Is anti-Semitism on the rise in the United States? And if so, are college campuses playing a role? And what does it feel like as a Jewish person in the aftermath of the horrific shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh? On the Oct. 30 podcast, Joel Griffith, a research fellow in financial regulations at The Heritage Foundation and Washington, D.C., chair of the Young Jewish Conservatives, joined us to discuss all that and more. Here’s a lightly edited transcript of that conversation.
Katrina Trinko: Joel, before we get into the politicization of this issue, I wanted to ask you about this particular ceremony this Saturday. When the shooting began, the people were gathered for a celebration of a new child. What is that ceremony in the Jewish faith and how would people have been celebrating before this occurred?
Joel Griffith: Eight days after birth, a Jewish boy will undergo a circumcision. That is a mark of being Jewish that was first given to, what we believe is our father of our people, Abraham, thousands of years ago. You can read that story still today in the Hebrew Bible.
It’s still something that is done eight days after birth. Typically, you’ll take the child … It can be done at home, but often it’ll be done at a synagogue. Right before that ceremony takes place, you’ll actually have a naming ceremony, that’s when the Jewish name is given to that child. Usually people outside the family, they won’t even know what that name is going to be until that moment.
Naming that child is considered of utmost importance. One Jewish organization, Chabad, describes it as the glimmer of divine inspiration that occurs when you give the child that name.
It’s all important. It is celebratory. Usually there is family there, friends there. In this situation, there were quite a few elderly people there. That’s normal. You want people and friends from all generations there to celebrate that moment. Typically, after that name is given, if it’s on Shabbat at the synagogue, the father will be called up to read part of the Torah, part of the five books of the Bible. It’s a very special ceremony.
Trinko: Sounds beautiful.
Daniel Davis: Joel, how does this event factor into the Jewish experience in America? I know that synagogues have been targeted around the world by anti-Semitic people in America as well, but I can’t remember something as horrific as this in my lifetime, my memory, but how does this factor into the Jewish experience in this country?
Griffith: I think, fortunately, for the Jewish people, being in this nation has been unparalleled in modern times for the ability to live a Jewish life, to follow your Jewish beliefs. That’s something that all religious faiths have shared here.
This really is, from what I understand, the most tragic event that’s happened at a Jewish place of worship in this country. That’s certainly an aberration from the norm in a place where we have nothing but utmost freedom to live our lives, and follow our conscience, and follow our religious faith.
Trinko: One of the things I mentioned, of course, it’s became political so quickly. Unfortunately, that seems to be a pattern in our country these days with Twitter and all. The tragedy happens, right away people are trying to figure out the blame, etc. How did you feel watching this?
Griffith: Having family and having a younger brother and sister-in-law who just had a child of their own, it’s particularly sad and tragic to think that at a moment of such celebration, such evil could occur.
I think for all of us when we enter into a place of worship or a place we gather with our friends and family to celebrate meaningful events, or just to grow closer to them, you expect that those places, particularly places where you go to honor tradition or to worship God, you expect that that place is one of comfort and peace, and learning where you can take a moment and disconnect from the rest of the world. And for a moment, just have that peace of loving and of being with those that you care about. You should never have to fear walking into a place such as that.
Trinko: We briefly discussed before the recording how there was a group in Pittsburgh that said, I believe, “Blame President Trump,” or said he should never attend the synagogue. How did you feel about stuff like that?
Griffith: Well, I saw the headline. The one I read, I believe, was one from The Hill, it said, “Jewish leaders tell Trump he’s not welcome.” It struck me, No. 1, as odd that at a moment of tragedy, there would be any group of people that would be so crassly political. But I decided I want to go ahead and actually read this piece. It turns out it’s not what it appeared.
There wasn’t this large group of Jewish leaders in Pittsburgh telling the president of the United States that he’s not welcome or suggesting that he’s in some way racist or anti-Semitic. It was a group of 12 people that signed a letter from a very radical organization called Bending the Arc. This organization has advocated for quasi-socialist policies. They’re not known for being particularly friendly to Israel. …
The fact is, when it comes to President Trump, regardless of whether or not you voted for him in the last election, there is no doubt that when it comes to Israel, he’s been quite possibly the most pro-Israel president that we’ve ever had.
He’s been aligned with the Jewish people. He has a Jewish daughter, an observant Jewish daughter and in-laws. He’s surrounded himself with advisers, some of whom are not only Jewish, but are actually religiously observant Jews.
If you look at how he has interacted with Israel … If you go to Israel on the ground—I’ve been there in the past few months, talking to people on the street, talking to my friends, talking to people in public policy positions. They are overjoyed at the way in which our relationship with Israel has been strengthened over the past two years.
One of the ways in which the administration has been a positive force to Israel is really so clearly drawing the lines between good and evil and recognizing that there are certain political institutions that we’ve worked with in the past, such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and finally coming to grips with the fact that not only were they founded on a terrorist belief system, if you look at their founding charter, too often they continue to either explicitly, or oftentimes behind the scenes, support and fund terrorist activities. We’ve at last begun to say so long as that behavior continues, we are going to begin removing funding for those government institutions that are run by the Palestinian Authority.
Davis: When you talk about folks in Israel who feel that way, in the Jewish community in America, it can be a diverse community, but are those feelings also reflected there, that this support for Israel is welcome?
Griffith: Well, two things. I think politically, domestic policy, there’s no doubt just from public polling or just from personal experience, the Jewish community is more to the left than the rest of the population; that turns up in numerous public polling.
But the parts of the Jewish community—this is a large segment—that are aligned with Israel and want to see that nation succeed, and see our alliance succeed, and that recognize Israel as a beacon of freedom and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, those folks, whether they’re Republican or Democrat, are also, I believe, very thankful for what’s been done in the past few years.
There’s been overwhelming praise, for instance, for moving the embassy to Jerusalem. There’s been overwhelming support for the bipartisan resolution that was signed into law, the Taylor Force Act, that beings to defund the Palestinian Authority if they continue to support terrorism.
If you go to a conference, such as APEC, that is not an organization that’s just filled with Republicans. In fact, I’m pretty sure, having attended several years, it is overwhelming Democratic.
But if you look at the support in conversations there, and also if you look at the expression of enthusiasm for speakers, such as [U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations] Nikki Haley and Vice President Mike Pence, that come in to talk about how we’re making progress with our relationship with Israel, if you look at just the wild enthusiasm for that, I think there is great thankfulness on the part of the Jewish community in the United States, whether they’re Republican or Democrat on those particular policy matters.
Trinko: It seems like often we hear about college campuses and concerns about whether, essentially, they’re fermenting, at times, anti-Semitism.
A couple months ago, there was a big news story—I want to say it was a Michigan college that was involved where a student wanted to travel abroad, I believe, for a program and asked a professor to write a letter. When the professor found out that he wanted to go to Israel, he was like, “No, I’m not going to do this.”
Do you think college campuses are maybe contributing to a problem in this country?
Griffith: Well, there is no doubt that anti-Semitism, very thinly disguised as anti-Zionism, is pervasive across the country. There are thousands of instances that have been documented, both by Anti-Defamation League, but also the Israel on Campus Coalition and other entities, that track these occurrences.
Now, I’ll say, fortunately, over the last year, we’ve been pushing back. We’ve actually seen a sizable decline in the number of actives in the past year as pro-Israel activities have stepped up. But on hundreds of college campuses, they’re still organizations, probably the most prominent one is the Students for Justice in Palestine. It’s Orwellian named. The Students for Justice in Palestine, if you look at who’s actually funded them in the past and who they’re tied in with, their parent organization is the American Muslims for Palestine.
People that are with them have been associated with the Holy Land Foundation. If you look back a few years ago, if you remember, there was a big case that just went through the courts in which Holy Land Foundation was convicted—108 counts—of funneling money to Hamas to the tune of $12 million.
These are bad actors at this particular organization. Students that are associated with them have engaged in hundreds, hundreds of instances of intimidating students based on them being Jewish or based on their support of Israel. There’s a long list of documented evidence of that.
Trinko: Does the BDS movement, specifically, figure into this?
Griffith: Well, a big part of what these organizations do—not just limited to Students for Justice in Palestine, but other entities that try to appear as less extreme—it’s called Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.
This movement wants … It’s very simply put in the the name. They want us to boycott Israel. They want investment funds and then college endowments to divest from Israel. Ultimately, they want the United States government and other governments to officially sanction the state of Israel.
If you look at the founder, the finder’s a gentlemen—loosely speaking—by the name of Omar Barghouti. He was the main instigator of this movement well over a decade ago. He runs the website called Electronic Intifada.
He once said—he was being very, very honest here—”The two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is really dead. Good riddance. Someone has to issue an official death certificate before the rotting corpse is given a proper burial.”
Now, when he’s saying this, he’s not just saying he doesn’t want two separate states, he’s saying he wants the so-called Zionist enterprise to be finished—no existence of a Jewish state or the Jewish people.
He’s been very open in what he believes and other entities now have no run with that. You see even some religious organizations that now have tried to further that. They’ve infiltrated numerous mainstream religious organizations, sadly.
Trinko: Thank you so much for joining us, Joel, and discussing this.
Griffith: Thank you for having me.
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