Antisemitism is the world’s longest and most enduring hatred.  Jews have been targeted with violent hatred all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome, and even before (the Book of Esther relates Haman’s attempted genocide nearly 2500 years ago).  Hatred of the Torah and its values has been the core motive of antisemites since the era of ancient Greco-Roman paganism.

Lately, the machinations of the white nationalist movement in Charlottesville and elsewhere, as well as threats against Jewish communal institutions (including here in Connecticut) have put antisemitism—at least when it comes from the alt-Right—in the public spotlight.  While nothing can compare with the horror of the Shoah (Holocaust), we must not forget that the Left also hates Jews and Judaism, often with similar rhetoric as neo-Nazis and the KKK.

A recent example of Leftist antisemitism is the Chicago Dyke March, which last month expelled a group of Jewish lesbians who were carrying rainbow flags with a Magen David in the center.  As noted by Tablet Magazine, the Dyke March “went full white nationalist” and used an anti-Semitic slur, “Zio,” popularized by David Duke and his KKK.

Antisemitism under the guise of “anti-Zionism” has been a frequent problem at Pride parades, including this one in Toronto, which featured “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.”  Never mind that most of Israel’s enemies, from Iran to Hamas, torture and execute gays and lesbians.

In addition to Israel, brit milah, the covenant of circumcision, is also a frequent target of pride parades often featuring gross immodesty.  Intactivists, who advocate the criminalization of infant male circumcision, have frequently marched in pride parades in lewd male genital costumes or with large bloodstains on their crotches, as seen here and here.  Some intactivists have attempted to parade fully naked.  A group called “Intact Pride” will be featured at New London Pride 2017 this Saturday at Ocean Beach Park as well as at New Haven Pride 2017 on September 16.

True, there are some in the LGBT community who oppose intactivist antisemitism.  Indeed, for the sake of consistency, they ought to.  How can one say that brit milah is somehow a horrible human rights violation, but that cutting off a youth’s entire genitals after administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones as part of “gender reassignment” is somehow totally kosher?

Even Planned Parenthood is joining the antisemitic campaign against infant male circumcision.  Planned Parenthood Votes! Connecticut’s Facebook page has Intact Connecticut’s photo of New London Pride 2017 on its list of upcoming events.  As Planned Parenthood frequently boasts of its fealty to “intersectionality,” where all on the Left must support every other Leftist cause, including the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to destroy Israel, it is not all that surprising that PP would chime into another cause whose rhetoric (“His Penis, His Choice”) often parrots their own on abortion.  Both intactivists and PP are hostile to parental rights and religious liberty.  That said, while Planned Parenthood thinks 13-year-old girls are old enough to obtain an abortion without parental involvement, their intactivist friends want to stop 17-year-old boys from voluntarily choosing circumcision.

The intactivist movement frequently lurches into classical antisemitism, from the infamous cartoon Foreskin Man with its Nazi-like imagery, to this blog post featuring a nearly naked Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu draped with an Israeli flag, with the intactivist blogger claiming that “Israel has Europe by the thick and curlies” in trying to stop European countries from criminalizing observant Judaism.  In 2010, at the instigation of intactivists, the Massachusetts legislature debated a bill, S.1777, the Massachusetts State Prohibition of Genital Mutilation Act, which would have imposed 14-year jail sentences on both parents and mohelim (rabbis or other Jewish practitioners trained to perform the circumcision), with no religious exemption. According to Vois Iz Neias, the bill also “called upon the Department of Public Health to implement an educational program to discourage religious groups from carrying out the commandment of circumcision.”

Fortunately the Massachusetts Judiciary Committee rejected the bill. Nonetheless, intactivists could well attempt to raise similar draconian legislation here in Connecticut.  Those of us who cherish religious liberty need to be eternally vigilant.  An attack on the religious liberty of any of us is an attack on the religious liberty of all of us.  Let us all work together to keep our right to free exercise of religion intact.

[Observant Jews will not be able to voice their concerns as this event is being held on their Sabbath.  Please support their right to religious freedom. ~ PW]