Betrayed by Ye: Kanye West Goes from Artistic Inspiration to Purveyor of Antisemitism

As teenagers, my peers and I were taught the importance of personal branding by Kanye West (now Ye). His music sparked a community-wide appreciation for self-investment through fashion. Who can forget those iconic bar mitzvah shutter-shade giveaways?

To own a pair of the original Nike Air Yeezys defined a kid as the coolest on the block, and we were eager to do anything to get our hands on them. His music was the birth of his own hypebeast culture, a community-wide appreciation for self-investment through fashion The music served as a healing source of emotional comfort for this former young Jewish teenager who went through his parents’ divorce, scared of and pessimistic about rapid life-altering change.

We learned general business skills as well as the importance of fiscal responsibility through the streetwear market. We would hang out at any sneaker convention or consignment shop we could find in order to be part of the environment. Kanye made a lot of that possible.

But recently, he betrayed the Jewish community he helped motivate. After reading his horrific antisemitic remarks on social media, especially the words “Death Con 3 on Jewish people,” I felt a real sense of painful disillusionment, fear and, above all, rage. I felt a real sense of painful disillusionment, fear and, above all, rage. His follow-up insinuation that Jewish people are behind the curtains of “cancel-culture” was appalling, and despite its definition as a variant of the media control trope, Twitter did not remove the tweet.

I’m now 27, working in bipartisan Israel advocacy and devoting my career to researching extremism, combatting antisemitism, diplomacy, and the provision of opportunities for broader communities to connect with Israeli innovation.

I’ve also worked in partisan politics, enough to know that regardless of which party you support, we should all feel livid that former President Trump defended Kanye, no less within 48 hours of his suggestion that American Jews should “get their act together … before it’s too late.” Years in the partisan realm nearly took a dangerous toll on my own mental health as I watched several of my relationships and friendships collapse. Trump selfishly is still aggrieved he did not receive the majority Jewish vote in 2020 despite his boasts of doing more for Israel than any other president.

Speaking of partisanship, Kanye is not the only one who has betrayed the Jewish community. Candace Owen’s protection campaign of Kanye is the coup-de-grâce for her already desecrated reputation. Her hostile social media attacks targeting pro-Israel pundits followed by her TPUSA-sponsored appearance last week at Michigan State University serves as her middle-finger to every Jewish student on campus.

We began to see a familiar pattern of how antisemitic endorsements manifest themselves, when over the weekend a white supremacist group known as the Goyim Defense League placed signs on a Los Angeles freeway that said, “Kanye was right about the Jews.” It would be easy to ignore were it not for the fact that an alarmingly large number of people honked in support of them.

The Goyim Defense League is known mostly for dropping leaflets filled with their antisemitic screeds in neighborhoods in the dead of night. They recently had a presence at the University of Michigan on Rosh Hashanah. Their tactics are cowardly, but Kanye made his mainstream, as he loudly boosts the comments he had already doubled down on. But the end result is no less corrosive or ripe for condemnation. Kanye, a man who is already invoking Black Hebrew Israelite tropes, now is in an ideological matrimony with white supremacy.

I spoke to several interfaith partners, candidates and elected officials in Michigan from both sides of the political aisle who have expressed their disgust with Kanye’s rhetoric against Jews. The twisted reality is that we as a Jewish community have no choice but to accept that people like Kanye, people whom we once idolized, are easily capable of substituting virtue for violence.

The expansion of our digital ecosystem only amplifies our fears, and misinformation is always poised to spread faster than you can tweet or Tik-Tok. Former role models like Kanye can succumb to this cancerous desire of selfish opportunism and influence, rather than provide empathy and inspiration to communities.

Kanye West may have failed my community, but we will continue to speak out through our own counter-culture, a prescription of love and creative expression through our Jewish experience.

Adar Rubin is the Israel Associate at the Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC.