(RNS) — Like other Jews of my generation, I grew up with a binary system: either “good for the Jews” or “not good for the Jews.”
That was how we interpreted what was happening in the world. If a public figure who happened to be Jewish did great things, like Jonas Salk or Sandy Koufax, it was good for the Jews. And bad actors like Ivan Boesky or Bernie Madoff were bad for the Jews.
I always sensed that, sooner or later, Jeffrey Epstein was going to be bad for the Jews.
As far as I know, Epstein, who was Jewish, was not connected with the Jewish community. His girlfriend/accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is currently serving a 20‑year federal prison sentence for recruiting girls for sex trafficking. She is the daughter of the late Robert Maxwell, the British media mogul, politician and fraudster, who was of Jewish descent.
I always knew Epstein’s Jewishness would become part of the story, which keeps on going.
Consider the left-wing British politician Jeremy Corbyn. When Epstein’s name came up, Corbyn mispronounced it as “Epshteen,” seemingly to make it sound more Jewish. As author David Baddiel wrote:
“This was taken, by some, as unconsciously highlighting the Jewishness of a very unsavoury character. I have no idea, not being Jeremy’s shrink, whether antisemitism was in his subconscious here or not, but when I said, on Twitter, ‘Every Jew noticed that’ – a truism – I was massively shouted at by Corbyn’s followers.”
On the right, at a recent Turning Point USA summit, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson speculated — without any verifiable evidence — that Epstein might have been working for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency.
Podcaster and former Fox News and NBC journalist Megyn Kelly echoed the allegation, suggesting Epstein was probably a Mossad agent, “given his connection with Ghislaine Maxwell.” Kelly’s accusation prompted a burst of applause and the suggestion that this is being buried “because of an Israeli thing.”
Robert Maxwell was rumored to have had a connection with Mossad. Therefore, his daughter, Ghislaine, inherited that connection with Mossad, and passed it on to Jeffrey.
Sooner or later, every conspiracy gets around to the Jews. It is part of the well-worn idea that Jews manipulate global events through secret networks, promoted through fraudulent commentary and texts like “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Epstein himself fits into an antisemitic myth that the Jew is the moral corrupter of an otherwise pure society, a myth that goes back to medieval times. Jewish men were oversexed. The Nazis said Jewish men sought to “defile” Aryan women. The idea that Jews control Hollywood? It was because Jews seek to corrupt America through popular culture. Henry Ford once wrote:
“Whichever way you turn to trace the harmful streams of influence that flow through society, you come upon a group of Jews. In theatrical degeneracy, a group of Jews … in the menace of the movies, a group of Jews … in this miasma of so-called popular music which combines weak mindedness with every suggestion of lewdness — again Jews.”
Epstein is the antisemite’s wet dream. The nouveau riche, privileged Jewish guy who somehow managed to get into Palm Beach society, who sent his agents into the lower-class neighborhoods of West Palm Beach to entice poor (gentile) women and defile them.
Some years ago, I saw the 1979 movie “Last Embrace,” starring the late Roy Scheider and Janet Margolin and directed by Jonathan Demme. It was a neo-noir thriller about a Jewish prostitution ring on the Lower East Side of New York, where both the pimps and the victims were Jews.
Apparently, it was a real thing, according to the book “Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight Against White Slavery, 1870-1939.” It tells a shocking story that is rarely part of Jewish historical memory. For decades, in places like Buenos Aires, Warsaw, London and New York, Jews were involved in procuring poor Jewish women and selling them into prostitution. Today we call it sex trafficking. Back then, it was “white slavery.”
The Jews were using Jewish women, but this sordid business led to antisemitic accusations. How did the Jewish community respond? They instinctively condemned such practices as being contrary to Jewish morality. They ostracized Jews who were involved in these practices. Prominent rabbis spoke out against it. As Jewish women’s organizations were getting started, this issue was at the top of their agendas. Jewish feminist Bertha Pappenheim said white slavery was the most important issue to mobilize her generation of Jewish women. In Warsaw and Buenos Aires, Jews even launched murderous assaults against Jewish-owned brothels.
These places were “bad for the Jews,” bad for the victims and bad for the world.
Epstein was scum. So is Maxwell. They manipulated poor young women and destroyed their lives. But Epstein’s and Maxwell’s Jewish background is irrelevant here, unless you are an antisemite. And if you are, it is open season to view Jews as corrupting influences, manipulators and abusers of the innocent. It’s all part of the pandemic of Jew hatred and accompanying conspiracy theories, coming from both the right and the left.
A since-deleted Facebook post by Teji Malik. (Screen grab)
There is already a whiff of this. Teji Malik, a Sikh activist in Nevada, posted on Facebook earlier this week: “The Chosen Paedophile Was Chosen by the Chosen People of Israel as a Spy.” The post was later removed but offers an indication of the depth of the issue.
When the latest Epstein-gate starts to speak in a Jewish accent; when Jew-haters and conspiracy buffs start to make this a Jewish issue, Jewish leaders will need to push back — loudly and clearly.
That resistance will be “good for the Jews.”
