As the Internet exploded with anti-Semitic language and as physical assaults on Jews and Jewish institutions became commonplace, the phenomenon of Jews on the left prominently aligning themselves with open anti-Semites has evoked angst and despair in the mainstream Jewish community. It has also provided cover for anti-Semites eager to distance themselves from the charge that their hostility to Israel is in any way related to anti-Semitism. ...

Just as the lessons from 1929 made clear that some Jews were prepared to align themselves with killers of Jews, from the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the American Jewish community concluded that to American Communists—including Jewish Communists—Jews were expendable chips to advance Soviet interests.

As if these examples were not enough to demonstrate that Communist concern for Jews was limited and transitory, and that some Jews were so blinded by their hostility to Zionism that they would endorse explicit anti-Semitism, a series of episodes beginning in the late 1940s drove home the lesson.