‘Some of My Best Friends’ a clear-eyed analysis of 21st-century anti-Semitism

Ben Cohen’s new book, “Some of My Best Friends, A Journey Through Twenty-First Century Anti-Semitism,” is a collection and analysis of previously published essays, reporting, and commentary that meticulously capture the current climate of anti-Semitism around the world. Throughout a turbulent, modern decade dominated by war and economic instability, the author consistently provides a fair and balanced perspective of the coalescing forces critical of Judaism and the state of Israel. Where there is unjustly founded and abhorrent hatred, the subject matter can be alarming, but Cohen provides clear-headed analysis of events and attitudes. His strength as a writer is to confront the language of public discourse, tracking the trajectories of creeping intolerance.

Amos Oz writes: “Israel is a dream come true. As such, it is bound to be flawed and imperfect. The only way to keep a dream intact is never to try to fulfill it.” The award-winning Israeli author arrived at this witty conclusion after traveling throughout Israel in the 1980s, a time when Israelis were still amazed by their own military success, and yet were increasingly uneasy about their collective future. Oz’s notion, that an ideal stops being beautiful and is subject to criticism the moment it becomes reality, in this reviewer’s estimation frames Cohen’s collection.

Modern anti-Semitism does tend to reveal itself amid condemnations of Israel. “I have long argued that we live in an age of Jewish empowerment, distinguished by the existence of a strong Jewish State,” Cohen acknowledges in his introduction. Conscious that resentful propaganda is taking shape in response to the Palestinian situation, a stalled peace process, disillusionment and assimilation in Diaspora communities, and as a consequence of the violent Arab Spring, Cohen deconstructs the dialogue. The author uncovers instances where Zionism is confused with Judaism and where anti-Semitism lurks beneath the surface.

The articles entitled “The Courage of Ronnie Fraser,” published in November 2012, and “How British Justice Failed Ronnie Fraser,” published in March 2013, recount the controversy surrounding England’s University and College Union (UCU), an anti-Zionist organization sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians. Beginning in the early 2000s, the group pursued an academic boycott of Israel, isolating Israeli professors and refusing to deal with Israeli institutions. Fraser, a Jewish mathematics lecturer whose parents escaped Nazi Germany, spoke up about the discrimination he felt, causing a stir.

“When the core themes of anti-Zionism are unmasked, the denial, uniquely to the Jews, of the right of self-determination, the portrayal of Israel as a racist, and, therefore, illegitimate state, the presentation of Palestinians as victims of a second Holocaust, and the use of the term Zionist as codeword for Jew—we move far beyond the domain of permissible policy criticism into open defamation,” Cohen writes, analyzing the legal struggle that ensued.

more: http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2014/6/18/some-of-my-best-friends-a-clear-eyed-analysis-of-21st-century-anti-semitism#.U6J3iukg-70=

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I may have to read this book.