Can People Just Stop Talking about ‘the Jews’?

This is the season in which most of the major Jewish holidays are clustered together (today and tomorrow are also a holiday, Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, during which we celebrate the Torah upon the conclusion of the annual cycle of reading it). This year, the holidays have coincided with some colorful discourse on Jews — about what we control, whom we are ungrateful toward, how we spread sexual depravity to Christians, and how annoying it is that you just can’t talk about Jews anymore without somebody raising a fuss.

To elaborate a bit further, the most recent round of Jewish discourse in popular culture seems to have begun when Kanye West, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, surmised that Jared Kushner made a peace deal between Israel and Arab states for financial benefits, saying, “I just think that’s what they’re about is making money.” West said a lot in that interview, so it was easy enough to chalk it up to some beef he had with the Kushner family, and perhaps it would have been forgotten amid all the other nutty stuff West says. But just to leave no doubt that he did in fact have a problem not only with Kushner but with the Jews, he later tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 on Jewish people.” In the tweet, he pushed the Black Hebrew Israelite narrative that claims that they are the true Jews, and then complained, “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

About the Author

Philip Klein

Philip Klein is the editor of National Review Online.

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This is the season in which most of the major Jewish holidays are clustered together (today and tomorrow are also a holiday, Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, during which we celebrate the Torah upon the conclusion of the annual cycle of reading it). This year, the holidays have coincided with some colorful discourse on Jews — about what we control, whom we are ungrateful toward, how we spread sexual depravity to Christians, and how annoying it is that you just can’t talk about Jews anymore without somebody raising a fuss.

To elaborate a bit further, the most recent round of Jewish discourse in popular culture seems to have begun when Kanye West, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, surmised that Jared Kushner made a peace deal between Israel and Arab states for financial benefits, saying, “I just think that’s what they’re about is making money.” West said a lot in that interview, so it was easy enough to chalk it up to some beef he had with the Kushner family, and perhaps it would have been forgotten amid all the other nutty stuff West says. But just to leave no doubt that he did in fact have a problem not only with Kushner but with the Jews, he later tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 on Jewish people.” In the tweet, he pushed the Black Hebrew Israelite narrative that claims that they are the true Jews, and then complained, “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”