Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XXXVII: The Armenian Genocide

There's an antisemitism scandal at Rutgers University, and this one doesn't involve Jasbir Puar (she does have a new book coming out though, criticizing Israel for not killing more Palestinians. You think I'm joking).

No, this one centers around microbiology professor Michael Chikindas, whose social media feed contains a veritable smorgasbord of antisemitism, from calling Judaism the "most racist religion in the world", to putting up images claiming Jews control everything from the Federal Reserve to the sex trafficking industry, to posting a cartoon where a Jew literally steals money from poor children to give it to Israel. Oh, he also wants everyone to know that Israel has a lot of gay people (I guess "pinkwashing" doesn't work on everyone).

But let's cut through the old and hone in on the new.

In one post, Chikindas claimed, “Israel is the terrorist country aimed at genocidal extermination of the land’s native population, Palestinians,” and added: “we must not forget that the Armenian Genocide was orchestrated by the Turkish Jews who pretended to be the Turks.”

Now, I've actually tracked Jewish discourse around the Armenian genocide before. I was sharply critical when Jewish organizations soft-played the issue to appease Turkey, and I was vocal in praise when they moved towards recognition. But this is the first time, I think, that I've heard that Jews actually orchestrated the genocide while "pretend[ing] to be the Turks." Crafty!

Fortunately, Chikindas claims he has Jewish descent and even used to be married to a Jew (hey, just like Alice Walker!). So any concerns about antisemitism are obviously spurious.

But just to remove all doubt, Chikindas says he is absolutely open to having a "civilized" conversation about his claims, e.g., "These jewish motherfuckers do not control me. They can go and fuck each other in their fat asses."