Jewish Group

you find irreconcilable are literally irreconcilable. There is no need to accommodate ideology by compromising identity or vice versa.

Antisemitism is agnostic. It is ideology-neutral. Therefore.it is not a surprise to me that antisemitism found a niche to exploit on the left of the political spectrum. It was just a matter of time, and my only surprise was how long it took and how quickly it became normalized. I suspect the recent explosion of antisemitism on the political left has to do with rapid onset of social media populism, but that's a whole different discussion.

Politically and ideologically, I am an old-time liberal, slightly left of the Democratic Party mainstream, but not in all respects. Existentially, I am a Jew. My sense of self-preservation will always take precedent over my ideology - it is not a question of reconciling the two. Overt, and especially covert antisemitism, due to my past extensive contacts with it, triggers in me a conditioned reflex that trumps all concerns regarding my ideological affiliation. It is a Darwinian response which is separate and apart from my ideological preferences.

Ideology, on the other hand, is an intellectual effort, and that is incompatible with antisemitism. More accurately, ideology is not relevant to antisemitism.

In the end, I don't care whether threats to my well-being come from the right or the left. I am fully aware that antisemites cannot be reached by appealing to their intellect. Therefore, their politics don't matter one bit, no matter how eager they are to claim the contrary. My response to them is to advertise my awareness of the threat they pose to me as vociferously and unequivocally as I possibly can and make those threats as consequential as circumstances allow.

This by no means makes me a bad liberal. On the contrary, it exposes bad actors claiming to be liberals. I understand that doing so on DU runs certain risks, but so does remaining silent.