(Jewish Group) Why are we afraid to call Kanye West's posts antisemitic?

[Behind the Aegis]

Kanye West is one of those celebrities who makes it difficult to tell the difference between what he’s doing for publicity and what he actually believes.

Perhaps that’s why outlets like The New York Times and figures including Indiana’s attorney general failed to clearly condemn the antisemitic statements the rapper poured out on Twitter and Instagram to his 31 million followers over the past few days. Yet despite countless debates about the definition of antisemitism in recent years, the rapper’s tweets were clear-cut examples of hate speech — and important to name as such.

In a flood of posts beginning on Friday, the musician, who legally changed his name to Ye last year, repeatedly alleged that Jews maliciously control celebrities, the media and more.

First, Ye posted a screenshot of a text exchange with the rapper Sean Combs, who performs as Diddy. Combs had criticized a “White Lives Matter” shirt Ye produced and, in the text exchange, Ye alleged that “Jewish people” told Combs to call and criticize the shirts. Ye captioned his post “Jesus is Jew.” (Instagram has since taken it down.)

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