Anti-Jewish diatribe by black pastor at King commemoration

Daphna Ziman, an Israeli-American woman, was shocked to find herself at the receiving end of black pastor Eric Lee anti-Semitic rant at a Martin Luther King observance in Los Angeles on April 4. She tells of her experience in an interview on YouTube.

Here is Powerline’s entry on it.

- end of initial entry -

Paul K. writes:

I was relieved to see, at the end of this interview, some righteous anger from Daphna Ziman. After her lengthy, de rigeur obeisance to Martin Luther King, and her attempt to marginalize this particular reverend, I was beginning to think she wasn’t getting it at all.

You often speak of how the Obamas may offer a great lesson in racial reality to America. Perhaps there will be an awakening among Jewish liberals to the fact that despite all their efforts on behalf of civil rights, there’s an implacable strain of anti-semitism in the black community, and that continuing efforts to appease this community only inflames the resentment further. If that lesson were learned we might see a sea change in public policy.

LA replies:

I also thought she was too low key in the opening part, and I felt better when she began to speak with genuine indignation toward the end.

And maybe that is a microcosm of the stages that Jews in particular and whites in general will go through as the realization of virulent black racism and anti-Semitism hits them. At first they will not want to sound critical of blacks, but finally the wrongness of what the blacks are doing will overcome the whites’ deference and the whites will take a stand.

According to Zimon, Eric Lee said that now that Obama is emerging as a national leader or president, blacks are empowered to say what they really think. Fine. I’m ready to have it out. Let prominent blacks like Eric Lee and Michell Obama reveal to the world the crackpot madness that’s really in their heads. Let’s see what that does for liberal race relations in America. Let’s see the impact this has on whites’ willingness to defer to the black perspective, the black demands, and the black grievances.

Rachael S. writes:

I was disappointed that Mrs. Ziman only addressed the anti-Semitism in these churches. Granted, she was talking about her own personal experience with an anti-Semite, but certainly she has seen the anti-white sentiment before from blacks if she has worked with them. She only became bothered enough to talk about this racism when it walked up and smacked her in the face, and then on an ethnic level for her own group. Perhaps what she said at the end of the video, that this hateful talk by the preachers was taking America to an unhealthy place, could be an allusion to racism towards whites.

But again, it is acceptable to confront anti-Semitism with righteous anger, but never specifically to address anti-white racism with righteous anger. One elicits reverential attention from the media. The other would probably just elicit amusement, and jokes about paranoid right-wingers.

Also, notice how she loved America as the embodiment of all things inclusive, the Statue of Liberty, give me your tired, poor, huddled masses, etc.

LA replies:

I think Rachael is being a little hard on Daphna Ziman. She’s an immigrant from Israel, a Jewish liberal. Would you expect her not to speak about the Statue of Liberty and American inclusiveness? Also, we don’t know that she’s heard the anti-white stuff.

However, she must have heard Rev. Wright’s anti-white statements in the media. So she ought to be asked what she thought about that? Did she object to it in the same way that she objects to Rev. Lee’s statements?

Paul Gottfried writes:

What in Heaven’s name was Mrs. Ziman doing at this event in the first place. I feel about as sorry for her as I do for W, when he went to Atlanta to kiss up to black “spiritual leaders” at Coretta King’s funeral. Mrs. Ziman reminds me of the German Jews of legend (they never really existed) who begged the Nazis for the right to join their “patriotic” group. There is a Yiddish expression “tuchas-lecking.’ Mrs. Ziman should konw what that means.

LA replies:

I think Professor Gottfried is being a bit unfair. Here is a fuller account by Daphna Ziman of the incident. She was receiving an award from a black fraternal organization for her many years of work in encouraging mentoring for fatherless black children. It was not Eric Lee’s organization. Eric Lee was not the host of the event but the keynote speaker.

Also, the webpage includes an apology (of sorts) from Eric Lee. He both apologizes, and denies that he did anything to apologize for. The usual thing.

Paul Gottfried writes (April 11):

Just as I suspected. Your overriding concern with anti-Semitism allowed you to ignore the way Daphne was expressing approval to the black crowd for McCain’s self-debasing apology for his one great “mistake,” voting against the federal holiday for our new black savior MLK. I am shocked that you missed this part of her story.

LA replies:

Well, maybe I just didn’t notice it or pick up the significance of what she was saying.

PG replies:

That’s what Daphne got for lying down with thieves or blacks.

LA replies:

Also, your comment is absurd given my endless blog entries on Wright’s anti-whiteness and Obama’s failure to condemn them.

I’d venture to say that I’ve written 50 to 100 times more about black anti-white racism than you have.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 10, 2008 04:44 PM | Send