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| Michael Regenstreif |
By Michael Regenstreif
Editor
Since returning to work a year-and-a-half ago after open-heart surgery,
daily exercise has been a priority and since my office is located in the
Soloway Jewish Community Centre (SJCC), I am very lucky to have a first-class
fitness centre just downstairs from my desk. The SJCC locker room is often the
scene for impromptu and opinionated discussions on the news and issues of the
day.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders – who is currently campaigning for the 2020
Democratic Party presidential nomination – has been the centre of a couple of
recent locker-room discussions. If nominated, Sanders would be the first Jewish
candidate nominated by one of the two major parties for the U.S. presidency.
The first discussion was in early October after Sanders suffered a heart
attack on the campaign trail and had a couple of stents inserted to open up his
arteries. One of my locker-room buddies was angry that Sanders, whom he
described as “pro-BDS, anti-Israel and antisemitic,” would have Israeli-made
stents inserted.
I don’t know whether or not Sanders’ stents were made in Israel. I could
find no mainstream media references to where the stents were made. Be that as
it may, it is simply wrong to suggest that the leftist Sanders is “pro-BDS,
anti-Israel and antisemitic.”
Sanders has spoken of his admiration for the Jewish state and for the
ideals of Zionism, and has noted that he lived and worked on a kibbutz near
Haifa as a young man in 1963.
While Sanders has consistently voiced his support for the State of
Israel, including the right of Israel to defend itself from attacks, and for a
two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, he has been
vociferous in his opposition to certain Israeli government policies,
particularly the occupation and settlement expansion in the West Bank, and to
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On these matters, Sanders is in lockstep
with about 75 per cent of the American Jewish community, as well as with
millions of Israelis.
On BDS, Sanders has repeatedly rejected the call to boycott Israel.
Earlier this year, he released a statement saying, “While I do not support the
BDS movement, we must defend every American’s constitutional right to engage in
political activity.”
The more recent locker room discussion about Sanders was on November 14
(I am writing this on the 15th), a few days after Sanders published an article in Jewish Currents on antisemitism – an article that has provoked much reactionin Jewish circles.
I was pleased to see Sanders write so eloquently about antisemitism,
particularly about the lethal consequences of right-wing antisemitism as
manifested by the white nationalist movement. As Sanders points out, “hate
crimes against Jews rose by more than a third in 2017 and accounted for 58 per
cent of all religion-based hate crimes in America.” That year, we saw what
happened in Charlottesville, and more recently we have seen right-wing
antisemitism lead to the tragic synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway.
But it was disappointing to see Sanders merely pay lip service to
left-wing antisemitism, noting, “It is true that some criticism of Israel can
cross the line into antisemitism, especially when it denies the right of
self-determination to Jews, or when it plays into conspiracy theories about
outsized Jewish power.”
While right-wing antisemitism has repeatedly proven lethal, the effects
of left-wing antisemitism are also consequential. Look at how pro-Israel
students are marginalized on many campuses. Look to the United Kingdom, where
the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, once overwhelmingly supported by British
Jews, is now seen by many as an existential threat to the Jewish community. Or
look to some of Sanders’ own supporters like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has
apologized more than once for using antisemitic tropes, or Women’s March
organizer Linda Sarsour, who claims that a feminist cannot be a Zionist.
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