Understand anti-Semitism, and anti-Muslim bigotry
By Yaman Salahi
In a recent On Faith posting, Rabbi Shmully Hecht of Eliezer, a Jewish student society at Yale University, criticized a column I wrote for the Yale Daily News. Sadly, Hecht employed a tactic that has become increasingly familiar in American discussions about Arabs, Muslims, and Islam. In my column, I argued that a conference sponsored by the Yale Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism undermined the lessons to be learned from anti-Semitism because it hosted a variety of speakers with a reputation for promoting racist ideas about Arabs and Muslims. My message was simple: you cannot fight anti-Semitism without also fighting racism against Arabs and Muslims. Racism is wrong because of what it does, not because of whom it targets.
No comments:
Post a Comment