Ye's antisemitic rant, that $20 swastika shirt and why we need to talk about it

Kanye West's antisemitic tirade this week was a tipping point for many who had previously brushed off his behavior as attention-seeking.

After all, this is a man who just last week, paraded wife Bianca Censori nude on the Grammys red carpet.

But West, who is now officially known as Ye, took his rhetoric to new heights this week. He lashed out against Jews in a hateful series of tweets (before deleting his account) and, in an ad, he directed Super Bowl viewers to his website (now down) where the only item he was selling was a $20 T-shirt featuring a swastika.

The Anti-Defamation League wrote in a statement: "We know this game all too well. Let's call Ye's hate-filled public rant for what it really is: a sad attempt for attention that uses Jews as a scapegoat." And Piers Morgan called out the hateful rhetoric, wondering: "What the hell is going on?" David Schwimmer, in an Instagram post, wrote: "His sick hate speech results in REAL LIFE violence against Jews."

Ye's behavior has grown impossible to ignore, and experts in Jewish history and culture say we shouldbe talking about all of this. That to be silent is to be complicit.

"There is no rationalizing it or or explaining it away," says Deborah Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. "It is dangerous and should be called out by all people who are concerned about Jew hatred irrespective of where they sit on the political or social spectrum."

Jews are 'on edge'

Caryn Tamber-Rosenau teaches a Jewish history class every fall at the University of Houston. When she gets to the session on contemporary antisemitism, her slides need updating. "I've been teaching this course here since 2017, and virtually every single year sets a new record for antisemitic incidents in this country," she says. "That has Jewson edge, to put it mildly. For those of us raised in the '80s and '90s, we are beginning to see that era's relatively low rates of antisemitism as a brief anomaly, and the recent rise as just a return to form."

The ADL explained in a statement that unchecked public displays of anitsemitism make a difference: "Words matter. And as we’ve seen too many times before, hateful rhetoric can prompt real-world consequences." The organization also noted: "Just a few years ago, ADL found that 30 antisemitic indents nationwide were tied to Kanye’s 2022 antisemitic rants." 

Anti-Jewish hatred dates back to biblical times, and but remains a part of Western society, says Nathan Abrams, co-founder of Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal. Look no further than recent statistics from the FBI that point to a rise in hate crimes against Jews rising from 1,124 in 2022 to 1,832 in 2023, a 63% jump year over year.

Ye's antisemitic tirade comes at a sensitive time; Many Jews across the country have especially been nervous since the war began in Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. A fragile ceasefire deal could fall apart as soon as this weekend.

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Rabbi Elaine Glickman, of Sarasota, Florida, was encouraged by "the massive public outcry, the deactivation of his social media accounts, the taking down of the website where he hawked his shirts – these are just a few of the reactions that demonstrate that we are better than this."

And just yesterday, the rapper was dropped by his talent agency, too.

'It will never be eradicated'

While Ye's antisemitic outbursts disturb Josh Lambert, a Jewish studies professor at Wellesley College, he's more concerned "about the platforms that profit from the distribution of such hate speech and hateful merchandise." Someone like Ye has outsized influence on the culture and, whether intentional or not, will encourage others to follow in his footsteps.

To that end: "I'm less disturbed by Ye's ignorant remarks on the subject, and more disturbed that it's so easy to find forums on Reddit where people agree with him and post the same things."

And Nazi-related tweets aren't just coming from Ye. Elon Musk, who owns the platform, tweeted a series of Nazi puns, drawing condemnation from the ADL in late January− the same organization that defended Musk's highly-debated hand-raising gesture weeks earlier. 

As Abrams says, "we can educate, legislate or litigate as much as we can to ameliorate the worst effects of antisemitism but alas it will never be eradicated."