Britain is undergoing a period of rising anti-Semitism and Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling has chimed in via Twitter. The writer, who is not Jewish, has 14.4 million followers on the social media site.
Rowling posted a screen grab of a non-Jewish user offering the common justification that anti-Semitism cannot be a form of racism because “Judaism is a religion not a race.” Rowling responded that “Most UK Jews in my timeline are currently having to field this kind of (nonsense), so perhaps some of us non-Jews should start shouldering the burden. Antisemites think this is a clever argument, so tell us, do: were atheist Jews exempted from wearing the yellow star? #antisemitism.”
Rowling also responded to the specious claims that arguing against anti-Semitism is “culturally insensitive to Muslims” and that Arabs can’t be anti-Semitic because they are also Semites.
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