- Karen Harradine
The Fake Tribe of “AsaJews” who hate Jews and Israel more than Hamas
There is a Jewish minority whose hatred of Israel surpasses even the most ardent anti-Semitic member of Momentum, the far-left grassroots organisation set up in 2015 to support Jeremy Corbyn and push a socialist agenda within the Labour Party, or even Hamas.
These self-loathing Jews are called “AsaJews” because they utter phrases like “as a Jew I hate the Israeli government”, “as a Jew I support the Palestinians in their fight against Israel”, and “as a Jew I am opposed to Zionism”. In the UK, most AsaJews can be found in Leftwing fringe movements affiliated with the Labour party, like Jewish Voice for Labour.
These self-hating AsaJews are more toxic than rabid anti-Semitic Gentiles because they simultaneously minimise the impact of anti-Semitism on Jews and legitimise it. They are willing proxies for those who deny anti-Semitism exists in the Labour party.
They speak only for a tiny minority of self-hating British Jews and yet the BBC and Sky News like to parade them around in their studios. This gives the impression that this bunch of virulently anti-Israel Jews speak for the majority of British Jews, whereas the opposite is true.
The self-hating Jews who now attack Israel’s most basic aspect of sovereignty don’t care a whit about Judaism.
Jeremy Corbyn and his cult like their good AsaJews. Social media abounds with comments that Corbyn can’t be anti-Semitic because he has Jewish supporters. Anti-Semitism in the Labour party is waved away with protestations that there are “plenty of Jews who agree that Israelis are Nazis” and that “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism”. Opposing Zionism means opposing the self-determination of the Jewish people and therefore the state of Israel. Without Israel, us Jews would be in grave danger.
Yet these AsaJews persist with their destructive behaviour. The Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, recited for the Hamas gathering in Parliament Square two months ago was an obscene display of their hatred for Israel. Leftwing and mainly young Jews bastardised the sacred Kaddish by reciting it for Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives killed when attempting to invade Israel. These jihadists were devotees of the same ideology that inspired Islamist terrorists to blow up little girls at a concert in Manchester last year.
The subsequent excuses for this appalling act revealed a lack of understanding of the geo-politics of the region and omitted the fact that these border invaders were heavily armed, courtesy of Iran and Hezbollah.
Why did AsaJews mourn those who yearn for the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews? Even if they could justify it to themselves, reciting Kaddish for Hamas in public is inexcusable and is no more than contemptuous grandstanding. It shows a complete lack of understanding of what it means to be a Jew. I said Kaddish for my sister and father after they died. By saying Kaddish for terrorists these self-hating Jews dishonour the memories of our own cherished dead.
Reciting Kaddish for Hamas in public is inexcusable and is no more than contemptuous grandstanding.
One of those who said Kaddish for the Hamas participants, Nina Morris-Evans, is currently helping lead a tour of Israel for young Liberal Jews. It is unfathomable why parents would allow their children to be taught about Israel and Zionism by someone who is so obviously opposed to both. Anti-Semitism is a poisonous virus and anti-Zionism is one of its contemporary strains. Young British Jews are at risk of catching it.
American Jews are also susceptible to the anti-Semitic virus. In July, Leftwing anti-Israel activists deceitfully joined a Birthright Tour in Israel, where they staged a walkout to protest Israeli policies.
Birthright sponsors free trips to Israel for young Jews aged 18-26 and most are thankful for the opportunity. But some are brainwashed by anti-Israel organisations like If Not Now, whose website reads like a missive from the Iranian regime’s propaganda minister.
Israel did not rise from the ashes of the Holocaust so that spoilt Leftwing Jews could indulge their neurosis and attempt to destroy it. Israelis of the same age don’t have time to waste other people’s money. They are in the IDF, safeguarding their homeland so these ungrateful brats can be free to virtue signal their disdain for the Jewish state without being harmed.
Israel did not rise from the ashes of the Holocaust so that spoilt Leftwing Jews could indulge their neurosis and attempt to destroy it.
But it not just these misguided young Jews who are at fault here. The self-hatred has reached the highest echelons of Jewish communal leadership. The hasty and belittling critique of the Board of Deputies of British Jews to Israel’s new law was shameful. A careful reading of this law shows that it confirms Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people – there is nothing sinister in that.
This week, the South African Jewish Report published an interview with Mick Davis, Chief Executive of the Conservative Party and previous chair of the self-appointed Jewish Leadership Council. Davis makes good use of the Apartheid slur against Israel in his criticism of the new law. Like Davis, I too am South African and grew up under Apartheid. To accuse Israel of being an Apartheid state is a blatant lie and Davis should be ashamed of himself for his rhetoric. There are no Israeli laws that remotely resemble Apartheid legislation.
Davis, and another community grandee, Ronald Lauder, never miss an opportunity to smear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If arrogant community leaders like Davis and Lauder flagrantly recite Islamist propaganda, is it any wonder that young Jews are distancing themselves from Israel? It is unfitting for any well-known Jewish representative to lie so blatantly about Israel. Lies spread if they aren’t challenged. The Apartheid slur generated the BDS movement, whose methods include boycotting Israeli goods - reminiscent of another boycott against Jewish businesses in the not so distant past.
The self-hating Jews should know that they are not participating in a cosy chat at the synagogue on Shabbat but are conversing in a public arena. Their discourse maligns Israel and destabilises the security of Diaspora Jews. Name-dropping the tyrannical Cyril Ramaphosa does no favours for Davis either.
Is the destruction of Israel their endgame?
Like most Jewish mainstream community leaders both have lost touch with the reality of what life is now like for Diaspora Jews. Most of us are weary of Israel bashing from our fellow Jews. The more they disparage Israel the harder the task of combating anti-Semitism becomes.
Is the destruction of Israel their endgame? Where do they think the seven million Jews and thousand of Christians and Muslims who reside in Israel will go if this happens? And what do they think will happen to Diaspora Jews once our safety net is demolished? Our survival – both physical and spiritual – is increasingly threatened and their behaviour further escalates the danger we face.
Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro succinctly sums up the non-existent Jewishness of the fake tribe of the AsaJews. “The self-hating Jews who now attack Israel’s most basic aspect of sovereignty don’t care a whit about Judaism. They may have been born Jewish, they may enjoy matzo ball soup, they may go to a Reconstructionist synagogue once in a while to worship nothingness, but the tenets of Judaism mean nothing to them. These Jews care about Judaism the way Madonna cares about Catholicism. When it comes to the daily strictures of Judaism, these Jews are nowhere to be found. But as soon as it becomes politically advantageous to tout their Judaism, they stand front and centre, birth certificate held aloft. Identity politics is a canard when it comes to Judaism. Being born Jewish says nothing about whether you care for Israel, because being a Jew is about more than emerging from a Jewish uterus.”
AsaJews suffer from a lethal combination of twisted virtue signalling, Stockholm Syndrome and a craven need to fit in. Perhaps they delusionally think their credentials as “good Jews” will protect them from anti-Semites. But can they even call themselves Jews?
These Jews care about Judaism the way Madonna cares about Catholicism.
Three thousand years of persecution and the Shoah have certainly sensitised us to hatred. But surely the answer is to protect and support the only country in the world which unquestionably gives Jews sanctuary. AsaJews are nothing but shills for Hamas and other assorted Islamists despite their own misconceptions that they are moral and virtuous. They could learn from the many Gentiles – some who I am fortunate enough to have as friends – who unconditionally advocate for Israel. Unlike AsaJews they don’t lambast the Jewish state at any given opportunity. They recognise how important the survival of Israel is to the survival of Jews.
Diaspora Jews don’t have the luxury of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) to defend us. The escalation of anti-Semitism in Europe and the US has created a precarious situation for us. Israel is our safety net and we need to unite now more than ever before to support unconditionally Israel. Sadly and dangerously, the fake tribe of self-hating AsaJews are undermining this.
(Karen Harradine is an anthropologist and freelance journalist. She writes on anti-Semitism, Israel and spirituality).
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