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In an oddball crossbreed betweenleftist language and retroanti-Semitic tropes,posters that read End Jewish Privilege appearedonUniversity of Illinois at Chicagos campusearlier this month.

The posters proclaimed, Ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege, followed by an image of a pyramid with Jews at the top and goyim not drawn to scale at the bottom.

Eva Zeltser, a UIC junior, told New Voices, My reaction was basically disbelief. In some ways, I wasnt surprised because of all the active anti-Semitism prevalent throughout college campuses across the country Its really difficult grasping that that kind of hatred is still so real and alive today.

But thats the thing. Whats strange about this poster campaign is it isnt the usual anti-Semitism, real or supposed, that we often find ourselves wrangling about on campus: conflations of Zionism and Judaism or thestraightforward dorm door swastika.

Its this bizarre hybrid between the language of todays left and some of the top ten hits for oldest anti-Semitic stereotypes, now often found onthe alt-right: Jews are money-grubbing, were conspiratorially amassing power, muahaha.

Essentially, this is the mutant half-squirrel half-narwhal of campus anti-Semitism, the Frankensteins monster of campus anti-Semitism You get the point. The parts just dont fit together and the result is an amalgamation of misapplied ideas from different parts of the political spectrum put together haphazardly into one perfectly weird poster project.These posters usea progressive concept, privilege, to ironically marginalize and make other a minority group in the exact same way Jews are beingdiscriminated against byan element on the right.

Justlike mutant narwhal squirrels shouldnt exist, neither should a left that sounds eerily like the alt-right or an alt-right that coopts the language of the left.Its just wrong.

And, as a progressive, it also feels personal. Many Jewish studentsembrace and actively take part in campus conversationsabout privilege, which is why these posters hitso hard in the kishkes.This kind of campaign arguably misappropriates ourleftist values and mixes themwith the same anti-Semitic rhetoric as ouralt-right Twitter trolls which is incidentally full of the same conspiracy theories used to persecute ourgreat grandparents.

Asecond batch ofposters was found that same weekby UIC third-year Valeriya Volodarskaya, and they werent any better. One read, Maybe Jewish donations to the University come at too high a price Questioning the influence of university donors is not anti-Semitic.

Other posterscompared Gaza to Auschwitz and arguedcountries unfairly jail people who question the 6 million.

The language on there didnt make any sense, Volodarskaya said. Since when is attacking someone social justice?

I find myself asking the same question.These posters are oldschool anti-semitism complete with a defense of Holocaust denial couched in social justice terms, afascinating rhetorical crossbreed that disturbs me both as alefty and a Jew.

This is new, and I dont like what it means for the left on campus. Either we have a fringe that misapplies our ideology in a way that sounds more like the alt-right than our allies ora white supremacy thats learned to use the language of the left.

In either case, as progressives, we need to layclaim to leftist terms toensure they remain toolsin service of our highest ideals, not marginalization.

Sara Weissman is the editor in chief of New Voices. Kvell or kvetch to her at editor@newvoices.org.

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'End Jewish Privilege' Left or Alt-Right Rhetoric? - New Voices