If elected, Bernie Sanders will be this nation’s first non-Christian President. Put another way, he will be this nation’s first Jewish President. As a religious minority, Bernie has faced antisemitism at times, both in the 2016 primary and this year. There are those who wish to define him solely as a white male, erasing the historic nature of his background. No doubt, they have an agenda to defeat Sanders or elect someone else. Or both. But being Jewish is part of Bernie, just as being a [democratic] socialist is. A core aspect of Judaism is justice and compassion, and I believe Bernie’s background influenced his political and social beliefs in a positive way. His awareness of the Holocaust as a child — seeing people with tattoos from concentration camps in his Brooklyn neighborhood — influenced a life long concern for persecuted and oppressed people.
Along with those who seek to erase his complete identity, there are those who are far worse. These people resort to blatant forms of antisemitism. Case in point, a Politico article from last week.
Politico: The Secret of Bernie’s Millions
You can read the article and look at the imagery. But worse than the article were the tweets used to promote it. Politico eventually deleted one of the worst antisemitic tweets after a firestorm of criticism.
(JTA) — The cover story in this week’s Politico magazine, about how Jewish presidential candidate Bernie Sanders came to be a millionaire, shows him standing next to a tree sprouting leaves made of money.
Progressives on Twitter, including Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called the illustrations anti-Semitic.
Politico originally tweeted the article under the heading “Bernie Sanders might still be cheap, but he’s sure not poor,” leading to criticism about promulgating the anti-Semitic tropes of both cheap Jews and rich Jews.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
AOC and others quickly condemned Politico for using antisemitic imagery.
David Sirota condemned the tweet and article:
This weekend Bernie was interviewed and he explicitly called out Politico for the anti-Semitic article.
This weekend, The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur posted an interview in which he asked Sanders about a recent Politico article that trafficked in a number of anti-Semitic tropes, and which was heavily criticized by several senior Sanders advisers and allies.
“When you talk about an establishment bias, or progressives talk about an establishment bias that the New York Times has when they run that article on Central America,” Uygur continued, referring to a story that resulted in a contentious interview with Sanders, “or Politico has when they run the article about your so-called wealth, and…”
“Call that what it is,” Sanders interrupted. “It’s an anti-semitic article.”
snip
Politico deleted one tweet promoting the article by calling Sanders “cheap,” but replaced it with a half-dozen tweets featuring Sanders pictured next to a tree with hundred-dollar bills for leaves.
Mediate: Bernie Sanders Drops the Hammer on Politico Over Profile Calling Him ‘Cheap’: ‘It’s an Anti-Semitic Article’
Politico generally is a right wing magazine and blog. I am sure that Democrats will stand together against all forms of hate. But I’m glad Bernie is calling them out for what Politico was doing.
Today, Bernie tweeted best wishes to Muslims for Eid-ul-Fitr, a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting.
And he celebrated Ramadan with Muslims:
Americans will build a nation built on love and justice, not hatred and bigotry.