A report by a Boston-area group affiliated with the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement sparked outrage on Thursday, as it purported to expose the "sinister connections" between Jewish and pro-Israel groups in Massachusetts to the state's elected officials, police, and the media.
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Jewish groups and US officials slammed the "Mapping Project" for playing on millennia-old antisemitic tropes and warned that it was tantamount to incitement, expressing concerns that it would inflame violence against the Jewish community in Massachusetts.
"Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them. Every entity has an address, every network can be disrupted," organizers wrote in an opinion piece published on Mondoweiss.
Presenting an interactive map, the group illustrated a network of connections of pro-Israel organizations aimed to show "some ways in which institutional support for the colonization of Palestine is structurally tied to policing and systemic white supremacy here where we live, and to US imperialist projects in other countries. Our map also shows the connections between harms such as privatization and medical apartheid, which are often facilitated by universities and their corporate partners."
From our friends at the Mapping Project! Their map and articles illustrate how local support for the colonization of Palestine is structurally tied to policing, evictions, and privatization locally, and to US imperialist projects worldwide.
Check it out: https://t.co/HpNaCvxUXS pic.twitter.com/fzyFP5uERE— BDS Boston (@BDSBoston) June 3, 2022
Among the culprits included in the group's database are the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts and its Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, the Anti-Defamation League, media outlets such as the Boston Globe and Jewish Journal, the Jewish Art Collaborative, and the Jewish Teen Foundation of Greater Boston, as well as dozens of Jewish charities, which the BDS group asserts are "supporting the colonization of Palestine and violence worldwide."
The vast network of "illicit ties" also includes industry and tech giants such as Google, Apple, Pfizer, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Foreign Ministry lambasted the report as "reminiscent of a dangerous antisemitic pattern."
"Israel strongly condemns BDS Boston's publication of a map of local Jews and it is blaming them for anything and everything wrong in Greater Boston," the ministry said in a statement.
"This publication reveals the true, ugly face of BDS Boston which is nothing but a conspiratorial antisemitic organization. We call on all decent people to come out against this publication, and to condemn the organization and those behind this racist campaign."
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat later said, "This whole project is reminiscent of a dangerous antisemitic pattern of activity known from antiquity through the horrors of the 20th century: a pattern which has led to violence against Jews and their institutions."
Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of The International Legal Forum, called the report "a direct call for incitement to violence and racial hatred against Jews and Jewish organizations, businesses and properties."
Boston's BDS movement "is mapping out and targeting synagogues, Jewish schools and other Jewish institutions while slanderously claiming that these organizations are actively participating in the 'colonization of Palestine."
The Jewish Community Relations Council, whose members include among others the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, ADL, B'nai B'rith International, and the Zionist Organization of America, issued a statement denouncing the "Mapping Project" for antisemitism and vowed, "We will not be intimidated and we will not be silent."
"We condemn this demonization of the Boston Jewish community and attack on its relationship with others. This is no thinly veiled attempt to target the Jewish community – it is an explicit one that is keeping lists and naming names.
"At a time when antisemitism – including antisemitic attacks on the legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel – intensifies, we in Boston will stand together and continue our work building bridges, supporting our allies and each other, and confronting antisemitism where we see it and when we experience it."
Targeting the Jewish community like this is wrong and it is dangerous. It is irresponsible.
This project is an anti-Semitic enemies list with a map attached. https://t.co/EiphRchk5l
— Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) June 8, 2022
Massachusetts lawmakers were also appalled by the report.
"This is just chilling to me. It is tapping into millennia-old antisemitic tropes about nefarious Jewish wealth, control, conspiracy, media connections and political string-pulling," Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), who is himself Jewish, told the Jewish Insider.
"To name names and keep lists, which has a very sinister history in Judaism, in terms of how we are targeted, is very irresponsible. [The group] needs to take this down and apologize."
Auchincloss noted that the "Mapping Project" needs "to recognize actions that have the potential to incite violence, especially in a moment of heightened antisemitism and gun violence. … I will give direct and stark feedback about how inappropriate and unacceptable this is," he said.
"Targeting the Jewish community like this is wrong and it is dangerous. It is irresponsible. This project is an antisemitic enemies list with a map attached," Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), tweeted.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) also slammed the report, saying that it "accuses Jewish and 'Zionist' institutions of various evils in American society," adding, "Scapegoating is a common symptom of antisemitism, which at its core is a conspiracy theory."
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