Antisemitism: A noxious weed that just won't die

It is said the reason weeds flourish despite our best efforts to cull them is because of millions of years of evolution.

For millennia, weeds have evolved and adapted to their environments, defying any and all attempts to eliminate them.

Farmers and gardeners will tell you that it only takes a momentary lack of vigilance for weeds to flourish and take over a space.

Just like weeds, Americans who hate Jews are now emboldened to do so in the open, from neo-Nazi protests outside of the gates of Disney World ― the happiest place on Earth ― to Charlottesville to flooding social media with lies and deeply-rooted stereotypes which threaten and contradict America's very reason for being.

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If you live long enough, you'll see some history repeat itself.

The great-grandchildren of GIs who confronted Nazis on the beaches of Normandy are sporting swastikas and "sieg-heil-ing" on the very streets those Americans fought to protect.

Taking their cues from anti-Jewish propaganda once spouted by actual Nazis, they feel justified in attacking synagogues and the innocent people in them.

Such people are the very antithesis of their forbearers, and might just as well spit on their graves.

They've embraced antisemitism under the excuse that American values are unraveling and we need to "think of the children," yet think nothing of warping young people's minds through hateful and dehumanizing rhetoric that portrays Jews as greedy and subhuman.

Some of these self-appointed arbiters even have the effrontery to claim they're acting in defense of Christianity, but that's impossible.

You cannot be a Christian and be anti-Jewish.

How can a tree reject the very roots from which it sprang?

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It requires a breathtaking disconnect to be antisemitic while claiming to be a follower Jesus ― who's Jewish ― and has never stopped being Jewish.

There's hubris in thinking that you know the mind of God, and that Jesus and Christianity need defending when the best defense of any faith is in its actual practice.

You cannot be Christian and a supremacist of any kind because it makes a liar out of the God who made us all.

The reason it matters, apart from the obvious, is that like any virus, hatred never stops at one particular group. At some point, just like Frankenstein's monster, hatred of one group eventually will pivot and turn on those who think themselves safe.

It wasn't so long ago that Catholics were despised by white supremacists. Even today, some people view Catholicism with suspicion and fear, thus you hear the phrase, "Christians and Catholics."

Antisemitism is a symptom of the same fear, fueled by willful ignorance, and a gaping lack of knowledge about a country to which Jewish Americans have contributed from its very beginning.

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People who view themselves as defenders of Christianity may not think they ascribe to antisemitism, but self-righteousness warps one's thinking. We see it in celebrities embracing Holocaust denialism and revitalizing hoary accusations that Jews secretly control the world's finances.

If 0.2% of the world's population is clever enough to control 99% of its assets, I say let them.

Last week, a gaggle of self-appointed Christian prophets predicted that God would see to it that Christian nationalists would win elected offices in a landslide, but they were as wrong as the blowhard who sits at the end of the bar. Not only have these people been swinging and missing ― badly ― most aren't even hitting their weight.

Jews have every right to be wary of such folks, who see it as their mission to convert them ― weirdly ― in the hopes of triggering Armageddon.

Antisemitism must be pulled up at the root by Americans who believe in one country and "We the People" who refuse to stand for it.

Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Charita Goshay: Antisemitism threatens what it means to be American