After a successful launch in the US in 2019, our documentary about antisemitism ‘Never Again Is Now’ was released worldwide on YouTube recently. https://youtu.be/BZWnlshOXWs . We wanted to advertise the film on YouTube. Our ad consisted of a brief text explaining that ‘Never Again Is Now’ is about the Holocaust and about rising antisemitism today.

The ad was rejected by the YouTube algorithm. It didn’t explain why. Only after we removed the words ‘Holocaust’ and ‘antisemitism’, and used the term ‘social injustice’ instead, our ad passed the algorithm.

I was shocked when I read a few weeks ago an educator in New York was criticized for sharing her grandparents’ Holocaust story and for refusing to bring the Black Power salute during a racial equity training. NYC educator claims she was fired after sharing Holocaust story (nypost.com). She wasn’t supposed to address racism against Jews in this training. Shortly afterwards she was fired.

It made me sad. It made me think of Amsterdam, the city I emigrated from, where one in four schools don’t teach the Holocaust anymore. It is too ‘offensive’ to Muslim students, who often threaten teachers with physical violence during lessons about the Holocaust. The students demand lessons about the ‘Nakba’ instead, the Palestinian ‘Exodus’ in 1948 during Israel’s War of Independence. It also made me think of the great Jewish American writer Bari Weiss, whose colleagues at The New York Times bullied her for “writing about the Jews again.” Resignation Letter — Bari Weiss

End of this month is the festival of Passover. During this holiday, Jews tell the story of their bitter slavery in Ancient Egypt and celebrate their liberation. They also reflect upon other times in history when Jews were oppressed and persecuted, including today. Many also elaborate on the oppression, persecution and inequality of other people than the Jewish people.

As the Jewish scholars teach us in the texts for the celebration at the night of Passover: “You shall commemorate the slavery and liberation from Egypt every day, until the end of times.” It means we have an obligation to point out antisemitism and other forms of hatred whenever it occurs. Nobody can take that commandment away from me.

WATCH MY DOCUMENTARY ‘NEVER AGAIN IS NOW’ ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/BZWnlshOXWs

Evelyn Markus

Author Evelyn Markus

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Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Barry Wolfe says:

    Dear Evelyn, I’m so proud of you and your film. Your note from Utube was shameful. The lack of outrage from our Jewish community disturbs. We MUST stop believing we should remain silent.

    Laurelle and I look forward to hosting you and Rosa after Pesach.

    My best wishes for a most meaningful Sedar,

    Barry

  • mike hayutin says:

    The most prominnant American Jewish organizations seem fixated on the least dangerous sources of anti-Semitism, white supremacists. Are there white suprematists in America? Of course they exist. But they are largely powerless in numbers, political influence and financial resources. Some strike out violently with horrific results. But they have no support among the vast majority of Americans. However the left-wing anti-Semites in America have a significant caucus in the Democrat Party. The young AOC caucus and the black congressional caucus has established itself as a driving force on policy. I’d think that the naive support of the “woman’s march” 4 years ago should have been a wake-up event. Apparently it was not.

    Loyal Jewish Democrats in organization like ADL and SWU should be the first to object to the corruption of their Party. It is not political to identify where the threats come from and which are the most powerful. Louis Farrakhan has substantial support among elected Democrat officials. Al Sharpton had every major 2020 Democrat candidate come to his Action Network event and genuflect at his feet as a “civil rights” leader. My God Sharpton was invited to speak at a synogujage on the High Holidays. People in power with financial resources who work with anti-Israel and anti-American forces should be the focus.. And pre-tell who supports the anti-American and anti-Semitic gender studies bigotry? Jews fool themselves if they think altering the ethnic studies curriculum to make nice to Jews and Israel will not educate kids to be anti-American and anti-Israel if not anti-Semitic. We need to appreciate that the forces that see America as institutionally racist are not only not good for Americans but for Jewish Americans. Those who work to balkanize America endanger Jewish Americans because they reject the core Judeo-Christian values that have made Jewish Americans the luckiest and freest Jews outside of Israel in history.

    I might add that the forces of radical Islam in America would be largely toothless without the support of the American left. Please do not confuse what was liberal with with what is progressive today. Today the forces of liberal thought in the Democrat Party has shrunk to the point of irrelevance.

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