An attempt by one of the world’s best-known “Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender” (LBGT) rabbis to critically analyze the Anti-Defamation League’s recent “world anti-Semitism” survey, has inadvertently confirmed almost every “anti-Semitic” allegation in that survey.
Rabbi Jay Michaelson, who is also a visiting scholar at Brown University, wrote in an article titled “I Am 1 Billionth ‘Anti-Semite‘”, published in the Jewish Daily Forward, dismissed the ADL’s survey as a “tangled hodgepodge which anyone could fail.”
Rabbi Michaelson starts off by asking “Why is anyone taking the Anti-Defamation League’s survey on global anti-Semitism seriously?” and then says that although it has been “taken as fact by pundits, tweeters, and politicians around the globe,” a look at the survey shows that it was a “stacked deck.”
He then answers each of the questions in turn in an attempt to show that the ADL survey is flawed—but actually all he does is confirm that the basic allegations contained in each one is accurate!
In answer to the ADL survey question “Are Jews more loyal to Israel than to the countries they live in?” Rabbi Michealson writes:
Well, some Jews definitely are. At the very least, it’s weird (is it not?) that many synagogues have Israeli and American flags in their sanctuaries, that Jews around the world march in pro-Israel parades, and that so many Jews give so much money to pro-Israel organizations. I think this statement is “probably true.”
In answer to the ADL survey question “Do Jews have too much power in the business world?” Rabbi Michaelson writes:
Well, what’s meant by “too much”? We do certainly have disproportionate power, relative to our population. Do we use it for nefarious, Elders of Zion type purposes? No, but that’s not what the question asks. As a purely statistical matter, Jews have “too much” power in the business world relative to our numbers. That’s two.
In answer to the ADL survey question “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust” Rabbi Michealoson writes:
In my opinion, “probably true.” The Forward offices are still deluged by Holocaust memoirs and micro-histories. Many of us still carry the emotional scars of genocide. You can forgive us for talking too much about it – but admit it, we do.
In answer to the ADL question “Jews have too much control over global affairs’” Rabbi Michaelson wrties:
Again on “too much.” Too much for the world’s good? Too much for our numbers? This one is a toss-up, and I’ll answer no, but just by a hair.
In answer to the ADL survey question “Do Jews have too much control over the United States government” Rabbi Michaleson writes:
Here, the answer must be yes, proportionally speaking. How many U.N. resolutions does the U.S. think it can veto before, at some point, this canard becomes impossible to resist?
In answer to the ADL survey question “Do Jews think that they are better than other people?” Rabbi Michaelson writes:
Deuteronomy 14:2. Need I say more?
Although he doesn’t say what this bible verse says, here it is by way of explanation:
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the LORD has chosen you to be his treasured possession.”
In answer to the ADL survey question “Do Jews have too much control over the global media?” Rabbi Michaelson writes:
Proportionally yes.
He goes on to say that expressing these honest opinions would classify him as an “anti-Semite” in terms of the ADL’s definition.
This is, however, missing the point: the reality is that the majority of the ADL’s “questions” are not, as this one honest rabbi has admitted, “canards” but actual real facts—the truth.
In other words, what the ADL “survey” actually shows is that to merely state the truth is, in their eyes, to be “anti-Semitic.”
