New York City, America’s biggest metropolis, home to America’s largest Jewish population, a place where Jewish history and culture has long been celebrated, where Jews who escaped the Nazis were given refuge, to become acclaimed professors, scientists, artists, a city filled with historic synagogues, yeshivas and beloved kosher delis, is now aflame with antisemitism.
On October 7, 2023, the day after Hamas murdered, raped and abducted Israeli civilians during the Simchat Torah holiday, the New York City-Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA) filled Times Square with activists, many hoisting Nazi swastikas and signs that read “Zionism is Racism.” As protests escalate daily, New York synagogues are on high alert, Jewish students are beaten, Jewish delis vandalized.
The antisemitism which has for years festered on college campuses, is now unmasked; 33 Harvard student groups issued a statement stating that Israel is “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Cornell professor Russell Rickford called the terrorist attack “exhilarating, exciting.” Chicago science teacher Mika Tosca posted; “Israelis are pigs. Savages. May they all rot in hell.” CUNY graduate Nozima Husainova posted; “No wonder why Hitler wanted to get rid of all of them,” with a smiling emoji.
How did this come to pass? I think back to New York City on November 10th, 1975, when two men of honor, Chaim Herzog and Pat Moynihan, tried and failed to stop the United Nations from passing resolution 3379, that declared; “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Israeli Amb. Chaim Herzog stated it was “symbolic” that this happened on the 37th anniversary of Kristallnacht; “The Night of the Crystals, the night that led to the crematoria and the gas chambers. It was the night that led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man.”
It began on October 1st, 1975, when Ugandan dictator Idi Amin spoke to the 30th session of the General Assembly; “I call on the expulsion of Israel from the United Nations and the extinction of Israel as a state.” Amin, a tyrant who murdered nearly half a million Ugandan citizens, received a standing ovation.
On October 17th, 1975, Resolution 3379, declaring “Zionism is Racism” was passed by the UN’s Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural 3rd Committee. US ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan, warned that, “The United Nations is about to make anti-Semitism international law. It is not merely a measure aimed at Israel, it is aimed at Jews everywhere and liberal democracies everywhere.”
Goronwy Rees wrote: “There were ghosts haunting the 3rd Committee that day, the ghosts of Hitler and Goebbels…and the ghosts of the 6 million dead in Dachau and Sachsenhausen…for the fundamental thesis advanced by the 3rd Committee was that to be a Jew is to be an enemy of the human race.”
On November 10th, 1975, “Zionism is Racism” was formally adopted by the UN General Assembly In his book “A Dangerous Place” Moynihan wrote: “Herzog rose, like Tiresias in Oedipus Rex” and spoke: “Over the centuries it has fallen to the lot of my people to be the testing agent of human decency. A nation’s level of humanity could invariably be judged by its behavior towards its Jewish population. This wicked resolution must sound the alarm for all decent people in the world. The Jewish people, as a testing agent, has unfortunately never erred. The implications inherent in this shameful move are terrifying indeed.”
Amb. Moynihan followed Herzog to the lecturn; “The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty – and more – to the murderers of the six million European Jews. A great evil has been loosed upon the world; the abomination of antisemitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards,’ as the Queen of Hearts said. But this is not Wonderland, but a real world, where there are real consequences to folly and venality.”
US Amb. To the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Israeli Amb to the UN Chaim Herzog
Gil Troy, author of the riveting book “Moynihan’s Moment” wrote: “Soviet-engineered, absolutist, the Zionism-is-racism charge fused long-standing anti-Semitism with anti-Americanism, making it surprisingly potent in the post-1960s world.”
And now, 47 years later, a Heritage study reports those “with higher education levels are markedly more likely to apply a double standard unfavorable toward Jews.” 1n 2022 Bronx Councilman Eric Dinowitz said New York’s universities “fostered an extremely hostile campus environment that has resulted in the more blatant forms of antisemitism that are becoming all too common in our city.”
In September 2023, I boycotted the opening of CCNY Moynihan Center in New York to protest this normalization of antisemitism. If a Moynihan Center at my father’s alma mater will not defend the Jewish people from the bigotry that is exploding across our country, they take his name in vain. As they ignore Nazi symbols and slogans now sprayed all across New York City.
Amb. Daniel Patrick Moynihan at the United Nations, November 1975
Maura Moynihan is a New York based author and journalist, and producer of the documentary “Moynihan.” Her website is mauramoynihan.net.
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