Boyle column: Antisemitism rears its ugly, cowardly head
Like most of us in the world of journalism, Citizen Times cartoonist David Cohen has developed a pretty thick skin over the years.
More like a hide, you could call it. When you skewer politicians, public officials and other prominent folks in your editorial cartoons for 17 years, you're going to ruffle some feathers, irritate some folks and generate some occasional hate mail. Trust me, I've been writing a column here for over 20 years, so I know.
So when Cohen got a letter mailed to him — anonymously, of course, because that's the coward's way — he wasn't expecting a fairly potent dose of antisemitism. As he notes himself, he's got about the most Jewish last name out there, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out his heritage.
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But in 17 years of drawing for us, and 25 years of political cartooning overall, Cohen hasn't been hit with this garbage before. In this case, someone cut out a cartoon Cohen had drawn depicting defeated arch-conservative congressman Madison Cawthorn heading into the sunset and drew what's supposed to be a caricature of Cohen, but with a large hooked nose and a Star of David pendant.
The figure is also apparently picking his nose with the left hand, while the right, looking more like a claw, is wrapped around a pencil. The dialog bubble reads, "Let's see -- with no more Cawthorn, who can I scribble and smear about? Oy!"
Decided to report it
Initially, Cohen said, it made him laugh a little.
"Other people were more offended by it than I was," Cohen told me. "I just figured it must be someone who’s a Cawthorn-supporter and is prejudiced. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger. I didn't feel threatened."
After a lot of feedback on his Facebook page and elsewhere, though, Cohen did decide to report it to the FBI and the Anti-Defamation League.
"I don’t know if I want to say I was laughing it off, because it’s pretty ignorant," Cohen said. "As I’ve always said, I have the freedom to put my opinions out in the world, so I can’t really deny someone else doing the same thing. This is not quite that, though — this is a little more ignorant but also hateful."
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It's not like Cawthorn losing an election is going to mean Cohen (and yours truly) are ever going to run out of material.
"There are plenty of other ignorant, stupid people out there I can draw cartoons about, so I don’t have to worry about not having Cawthorn around anymore," Cohen said.
Hate, bigotry incidents on the rise
While this may seem like a minor incident in the grand scheme of things, I'm highlighting it today because antisemitic incidents are on the rise, as this April 25 headline from the Anti-Defamation League attests: "ADL Audit Finds Anti-Semitic Incidents in United States Reached All-Time High in 2021."
The item notes a "total of 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism" were reported to the Anti-Defamation League.
"This represents the highest number of incidents on record since ADL began tracking anti-Semitic incidents in 1979 – an average of more than seven incidents per day and a 34 percent increase year over year," the ADL states.
As Cohen well knows, this kind of hate can turn deadly, with gunmen targeting synagogues and Jewish markets. I wrote about the ultimate form of antisemitism back in March, when a cattle car exhibit came to Asheville and offered an immersive experience in what Jews endured when the Nazis shipped them off to concentration camps.
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Of course, this kind of hatred is directed at all kinds of minorities, as the attack at a Buffalo supermarket that left 10 African Americans dead shows all too clearly.
An NPR article from last September had this headline: "Hate Crimes Reach The Highest Level In More Than A Decade."
"The spike in hate crimes in 2020 follows a recent upward trend in bias incidents, and it was a 6% increase over the 7,287 bias-related offenses reported in 2019," NPR noted. "There were 7,759 reported hate crimes in the U.S. (in 2020) — the most in 12 years, the FBI reported this week. But some experts and advocacy groups say the true number is probably even higher."
Especially since the pandemic, which a certain former president insisted on repeatedly calling "the China virus," Asians have come under attack.
While those of us in the media aren't at any more risk than minorities, it's gotten noticeably dicier out here for those reporting the news. It doesn't help that Trump spewed lies for four years and decried "fake news," which he apprised as anything negative about him.
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So this headline on the International Press Institute website didn't surprise me: "Rising Violence against Reporters in the U.S." The story notes:
"January 6 is an inflection point where over 10 years of escalating attacks (both physical and digital) on both journalists and media workers and media organizations reached a critical peak. These attacks are occurring across all states and territories and involve multiple actors. They demand coordinated action by media to provide a safe working environment for U.S. media workers, both employed and freelance."
I reported one such threat after the Jan. 6 insurrection in which an anonymous caller said if I wrote another column critical of Cawthorn I wouldn't be writing for the paper anymore. It was just cryptic enough to likely avoid any kind of prosecution, police said, so I didn't pursue it, other than to keep a handgun at my desk at home.
Again, it's hard not to make a connection to Trump in this escalating hatred in America. This is the same man who said Mexico was sending "rapists" here, and claimed there were "very fine people" on both sides of the Charlottesville protests about removing a Confederate monument, even though one side featured antisemitic marchers carrying torches and shouting, "Jews will not replace us."
But of course, Trump is just the agitator, the conjurer who brings these feelings to the surface. He's made it OK for angry Americans to express their loathing of minorities, whether ethnic or religious, and to espouse crackpot ideas like the QAnon nonsense or replacement theory.
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Undoubtedly, the level of hatred and anger has gotten worse in recent years. Cohen says he's had some criticism over his cartoons in the past, "but not because I'm Jewish."
"I've lived a very clean life when it comes to this kind of discrimination," Cohen said. "One time in my early 20s, an elderly woman said something about 'Jewing somebody down' on the price."
Cohen agrees that Trump was the catalyst for this slide into incivility, and Jan. 6 was its culmination.
"He and McConnell and all the other Republicans, they just don't care about what you think about them and whether they have to couch their hatred in anything other than, 'If you don't like it, well, do something about it," Cohen said. "Trump has given all these people license to show their hate."
Yes, Democrats behave poorly and coarsely at times (see the guy who got arrested outside Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house last week, with a gun), but the cold hard truth is, most of this kind of hate is coming from the far right.
Not backing down
We also live in a country awash in guns, where information about everyone is readily available online. So yeah, it makes you a little edgy as a minority, or a Jewish person, or a journalist, especially in a country where a mass shooting occurs pretty much daily.
"At times I think, 'I don’t want to leave the house,'" Cohen said. "All those people who were killed in church or in the grocery store probably weren't thinking, 'This is my last day.' The only thing that's crossed my mind if this person wants to find me and do some damage, they probably can."
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But again, Cohen, 68, has a thick hide. Like a lot of us journalists, he's not going to cut and run.
We love this country and deeply believe in democracy. Personally, I feel it's threatened now, and now more than ever we need keep the public informed and call out bigotry, wrongdoing and nascent fascism wherever we see it.
Cohen put it better than I can.
"Stuff like this only strengthens my resolve to call out the prejudices, the injustices, and the ignorances in the world with my work," he said. "I will continue to highlight these things in my cartoons. What this has shown me is that I have a lot more work to do."
Amen, brother.
This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at 828-232-5847 or jboyle@citizentimes.com
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Boyle column: Antisemitism rears its ugly, cowardly head
