To my readers: No antisemitism on this blog, no calling people "Kapos" or "self-hating Jews"

I recently got insulted on Facebook and got called a "self-hating Jew" by someone who was cowardly enough to send me a personal message (rather than posting publicly in a comment thread), and then blocked me so that I'm unable to send a reply.

Here on my blog, some commentators openly indulge themselves in antisemitic remarks.

I have no problem if people comment on my blog posts and disagree with me.

I do have problems if someone writes antisemitic remarks on my blog or insults people on Facebook as "self-hating Jews" or "kapos." I have read both insults several times on Facebook threads condemning those Jews who supported the US abstention from the recent UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements and Palestinian violence.

To those who call other Jews "self-hating" because you don't agree with them about Israel/Palestine - what on earth do you mean? If I favor a withdrawal from most of the settlements in order to allow the creation of a Palestinian state - how does that make me "self-hating"?

To those who call others Jew "kapos" - your remark is beneath contempt. "Kapos" were concentration camp prisoners who were appointed by the SS to control the other prisoners. They were often ordinary criminals in the camps, and sometimes political prisoners. Elie Wiesel writes about them in his book Night, as does Primo Levi in If This is a Man (both were imprisoned in Auschwitz). According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, "Jews were appointed Kapos only in those camps which were all Jewish." The kapos cooperated with the SS in the oppression of their fellow prisoners because of privileges they were given, such as more food to eat, easier work, rest, etc. Some Jewish kapos tried to help their fellow Jews, but many others were cruel and violent - Wiesel and Levi write about kapos who acted in these ways. 

There is nothing and no one comparable in Jewish life today to the kapos in the concentration and death camps, which thank God do not exist any more. A person who advocates a two-state solution, or on the other hand believes that Israel should keep building more settlements in the West Bank is not a kapo collaborating with a nation that wants to destroy the Jewish people. He or she is expressing his/her sincere political belief.

If you make antisemitic remarks, or call other people "self-hating Jews" or "kapos" on this blog or on my Facebook page, I will delete your remarks and I may block you from commenting at all.