when he attended a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that erupted in violence in 2017. He became an internet personality who used his platform to spread white supremacist and antisemitic views. Fuentes leads a farright extremist movement called “America First,” with supporters known as “Groypers.”
On Thursday, Fuentes joined Ye in appearing on the Infowars show hosted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Ye praised Hitler during the interview, ratcheting up the rhetoric that already cost him a lucrative business deal with Adidas.
Jonathan Greenblatt, national director and CEO of the AntiDefamation League, said it is astonishing and alarming that two of the nation’s leading purveyors of antisemitism were “breaking bread with the erstwhile head of the GOP.”
“I would characterize this as the normalization of antisemitism. It has now become part of the political process in a way we hadn’t seen before,” Greenblatt said. “And that is not unique to Republicans. It is not just a Republican problem. It is a societal problem.”