A political cartoon by Haaretz‘s in-house cartoonist Amos Biderman with age-old antisemitic tropes that was published on Tuesday raised a furor on Israeli social media.
The cartoon, published on the background of reports of the coalition funds promised to the Charedi and Dati Leumi sectors as the government prepares to pass the state budget, uses the “best” of antisemitic themes published in European newspapers in the last century.
The cartoon shows religious politicians gleefully carrying away bundles of money from a safe, including Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, who is pictured with a long nose, UTJ chairman Yitzchak Goldknopf, shown carrying a luxury brand Louis Vuitton bag filled with money, along with Finance Committee chairman Yitzchak Gafni, Deputy Knesset Speaker Yaakov Asher (UTJ), Settlements Minister Orit Strock (Religious Zionist Party), and Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich, who is pictured sitting on top of the safe, throwing bills in the air. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, pictured as the security guard of the safe [also with a long nose], is running after them and saying: “Wait, there’s more!”
One journalist tweeted about the hypocrisy of the opposition, referring to a Kan News report on Monday evening revealing that during the Bennett-Lapid government, then-prime minister Bennett, and Lapid, together with then-finance minister Avigdor Lieberman, offered over a billion shekels to the Chareidi parties if they would aid the government in passing the state budget.
“What would a Biderman cartoon look like if it was a year ago…with the one billion shekels offered to two Chareidi MKs only to be absent from the vote on the budget?” he wrote.
A social media user also referred to hypocrisy – but that of the cartoonist, who specializes in antisemitic cartoons. “Can someone help me and please upload the Biderman cartoons from the previous government after the coalition agreements [when billions of shekels were promised to the Islamist Ra’am party]? Someone? Someone? Oh, there aren’t any? Is it just this time? Mmmm very strange.”
Likud MK Danny Dannon responded to the cartoon by stating: “In a democracy, it’s legitimate to argue and express different opinions. But if a cartoon like the one published today in Haaretz was published in a newspaper in Europe – the Anti-Defamation League would demand condemnation. Yes to discourse – no to incitement and hatred.”
The Brothers in Arms protesters who scattered money in front of Goldknopf’s house on Tuesday morning did so from Louis Vuitton bags. Evil minds think alike. Or perhaps they read Haaretz over their morning coffee before leaving for the protest.
בידרמן בקריקטורה של כסף, חרדים ולואי ויטון. אחים לנשק משחזרים את זה וזורקים כסף על חרדים ושקיות של לואי ויטון.
מישהו אמר תהליכים שמזכירים לו את שנות ה-30? pic.twitter.com/99sFKDUV2a— חי שמואל- hai shmuel (@HaiShmuel) May 16, 2023
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
Um…why is this antisemitic?
I don’t understand why it’s antisemitic to criticize the fact that the frum parties are getting tons of funding (which they contributed proportionaly less to) to do things which many Israelis see as not adding any economic value. How is that antisemitic? The antisemitic trope about Jews and money is that they manipulate the world to get more money or use money to advance their interests. This is a political party using their political power to get funding. It’s perfectly legitimate to do and perfectly legitimate to criticize, EVEN with a cartoon with money. And it’s definitely not incitement. Danny Danon is being utterly ridiculous.
If people were upset at Israeli supermarkets price hiking and protested by throwing money, woulld that be antisemitic because “bruh, money and Jews”? It’s really watering down what antisemitism actually means to call it that
In my opinion, you should report on Elon Musk (the owner of Twitter) who tweeted a tweet with antisemitic overtones (“the Jews hate humanity”) and caused “the Jews” to trend on Twitter. Israel’s own Foreign Ministry condemned this. Here’s an article about it
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-743283/amp
I know that many readers may not like the ADL and consider them too left but they do a lot of work bringing awareness to antisemitism (especially during the Kyrie and Kanye saga) and even criticized the NY Times reporting on Yeshivas. Musk just tweeted “ADL should just drop the ‘A’” to make its name simply the Defamation League. That’s crazy! Please condem this YWN!
danny boy,
Your multiple posts excusing this Der Sturmer depiction of Jews demonstrates that not only would you have volunteered to be a Kapo during the Holocaust, you would have written copy for Goebbels.
You’re the worst kind of self-hating Jew and should spend eternity suntanning with our enemies.
YWN – not every criticism of charedim, let alone of charedi politicians, is antisemetic. Yes, I get that there are antisemetic tropes regarding Jews and money, but this cartoon is not going there: it is a comment on the frustration of one group of Jews on what they see as the excessive funding of another group of Jews from the (Jewish) national budget. I am, to say the least, no fan of Haaretz or of its political positions, but this cartoon is not, in my eyes, antisemetic. It would be far more interesting to read a reasoned argument against the position echoed by this cartoon than to see it being brushed off as being antisemetic in order to avoid seriously addressing it.