Some of you have already received my original email on this topic. But it lacked context so I decided to include it in my blog here now with context.
For some who might not know, Kanye West (now goes by Ye) is a very successful Black American musician and fashion mogul with a huge audience in the tens of millions. He stands out as one of the very few Black entertainers who does not follow the typical Hollywood scene that is dominated by people on the Left and its Democratic base. He even had the courage to publicly support President Trump.
Kanye West
Joe Rogan made his claim to fame as a mixed martial artist commentator in the UFC. I would credit him (and a few others) for mainstreaming that sport world wide. As someone who practices martial arts for many years I often watched the sometimes brutal sports to learn some of the subtle jiu jitsu moves that only he was able to describe and explain. He then moved into having a very successful podcast with millions of followers. I occasionally watched them when he interviewed people that interested me.
Joe Rogan
What both these men have in common is their huge influence on millions of ardent followers and their Right wing stance.
Tucker Carlson is the most popular news show on Fox News. I often watch him because he does not follow the mainstream narratives. So his shows often interest me. I am not naive and realize that he is also a propagandist of sorts. But not to the extent that I see on the Left on 'news' shows like CNN or MSNBC. He recently interviewed Ye West. I didn't find the interview too interesting other than a confirmation of where Ye's politics lie (on the Right). Frankly I find it difficult to listen to Ye as he readily admits that he suffers from mental issues (bi-polar?).
(By the way I have never heard Tucker say much about Israel, either positive or negative. I've certainly never heard him support Israel. If I'm wrong, please let me know. I consider him to be one of the 80% of the world who does not like us but not a true antisemite.)
Needless to say, that interview went viral (4.5 million views on youtube). Shortly thereafter Kanye tweeted "I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” later he added “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also. You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
Around the same time, Joe Rogan interviewed Roger Waters who is a former lead member of the famous rock band, Pink Floyd. Waters like West and Rogan has many followers and has a huge influence as a rock star. For decades Waters has made it crystal clear that he despises Israel. He wants it to disappear from the world just like Hamas, Hezbolla, Iran and many others. Unlike them he pretends that he is not an antisemite. He has no problems with the Jews, just Israel. He uses his concerts and any opportunity to push his racist agenda. He did so with Joe Rogan. The trouble here was that Joe never once pushed back on his vile, antisemitic comments. I was shocked when I watched the interview because I know that Joe has the balls to ask the tough questions of his guests on his show. Not only did he not ask them, he often agreed with Water's comments.
These events with Joe Rogan and Ye West sparked a huge and ongoing controversy. West was kicked off of Twitter for his antisemitic remarks. Not sure if Rogan has suffered at all over his tacit agreement with Waters.
The emails were flying in my inbox. This is what precipitated my email and this blog post. I had some colleagues who wanted to crucify both West and Rogan while others defended them. Both sides made great points. That's when I wrote the following email to my contacts but I've edited a bit here.
Let’s face it. About 80% of the Gentiles in this world do not like us Jews. Maybe a better way of saying it, is that they are not in love with us. I’m not saying that they are all antisemites. I’m simply saying they don’t like us. Maybe it’s resentment of our success or maybe it’s a mix of many other reasons. Most of these people have every right not to like us. Just like I have the right not to like them. I’m not advocating that they must die or suffer in any way nor would I incite others to hate them. Likewise most of this cohort of Gentiles (and some self hating Jews) are not waking up in the morning conspiring how to hurt us with words or physically.
Out of the 80% maybe 10 to 20% are real, true antisemites. Roger Waters is such an example.
I don’t believe that Joe Rogan is. Nor do I think that Kanye is. Like I said, they might not like us but they are not busy hating us. They have other things on their mind. Kanye had some issues with some powerful Jews so he’s not a fan. I can bet that he had many dealings with Jews both in the shmata business and the music business that might have pissed him off. Joe Rogan is no historian and leaves it to his assistants to do his research for him. They probably turned to Google, FB or Twitter and they all side with Roger Waters.
To be fair, how do we decide that we like or dislike a people? If I lived in an isolated town somewhere and I met a Jew who ripped me off and he was the only Jew I ever met, chances are I might formulate a negative opinion on all Jews based on that one case. Is it right? Of course not. But human nature, what it is, that is sadly often the case.
That leaves a mere 20% of Gentiles who actually like us. They are truly philo-semitic. We rarely hear from them. Now and then some of the more famous ones become known to us. People in the past like Mark Twain, Raoul Wallenberg (in my original email I included Churchill but it sparked some controversy so I used Raoul instead), Martin Luther King and others. Or more currently, some brilliant deep thinkers like Jordan Peterson, Salim Mansur or one of my favourites Douglas Murray.
That leaves about 60-70% of Gentiles who don’t like us but I would not call them antisemites because they don’t HATE us. We don’t know who they are because they are quiet on this topic simply because it’s not that important an issue to them.
I'm sure we've crossed paths many times. Would I trust them to save me in a Holocaust? No! But let's be fair. Could they trust us to save them in a Holocaust? You will have to answer that question honestly, yourselves.
Rather than debating to death who is good vs who is bad (sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it isn’t) we should try to turn those 60-70% of Gentiles who don’t like us into liking us. It certainly couldn’t hurt. ( I wouldn't waste much effort trying to turn around the 10 to 20% of the real antisemites.) A good way to start would be to offer a free guided trip to Israel sponsored by the Israeli government and supported by Jews everywhere (us). The tour would include trips to the borders, Yad Vashem, talking to the politicians, seeing the Holy places (Jewish, Christian, Muslim) and other incredible sites. Kanye is a religious evangelical. Can you imagine how he’d love to walk where his prophet Jesus walked? Let them talk to our arab enemies and decide for themselves if apartheid really exists there. Let them meet the many victims of terror in Israel (all faiths). I’m pretty sure that Abbas and other PA/Hamas leaders would shun them for taking the free trip in the first place. So chances are, people like Joe Rogan would not try to appease them and hopefully come home singing a different tune.
Candace Owens is a wonderful, bright, articulate young Black American, conservative woman with common sense. She is Ye's friend and was seen with Ye wearing shirts saying' White Lives Matter'. This took some serious courage for both of them to display in public. I also suggest that she should talk to West and get him to explain better (he is a terrible communicator) why he said what he said and exactly what he meant. I personally don't think he was calling out ALL Jews. I think he was calling out the Jews that he had issues with. She needs to explain that many of his followers might misinterpret his remarks and it might spark some serious antisemitic incidents.
I have a few Righteous Gentiles who follow my blog and emails religiously and I couldn’t be more grateful. Because there are so few of them, they stand out like a bright light to me and must be encouraged to support us.
Like I said, I won’t bother following Joe Rogan any more (I didn’t ever really follow him anyways). That’s my prerogative. I’m sure that he hasn’t read my blog either. The same with Kanye. Not a fan of his music, don’t care about fashion and he frankly is just not that interesting to me. I don’t hate them, just don’t like them right now. If they change, I too will change my opinion of them. Like I’ve said so many times before, we are such a small % of the world’s population. We need all the friends we can get and we simply can’t afford to alienate the world when it’s not necessary to do so. I also believe in Truth. So all the facts and the context is always important to hear and acknowledge. I very much appreciate my colleagues who called out Ye and Rogan for their 'normalization' of antisemitism even when it comes from the Right. I did so myself. But it's our response that matters. We must be able to differentiate between the really vile Jew haters like Roger Waters and others like Joe Rogan and Ye West. Therefore if you chose to follow people like them or even be a fan of theirs, I will not judge you, nor will I call you out on it. If I did, I’d have to call out 60-70% of the Gentiles who don’t like us, and that serves no purpose.
7 comments:
Well written Leon!!! Ye is just a messed up, mega wealthy guy that definitely has many issues. I believe what youre saying about him is probably correct. I happen to know someone who had Ye at his Lake Joe compound this summer. He is Jewish!!!
What I have learned is that 25% (including the Arab world and many on the Left) do actively hate us, and there are probably another 20% (primarily coservatives, evangelical Christians and Orthodox or traditional Jews) who love us and our State of Israel. The big problem, the nature of which becomes starker to me as life goes on, is that the rest, a large matutrity I am sad to say "tolerate" the antisemites and their plans for a Second Holocaust. These people believe in moral equivalency and believe that Israel's self defencs is equivalent to the Hamas/Hezbollah/Islamic Jihad explicit terrorism They also believe that there tolerance of Evil is somehow virtuous. See my book Tolerism: The Ideology Revealed.
See on the issue of another Shoah amy 2003 historical novel, The Second Catastrophe: A Novel About a Book and its Author, available on Amazon.
oops, forgot to leave my name, on the last post. It is Howard Rotberg.
A very thoughtful and illuminating commentary, Leon. My own suspicion is that Ye and Rogan and their ilk cannot figure out how a teeny tiny people (15 million in a world of almost 8 billion) has contributed so much and so dispropotionately to mankind and accomplished so much in spite of millenia of Jew hatred, expulsion from so many countries, Crusades, the Inquistion, the Holocaust, on and on, and their reaction is mostly the second most powerful human emotion....jealousy. We know the first strongest emotion is fear, because it just shut down the world for two years. But jealousy is right up there, accountable for most crimes, and certainly directed toward both Jews and Israel. Meanwhile, these career haters come and go, but we Jews continue to flourish.
Thanks so much for all of your insightful comments! BTW, a colleague liked my post but asked me what did West actually tweet. Turns out I copied his tweet from another website and the font displayed in near black so it was virtually invisible on my blog post. I just corrected it now.
Also an epilogue: 2 of my dear Gentile friends emailed that they are thrilled to be considered to be part of the 20% of the philo-semites. They clearly appreciate what some of us Jews bring to the world (or have brought to the world). They are deep enough and honest thinkers that are reasonable and have few if any insecurities that they can think past many of the infantile and dangerous antisemitic tropes that have been spread about us for millenia. Are there or have there been evil Jews in the world? Of course. But overall, without a doubt the world would be a much emptier place without us and our religion. (imagine a world without comedian Jacki Mason for example...)
Long ago I concluded that even had I not been born a Jew, I would, in the course of time, have undoubtedly come to realize that 'something extraordinary' is at work here as it relates to the Jews.
The preponderance of blessings bestowed upon mankind by this disparate remnant which has defied historical precedent by outlasting virtually all of the nations of antiquities speaks to something 'other worldly' at work here; in a word - 'GOD'.
Earl, so well said!
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