Anti-Semitism and the Women’s March

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/27/opinion/letters/anti-semitism-womens-march.html

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To the Editor:

Re “Anti-Semitism Accusations Roil Women’s March” (front page, Dec. 24):

For more than 35 years I’ve witnessed leftists form a firing squad in a circle while our mutual enemies ride off into the sunset unscathed. In 1982 I wrote an investigative article for Ms. magazine that detailed many of the same fevered schisms among Jewish women and women of color that your article discussed. Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader, was the ignition switch back then, too.

Some Women’s March leaders say they’ve been educating themselves about the evils of anti-Semitism, as if they missed the memo until Jewish women expressed pain and shock at their exclusion from organizing efforts and their omission from the published “unity principles” enumerating which groups of women in particular should be “free.”

Many anti-racists continue to insist that only people of color can be oppressed and that most Jews, being white, benefit from “white skin privilege.” Yet somehow our “privilege” didn’t save the 11 people massacred in a Pittsburgh synagogue this fall by a man with the same color skin.

Since the first Women’s March, in 2017, a number of feminist intermediaries have tried to help bridge the organizers’ ideological and political gaps, with scant success. Until all of us understand that racism and anti-Semitism are the same toxic madness split at the root, and until we embrace intersectionality without defining any woman out, our struggle against sexism and racism will be hobbled by our squabbles with one another.

Letty Cottin PogrebinNew YorkThe writer is a founding editor of Ms. magazine and the author of 11 books, including “Deborah, Golda and Me: Being Female and Jewish in America.”

To the Editor:

I was horrified to learn that there are apparently insurmountable fissures in a once seemingly unified Women's March, a march I was honored to participate in last year.

As a supporter of women's rights and a citizen deeply concerned with human rights, I now plan not to march at all, because of the disgraceful decision to separate the New York March into two marches — one “being led by women of color,” the other “stressing its denunciation of anti-Semitism.” I suspect that many others will feel the same.

Eva MeklerNew York

To the Editor:

I helped organize marches that occurred across America in January 2017. If you are questioning whether to participate in a local march next month, know that the marches that took place — in all 50 states and all over the world — were organized by thousands of women who are leaders in their own communities, many of them first-time leaders.

We need to change the perception that four women who worked on the Women’s March on Washington represent all of us. And for those who believe that reporting on anti-Semitism is dividing the movement, I say it’s not. It’s about calling out bad behavior and letting the real work continue.

Tina CassidyBrookline, Mass.

To the Editor:

Tamika Mallory, one of the Women’s March organizers, disqualified herself as a leader of a group dedicated to upholding human rights when she stated that “white Jews, as white people, uphold white supremacy.”

Racially based generalizations like this are not only grossly inaccurate but dangerous as well. I am a white Jew, and I am proud of the role that Jews have played in fighting discrimination against every group.

Bill GottdenkerMountainside, N.J.

To the Editor:

Great. For two years, millions of women came together in marches around the country to show their opposition to an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, misogynistic and divisive president. Now there’s a rift among founders of the original march amid allegations of anti-Semitism. Women united in their opposition to Mr. Trump are divided and sniping at one another.

Congratulations — he couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome.

Eileen WestPleasantville, N.Y.

To the Editor:

What about the exclusion of conservative women? We have been locked out of everything, but particularly by the Women’s March, and shamed by our liberal “sisters” for our conservative views (and votes).

If you aren’t liberal in this country, you don’t belong, woman or not.

Jan McCarthyKeswick, Va.