Dual Debate
Today on Tablet
January 27, 2012
Today in Tablet Magazine, Spencer Ackerman warns fellow progressive writers of the discursive dangers of using terms like “Israel Firster” against Jewish conservatives. “If you can’t be forceful without recalling some of the ugliest tropes in American Jewish history,” Ackerman argues, “you’re doing it wrong.”
Meanwhile, columnist Lee Smith suggests that the use of such terms is evidence of, and contributing to, an increased tolerance of anti-Semitism. “These people,” Smith maintains, “often in the service of their larger political aims, are willing to apologize for or ignore what is obviously Jew-baiting and Jew-hatred.”
From the editors of Tablet Magazine.