The Musk “Salutes” and the Treachery of the Jewish Establishment

OK, we get it.  The Jewish Federations, the Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, most Jewish journals and top rabbis are passionately devoted to Israel.  Israel, right or wrong, Israel drunk or sober.  But when an incredibly important man gives Nazi-like salutes at the inauguration party for Trump 2.0 you’d think these luminaries would raise a gshrey (Yiddish for “scream”).  Nope, barely a whimper.

Immediately after Musk did his gesticulation, observers compared it to a Nazi salute.  Here’s the Jerusalem Post headline “Did Elon Musk Sieg Heil at Trump’s inauguration?”  (the Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil”, meaning “Hail to Victory”. )  The venerable Jewish Telegraph Agency wrote on its site, “Elon Musk’s straight-armed gesture at inauguration event ignites comparisons to Nazi salute”  Jerry Nadler, the Jewish Democratic congressperson from Manhattan, called the gesture antisemitic and said other officials should condemn it.  “I never imagined we would see the day when what appears to be a Heil Hitler salute would be made behind the Presidential seal,” he remarked in a tweet. “This abhorrent gesture has no place in our society and belongs in the darkest chapters of human history. I urge all of my colleagues to unite in condemning this hateful gesture for what it is: antisemitism.”

But then the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL, which calls itself the world leading expert on antisemitism and which has appointed itself the leading group combatting that prejudice denied Musk had done anything wrong.  Just a few hours after the inauguration party the ADL tweeted that “It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, but not a Nazi salute.”

The big Jewish organization sites who respond with rage when someone scrawls “Free Palestine” on a wall reacted extremely mildly to Musk’s arm thrusts or were simply silent.    The Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote, “It would be appropriate for him to clarify or apologize for today’s gesture and focus his energy on tackling the critical challenges ahead.”  Then they dropped the matter.  The American Jewish Congress?  Nothing at all about Musk’s salute. The Zionist Organization of America, nada.

Search for “salute” on the site of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and you see a piece condemning Nazi salutes, but the article is from 2016.  Then they were up in arms about Richard Spencer’ supporters doing straight-arm salutes inside a federal building.  One can barely remember that event. Somehow Musk’s arm-thrust before millions seems more significant.

How about Deborah Lipstadt? This historian served as the Biden administration’s Special Envoy Combating Global Antisemitism.  She downplayed the Musk Nazi-looking salutes and told the Jewish Telegraph Agency that essentially there were bigger fish to fry.  She also said that she agreed with the ADL that it was merely an “awkward” gesture

Randi Weingarten is the long-time president of the American Federation of Teachers and is also active on Jewish issues.  To be fair on the 20^th she did retweet Abe Foxman’s calling out Musk for his “Nazi salute.”  On the other hand, Weingarten was on a panel with Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the ADL in Davos, Switzerland on January 25 along with former Harvard president Larry Summers.  The topic was “Confronting Antisemitism and Polarization”.   After witnessing Musk’s arm-thrust, arguably the biggest neo-Nazi signal on international media since the Second World War, no one made any mention of it.  The panel only discussed antisemitism in terms of Palestine.  There was no mention even of the January 6 riot and the pardon of many rioters who were open about their hatred of Jews.  Weingarten did take time to brag that at the AFT national convention last year she was able to defeat all the “extremist” resolutions on Palestine.

Getting down to the state level the “Southern New England Jewish Ledger” has made no mention of Musk’s gesture.  When you search for the word “Musk” on its webpage there’s a piece about Musk in Jerusalem in 2023 and an article “Antisemite of the Week.”  But that article is not about Musk, it’ piece originally from “Stop Antisemitism” which had given that designation to actor John Cusack .   Looking further at that site you find that other “winners” included Jewish writer Nathan Thrall and activist Greta Thunberg.  There’s no mention of Musk’s salute on “Stop Antisemitism.”

The Washington Jewish Week told its readers to look at the video “What we saw was an exuberant Musk, emotionally, and yes, awkwardly, trying to connect with his adoring crowd.”  Funny, when you show love to your fans you usually do it with a smile and not a grimace as Musk did at Trump’s party.  But maybe it’s a DC thing.

There were, of course, many Jews who completely sided with Musk.  I’ll mention just one.  Jeff Donetz of the Jewish Press issued a condemnation, but it wasn’t of Musk.  He lambasted AOC.  His dubious reasoning was that Musk’s gesture wasn’t a Nazi salute because it would dumb for an owner of a car company to make a Nazi salute. “Even if he were a Nazi (which he isn’t), Musk would have to be such an imbecile, even dumber than AOC, to ‘out’ himself on national television.”  Not really.  There was once this auto giant named Henry Ford who was not at all afraid to “out” himself as an antisemite.

Then Netanyahu completely koshered Musk.  Not mentioning the salutes at all, the self-styled leader of all Jews, Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, “@elonmusk is being falsely smeared. Elon is a great friend of Israel.” And on and on about Musk’s pro-Israel bona fides.

Not all were so sanguine.  Bend the Arc: Jewish Action was rightfully furious.  It immediately replied sarcastically to the ADL on Twitter. “19 year old student says ‘Free Palestine’  Antisemitic!  Musk backs Germany’s AfD and antisemitic replacement theories.  Buys Twitter so Nazis load at the top.  Sieg Heils multiple times.  Give him the benefit of the doubt.”

The prestigious Lemkin institute for Genocide Prevention issued several tweets. In the first it noted Musk’s “clear use of the Nazi salute” and abhorred him for sending the “antisemitic genocidal signal”.  Two days later it returned to Musk and implored that Americans “take Nazi and ‘alt-right’ symbolism very seriously.”

The political editor of the major German paper Die Zeit entitled his article “Ein Hitlergruss ist ein Hitlergruss ist ein Hitlergruss”  Hitlergruss means “Hitler Salute”.  MSN translated the whole article.

What about those in the U.S. who are happy to describe themselves as far-right or neo-Nazis? They think Musk was speaking to them.  Rolling Stone explains they were ecstatic.  For instance, “The Proud Boys Ohio chapter posted to(sic) a clip of the Musk video to its Telegram channel with the text, “Hail Trump!”

But what did Elon Musk say about his salute?  He sure didn’t apologize or explain his “gesture.”   He promptly replied to the ADL tweet with just two words, “Thanks guys.”  In another tweet he said criticism of what he did at the inauguration was simply “dirty tricks.”   He responded to Netanyahu’s “great friend” post with a tweet  “The radical leftists are really upset that they had to take time out of their busy day praising Hamas to call me a Nazi.”

Now if this gesture was a one-off, we might bend credulity and maybe believe that it was an innocent expression of love to the Trump crowd of 20,000.  But Musk has a record.  After he bought Twitter, he allowed all kinds of hard-right haters and insurrectionists back and antisemitic posts skyrocketed.  In June 2023 he reposted a Q claim that Hollywood elites were harvesting a substance from children to extend the lives of the elites. The original tweet included the words, “You can do the adrenochrome or you can hate the Js.” Five months later he reposted a claim that Jewish communities were flooding the U.S. with minorities and added the comment “You have said the actual truth” to his then 170 million followers.  He campaigns for the furthest far-right party in Germany, the AfD against which thousands demonstrated in 2024 when it was learned leaders had met with neo-Nazis.  Only a fool or a knave would give Musk the benefit of the doubt.

Musk showed his contempt for critics and his Jewish lickspittle supporters on January 23 by tweeting Nazi themed puns, like “Stop Gőring your enemies!” and other jokes using the names of Nazi war criminals. A few days later Musk’s face was projected on a giant screen in Germany as he told AFD supporters that children shouldn’t be guilty for what their “fathers” or “great-grandfathers” did.  It was a wink, wink to those in Germany who want to forget the Nazi horrors of World War II.

Besides what people said, what did they do or not do to counteract Musk?  Congress  bloviates frequently on claims of antisemitism there but no member introduced a resolution.  There are no online petitions from mainline Jewish organizations nor did any  propose an action to protest Musk.

However, two protests should be noted.  In Berlin Germany an activist group with the interesting name “Led by Donkeys” used a projector to put a display on a Tesla building.  It showed video of Musk doing his salute along with images of Musk supporting the far-right all over Europe.  It also projected the words “Heil” next to the name “Tesla” on a massive factory wall and then projected the word “Boycott” next to “Tesla”.

In the USA a Milwaukee TV weather reporter named Sam Kuffel denounced Musk on her personal Instagram page.  The post was private, but someone must have ratted her out.  She was fired by channel CBS 58.  A petition was launched in her defense. A billboard that was rented by the Minocqua Beer Super PAC facing the building of CBS 58 depicts Musk’s salute and has the words, “Stand with Sam Kuffel, Boycott CBS 58, Don’t ‘Obey in Advance’.“