This tweet might be four years old, but it is worth addressing again, given the ugly head of antisemitism has reared once more and risen from the depths of depravity. Like historical sources, tweets can tell us a lot about a person and their actions. Thoughts are composed in a way, not as sophisticated as texts or speeches that have been made, but can also provide information and understandings about people and their intentions. Ash Sarkar is by no means devoid of criticism, no matter how many labels she may place upon herself, whether it be as a woman, a person of colour, a Muslim or a Tottenham Hotspur fan. Either way, defence of the indefensible must be considered a critical outlook, and when we explore the significance of what she is saying, and what she has not yet followed up on with corrective action, we can take a look into the psyche of a corruptible and immoral character.
For context of Ash's bizarre tweet, we must go back to 2010. Two graffiti artists by the names of Ewa Jasiewicz and Yonatan Shapira, took it upon themselves to spray the words 'Free Palestine' on the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto, as a political message at the site of mass incarceration of Jews and others and a place where many were killed, starved to death, died due to disease or were deported to concentration camps. The purpose of this was to deliberately be shocking and provoke outrage, and the pair got exactly what they wanted. It is reprehensible to believe that Jasiewicz and Shapira could still be consultants on 'anti-racism', write articles for The Guardian and even be tasked with teaching members of a British teachers' union about antisemitism in 2021, but that would never happen, would it? Jasiewicz in particular has been more vocal that Shapira, and has gained more traction and support from the British political left. It shouldn't have to take explaining as to why what they did was reprehensible, but for those who can't grasp this basic concept, here's why some may interpret these actions as being deeply racist.
The Warsaw Ghetto serves as a memorial site: a site to the thousands who were murdered or transported from the site to death camps. Many of these victims were Jews, including children. I had the 'pleasure' (and I use this in inverted commas because of the horrors that remained within the ghetto and how it makes one feel) of visiting the site as part of a greater research project with leading Holocaust expert David Cesarani in 2011. The symbol of this historic site was to preserve the memory of people (not just Jews) who had been led here, taken away from their homes in preparation for death. Ash clearly did not understand this in her history classes, nor has she ever read a book about the matter. There is a wall nearby the ghetto that Jasiewicz purposefully targeted with the intention of drawing parallels between Israel, Palestine and the 92000 people who died in the ghetto. For a group of people that keep insisting that they don't wish to draw these parallels between Israel and the Jews (and by doing saw call anybody who does antisemitic for doing so), they have a nasty habit of doing this consistently. Most normal people would see this act as being very racist as it makes the distinction that Jews are universally responsible for what happens in Israel, or that the treatment and deaths of those in the Warsaw Ghetto should be politicised for pushing an agenda that (rather ironically) calls for the massacre of Jewish people in the Levant. However, because the Labour Party was run by lunatics that had taken over the asylum between 2015 and 2020, leader Jeremy Corbyn praised Jaisewicz and offered her a platform during a Momentum event in 2018. Jeremy Corbyn continuing his streak of being the unluckiest 'anti-racist' to walk this planet.
Then there's the untruth in Ash's statement that the wall was a regular from graffiti artists, which is plainly false. There is no evidence that the wall that was desecrated (not with quotation marks on this occasion) was ever used as a graffiti site, nor has it ever been used as such. This is the logic of supposed 'anti-racists' who believe that it is within their right to use charged language that conflates two separate matters, but also to co-opt sites that have a greater meaning to European Jews than to Gentiles who have never had this as a lived experience. I don't care if you want to daub 'Free Palestine' on your own doorstep, just don't do it on ours. It was meant to shock and 'send a message' so to speak, no different to when neo-Nazis spray swastikas on synagogues, graves or on schools. It's not the only instance over the last few years where Jewish institutions have been desecrated with this same message.
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| Baba Sale Congregation, Los Angeles, CA |
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| Adat Yeshua Messianic Synagogue, Norwich, UK |
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| Synagogue Congregation Beth El, Los Angeles, CA |
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| Barcelona Synagogue, Barcelona |
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| Zion Synagogue, Plovdiv, Bulgaria |
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| Chabad of Parkland, Parkland, FL |
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| Ceuta Synagogue, Ceuta |
These are just a few examples where people have used this message to specifically target the Jewish community. It's weird how this has not been condemned by the political left (not from any sources I have seen) and yet, in December 2019, Momentum activists hijacked and weaponised for political purposes, graffiti that had been daubed on a shop window, asserting that Jews were responsible for 9/11. Momentum purposely made sure that Jewish people were not welcomed, as long as they subscribed to certain viewpoints, and made a 'vigil of self-righteousness'.
If 'solidarity' is with Jews, as many like Sarkar claim to have, then the same condemnation for what was obviously neo-Nazi inspired would then be extended to the deaths of those at the Warsaw Ghetto who had their final resting place used as a political site against a state that happens to be majority Jewish? The answer will of course be a resounding 'no'. I had an interesting conversation with a man named Tommy (who I will not give the full name of, but on Twitter his name has something to do with a rebellion in a port city in Russia and a profession by which one bakes bread) who asserted that the desecration of the memorial was wholly a good thing as it 'sent a message'. The 'message' being projected, in the eyes of the political left like Sarkar, is that there can be parallels drawn between the Warsaw ghetto and the treatment of Jews with that of Palestinians by Israel. The first thing one has to consider is that the two are similar, when they are not. The IDF do act with impunity in Palestinian areas, that cannot be denied. What is disingenuous and not historically accurate is why that specific reason has happened. The Palestinians receive billions in aid from western nations - the Jews in the ghettos did not. Palestinian 'ghettos' have running water, heat and electricity - the Warsaw and subsequent other ghettos did not. People in Warsaw were transported to death camps and placed in gas chambers on the way - the Palestinians are not. The only thing that connects the two is the fact that Jews have been involved in both, and using the charged memory of those who were slaughtered or sent to their deaths in Warsaw is weaponised. The same with using analogies that Gaza, an area that has department stores, swimming pools and thriving souks, is a 'concentration camp' is also used specifically to be racially charged and put guilt on Jews that survived or have descendants that have had to live with the consequences of the genocide in Europe.
Then, I had a strange interaction with this fellow on Twitter:
This person, with only ten followers as of me writing this blogpost, was defending Sarkar and the general principle of desecrating the Warsaw ghetto as it was meant to 'shock' and deliberately draw the distinction between Israel and the victims of the Holocaust. Whilst they acknowledged that it was crude, they still supported the idea and believed that, whilst not daubing the message 'Free Palestine' on modern synagogues was abhorrent, doing it such on places of historical significance, especially where the Jews are concerned, is fair game. This could include, naturally, the concentration and death camps of Europe. This explains a lot about ideology, and whilst I don't expect Sarkar to have read this at all, I would not be surprised at all if this is what she would also believe, as she did not distinguish as to what was a correct place to promote such a message and those that are unacceptable. It would be, therefore, morally right to be able to spray paint the message 'Free Tibet' or 'Free Hong Kong' on a memorial to the Rape of Nanking in protest of Chinese policy, or 'For The Migrant Workers' on a memorial dedicated to slavery in protest over Qatar's use of slave labour in the run up to the World Cup. None of this would be productive, nor would it be morally justifiable either, because it draws parallels with people who have no responsibility for those actions. Governments and institutions are one thing, but targeting those and discrediting the sacrifice that people made by scoring political points is, quite frankly, indefensible.
This has also reared interest because of a recent documentary by comedian David Baddiel entitled 'Jews Don't Count', which tackles the idea that whilst the political left and progressive movements have made triumphant strides into supporting ethnic minorities that have been affected by racism and racial inequality, the one group that they continue to ignore or encourage the racism experienced by Jews. Ash had started, before the documentary's release, to obsessively fetishise the experiences that Baddiel mentions and blatantly not even address what he was prepared to say a part of the documentary:
Sarkar believes that liberals, progressives and left wingers have not ignored antisemitism, and this is 'provably untrue'. There is very little to no truth in this, as we have found out over the past seven years or so, particularly in left wing circles. As mentioned previously, and in my last blogpost, the left has tried everything to dismiss experiences of antisemitism in this country unless it comes from the far-right, or even better for them, the Conservative Party. This is selective mutism when it comes to the understanding of antisemitism - that it doesn't always have to be overt like the marchers in Charlottesville who said that 'Jews will not replace us'. This week alone, members of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, who have more to do with left wing support for the black power movement, also shouted 'Jews will not replace us'. I see no condemnation from Ash or other members of Novara Media in solidarity with Jewish people.
This is part of her 'all lives matter' moment. Baddiel's thesis and his programme was to address the rise in antisemitism, not anti-black, anti-GRT or Islamophobic hate. There have been documentaries on all those forms of discrimination also, and yet Baddiel never demanded that those documentaries be under scrutiny for ignoring antisemitism. If he had, then Sarkar would have a point. What she does here is just reinforce the point. For the past two years, we've heard that 'black lives matter doesn't mean that other lives don't matter, it's just that black lives matter in this moment.' This documentary does that too, stating that 'we're not saying that other forms of racism don't matter, it's just that anti-Jewish racism matters for us in this moment.' But, what do you expect from Ash Sarkar, who wanted Holocaust Memorial Day to commemorate the victims of all genocides? Principles fall out the window when she wants them to, and her lack of willingness to actually listen to what has been said, tells us a lot more about her understanding.
One thing that I have also found irritating in this discussion is around the content creator's abhorrent use of blackface in the 1990s. David Baddiel infamously used blackface to mock former Nottingham Forrest player Jason Lee, which is absolutely despicable. It wasn't okay then, and it isn't okay now. I, however, do believe in forgive and forget, as I was taught growing up. Baddiel publicly denounced and apologised on many occasions for this, and was invited on Lee's podcast AbsoluteLee to discuss the incident and how people can better themselves. I have always maintained that people can do this by making positive changes and, instead of living in the past, can rectify what they have done to make those changes. It reminds me of former KKK leader Johnny Lee Clary, who had reformed his previously racist ways through the help of Reverend Wade Watts, and became a spokesman for anti-racism and denounced white supremacy (though obviously Baddiel and Clary were miles apart on that front). The past cannot be undone, but if people can apologise and better themselves, I'm all for it.
Baddiel himself in the documentary acknowledged his past and apologised again about what had happened. He is still met with a barrage of pictures of him dressed up as Jason Lee from the 90s with captions about how he isn't the best person to discuss racism. Despite apologies, it will never be enough for some people, because Baddiel has the disadvantage of being Jewish. Non-Jewish people appear to get away with this all too infrequently, such as former NUS Leader Shaima Dallali, who had been suspended for an old tweet, referencing the Battle of Khaybar, in which the warlord Muhammad slaughtered Jews on the way to Islamic conquest in the region. Dallali had apologised for it, but when the NUS suspended her as president of the union, the political left were quick to stand in solidarity with her as she used her privilege as a woman of colour and her pro-Palestinian politics to gain traction and support. Baddiel himself was still met with a barrage of comments that did not directly address that, but addressed his Jewish identity instead.
Normally, most people would also want to condemn this, especially as it is also addressed at all Jewish people and not just at Baddiel. However, I ask too much sometimes:
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| Being a Jew is now a trigger word. |
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| "I'm not racist, but..." energy right here. |
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| How dare you question the Messiah? |
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| Both missing the point and reinforcing the point of the documentary all in one, here. And they say we Jews are responsible for the two-for-one deals! |
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| Our good friend Jackie Walker saying that addressing antisemitism is a terrible thing and that we should all shut up about it. Great solidarity, Jackie! Sarkar is by no means responsible for what her fans, or those who would naturally be supportive of her, put online. Only she is responsible for her own actions and words. It's the double standard and hypocrisy of her takes that I find are impossible to ignore. As a woman of Bengali descent, I would never want to see her being racially abused, and if she was (despite political differences). Ash deleted this tweet before, but I had responded to the abuse that she had been suffering online by racist trolls.  That can't be said the same about Rivkah Brown, who stated that Baddiel's school was a 'Zionist primary school':  What I think she meant to say was 'Jewish'. I mean, no anti-racist would conflate Zionism with Jews, right? That would be very antisemitic to say so. Rivkah Brown is not genuine when it comes to confronting anti-Jewish racism, particularly on the political left, unless she can gain from it. The 'Zionist school' she mentioned was featured in the documentary and highlighted some of the problems that the political left are not willing to confront. For one thing, the school had an intruder practise in case a gunman entered the school trying to harm the children inside. The school, like many Jewish schools in this country, have been threatened by far-right and Islamic extremists over the years. I've mentioned this before, but even in my homeland of Denmark, our school had to prepare us for similar things. These are children who could be attacked because of their identity. Rivkah's dismissal of this is imperative to studying how Jews don't count, in their eyes. That and the bizarre response by Miriam Margolyes, who said that Jews should apologise and continuously condemn the actions of the State of Israel and Muslims should do so when discussing ISIS and other Islamic theocracies that they have nothing to do with. Again, this conflates the idea that British Jews have something to do with the actions of Israel's government, which is (once again) extremely racist.
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