Media coverage of antisemitism in the United States last year indicates that the issue has become largely politicized, according to an Israeli study released on Sunday.
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In his report "The Discourse on Antisemitism in the United States in the Mainstream Media in 2020," Lior Sirkis of the Tel Aviv Institute for National Security Studies found that "both sides of the political map are increasingly accusing each other of being responsible for the phenomenon. The right accuses the left of being responsible for antisemitism and anti-Zionism, while the left attributes it to white right-wing supremacists."
The political divide also reflects divisions within the American Jewish community, Sirkis wrote, which he says makes it difficult to agree on what antisemitism is, what causes it, and how to fight it.
This political divide is also visible in Israeli coverage of antisemitism in the United States. Israel Hayom ran five editorials on left-wing antisemitism in 2020, while the left-wing Haaretz newspaper did not address the issue at all. It has, however, published op-eds on antisemitism among right-wing Americans.
"The media also devoted considerable coverage to confrontations between the mayor of New York and the Jewish community over the latter's failure to comply with COVID-19 restrictions in the city," the report said.
According to Sirkis, there were two periods in 2020 when the media covered antisemitism among black Americans: after the December 2019 antisemitic attacks in Monsey and Jersey City – both perpetrated by African Americans – and the protests following the murder of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer. In both cases, the press analyzed the hatred of Jews within certain black American communities.
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Sirkis found that while the US media is interested in celebrity antisemitism, it largely ignores antisemitism in academia and on social media. The American Jewish media, on the other hand, does cover these issues.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
