(JTA) â I donât know if Wayne LaPierre is anti-Semitic. In many ways, I donât care if Wayne LaPierre is anti-Semitic. But the executive vice president of the NRA gave a speech this week that was heard as anti-Semitic by two kinds of people: left-leaning Jews and hard-right anti-Semites. Letâs agree thatâs troubling.
Speaking at CPAC, the annual arch-conservative gathering, LaPierre accused proponents of gun control of promoting âsocialismâ in the guise of public health and safety. Behind this âsocial engineering,â he said, are the billions of dollars donated by âpeople like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and more.â
The fact that he singled out three Jews â and later, the late Jewish community organizer Saul Alinsky â was alarming to many on Twitter and to two columnists for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Bradley Burston wrote that LaPierreâs defense of gun rights âincluded expressions of dog-whistle anti-Semitism reminiscent of the âProtocols of the Elders of Zion,â with descriptions of a powerful plot to destroy Americaâs freedom by âEuropean-style Socialistsâ who he said had taken over the Democratic Party.â Rabbi Avraham Bronstein of Long Islandâs Hampton Synagogue wrote that LaPierre âdelivered a Christian nationalist call to arms that should be chilling to us allâ and that the âassociation of Jews with shadowy foreign threats is not new in this political moment.â
The anti-Semitic fringe heard the same things in LaPierreâs speech.
âThe NRA Representing White People Against the Jewsâ blared a headline in the Daily Stormer, the neo-Nazi website. LaPierre âknows itâs Jews coming for our guns,â wrote Andrew Anglin, the siteâs founder. Another neo-Nazi website, Infostormer, declared, âThere is no denying the Jewish role in pushing for gun control and it is good to see that the NRA is now indirectly exposing this fact.â
Neo-Nazis hear what they want to hear â the obscene flip side of Jews who are too quick to cry anti-Semitism. Neither are completely reliable judges of what is and isnât anti-Semitism.
There were Jews who found the accusations of dog-whistling far-fetched. Jonathan Tobin of the Jewish News Syndicate noted that Soros is âarguably the nationâs leading funder of liberal causesâ and that Bloomberg has put his money behind an organization, Everytown for Gun Safety, that decries the National Rifle Associationâs influence.
âIf you were amassing a list of prominent opponents of the NRA, such as the one LaPierre spouted about,â Tobin wrote, âit would be impossible to do so without naming many Jews primarily or even solely known for their politics.â
That seems fair and accurate, and it would exonerate LaPierre if his speech were a reasoned, careful consideration of the challenges to the NRAâs agenda. But because LaPierreâs address was an emotional defense of the Second Amendment, as opposed to one that was legal or intellectual, itâs fair to explore the emotional impact of the words he chose. Soros and Bloomberg? Naming either or both is a surefire way of riling up a conservative crowd â but is that solely because of the causes they back or because they represent an insidious archetype? Perhaps most CPAC members can identify Alinsky, who died in 1972 â or does the name itself signify something alien and ethnic?
Beyond the name checks, LaPierre also delivered an anti-socialist manifesto combined with a religious sermon about providential destiny. The constitutional right to bear arms âis not bestowed by man, but granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright,â said LaPierre, channeling a largely Christian theology that merges Americanism and religion.
Some Jews might agree, although the more typical Jewish approach is to acknowledge that while rights derive from the obligation of all humans to God, government is instituted among mortals to interpret and secure those rights. Regardless, the notion that something so peculiar to the American experience as gun rights is God-given is something youâd rarely hear outside of an NRA rally. I assume LaPierre believes all Americans have the right to bear arms, but this argument appeals almost exclusively to a religious minority (and a minority of a minority at that: A Pew study says evangelicals are as likely to back stricter gun laws as most other Americans).
Which is to say, words matter, and LaPierre chose words meant to appeal to a particular audience â one that quakes at the notion of a socialist takeover of America and shivers at the idea of godless billionaires who would take away our rights. I wouldnât call that anti-Semitism, but it is certainly a gambit that comes straight out of an anti-Semitic playbook. At the very least it echoes the paranoid-style populism that has almost always defined Jews as Other.
LaPierreâs speech reminded me of the office debate we had as the 2016 presidential campaign drew to a close. Thatâs when Donald Trump gave a speech in Florida warning that Hillary Clinton âmeets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers âŚâ When that speech was turned into a campaign ad, âthese global financial powersâ were identified as Soros, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen â all Jews. My colleagues and I debated whether it was OK for a Jewish news service like ours to say that the speech echoed a number of ominous anti-Semitic tropes. In the end Ron Kampeas, JTAâs Washington bureau chief, wrote just that â always carefully noting that neither Trump nor the ad had specifically spoken about Jews. After speaking with various Jewish observers, Ron wrote that the Trump campaign âentered what many saw as a territory, real and ideological, where hostility to Jews perpetuates and thrives even in their absence.â
In thinking about anti-Semitism, I am always drawn back to what former Harvard President Lawrence Summers said about the connection between harsh anti-Israelism and old-fashioned Jew hatred.
â[P]rofoundly anti-Israel views are increasingly finding support in progressive intellectual communities,â he said. âSerious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.â
I would hesitate before calling anyone â a campus BDS activist or the leader of the NRA â an anti-Semite. I canât judge their intent. But I can note the effect of their words and actions. And if they do edge too close to classic anti-Semitic tropes â that territory where hostility to Jews thrives â I think it is fair and necessary to point it out.