(Jewish Group) An idiot's guide to anti-Semitic tropes

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

Dear JTA,

I am an elected official in a large democracy in the Western hemisphere. A lot of my colleagues have gotten into trouble recently for using anti-Semitic “tropes.” I know what anti-Semitism is, but am less sure how that differs from a “trope.” Any guidance so I don’t inadvertently say something offensive?

Yours,

Distinguished Colleague

Dear D.C.,

I understand your confusion. This has been the era of the anti-Semitic “trope,” with the word popping up in hundreds of news stories since the 2016 campaign. In short, tropes are phrases or images that evoke classic anti-Semitic ideas rather than state them explicitly. It’s a long list: the dual loyalty trope, the blood libel, the clannishness charge, the global conspiracy motif and the control-the-media mantras (to name a few).

When Donald Trump’s closing argument at the end of the 2016 campaign invoked “the global special interests” that “don’t have your good in mind” — and then featured images of a financier, a banker and the chair of the Federal Reserve, all Jews — he was accused of employing the “trope” of Jewish global control.

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