I want to say this tactfully. Normally, I wouldn’t talk about this, but I think it important.

We had dinner last night with the son of old friends who was here on a business trip from Houston. His parents were from India, but he was born here, and spent his first ten years in the DC area, when his family moved to Ohio. We last saw him 20 years ago at his wedding.

He is a physician , spent years at M. D. Anderson in Houston, and is currently the medical director of a Japanese based international pharmaceutical company. He travels internationally on a regular basis. He is about to turn 50, has a wife and two sons. He is a Jain, an ancient Indian religion. His wife grew up Hindu. He is very bright, very personable, and a very nice guy.

We sat at dinner for two hours (Masala Art in SW), and our conversation was far ranging – extended families, careers, and so forth. And then he changed the conversation. He said that he was doing this reluctantly, but he wanted to understand something. Why was there so much antisemitism? Not only today, but throughout history. Why were the Jews always attacked the way no other minority religions were attacked?

There are, of course, many ways to answer this question. I wanted to find the right way. I said something (I don’t remember what), and he responded. And then I said (to myself, this time), Whoa, I have to go way back and start at the beginning.

The reason is that he had none of the background that we take for granted. He doesn’t know the Bible (Hebrew or Christian) and to an extent that is understandable because he is of a totally different religion – but he has lived in this “Judeo-Christian/largely Christian” country for 50 years. He didn’t know that Rome ruled Judea or that the Temple was destroyed (he didn’t know there was a Temple). He didn’t know about the diaspora. He didn’t know Jews lived in Muslim countries. He didn’t have any idea about the Jewish situation in pre-20th century Europe (we didn’t discuss ghettos per se , but we did discuss various limitations on Jewish economic and social lives). He knew about the Holocaust – but probably not about its background. He didn’t know anything. (And by the way, his international travel has included at least one trip to Israel – he thought Tel Aviv a wonderful city.) He understands that the Israel/Gaza/Hamas/Palestinian situation is a mess – but certainly doesn’t understand any of the nuances.

When I finished my unrehearsed mini-lecture, he thanked me and told us it was very helpful. That he had never had this context to help him understand antisemitism.

Is his lack of knowledge exceptional? I don’t know – even if someone else had some, but not all, knowledge (like someone who grew up with the concept that the Jews killed Christ for example), would they still be as clueless as to the position of Jews, and the growth of antisemitism, today? Perhaps so.

My point? My point is that we often take too much for granted. We assume that those saying things (or doing things) that we find antisemitic are operating with basically the same factual knowledge that we have. And that is probably wrong. That does not mean, of course, that they want to sit down and hear a lecture on the history of the Jews, but it does mean that we can perhaps respond to them in ways different from those which we instinctively use.

I saw a TikTok (I think) reel the other day. There was a young man wearing a kippah and a suit, who may have been presiding over some sort of formal meeting/session at which others were able to make a statement. One such statement was made by a young (teen age? 20-something?) woman wearing a hijab, speaking perfect British English. She was criticizing the Israeli response in Gaza for targeting civilians (remember, this was a short reel; I don’t know what preceded what I saw) in a very strong way. She said that it was terrible that so many more Palestinians were being killed than Israelis.

The Jewish man responded (politely) with a question: In World War II, he said, the British killed more Germans than the Germans killed British – does this mean that the British shouldn’t have won the war, and the Germans were in the right? In her response, she tried to shift to different statistics and said “But the British didn’t kill German civilians”. Of course, we know that hundreds of thousands were killed by air attacks on Hamburg and Dresden alone. But this young woman obviously didn’t.

We just shouldn’t assume that those taking strong positions have the background that would support their positions. (And of course this may be true regarding ourselves and our positions, so we must be careful there, as well.)

That’s it for today. Just something to think about.

One other point. So Joe Manchin is giving up his Senate seat? Why would he do this? Probably because he knows he would lose. WV will elect a Republican senator in 2024, whether Manchin runs or not.

Will Manchin be the No Labels candidate? And, if so, who would he take votes from? The latest poll I saw showed that the avowed potential third party candidates would hurt Biden by 10 points, and hurt Trump by 7. Which way would Manchin influence these numbers? (At any rate, like virtually all current polls, it’s trending the wrong way.

Will Biden drop out? I think there is a good chance. Pundits and consultants and editorials are beginning to talk about it more. Maybe there are behind the scenes conversations among Democratic political leaders and funders? Lyndon Johnson didn’t announce he was not running for reelection until the end of March in election year 1968. There is still time.