To whom Kanye West was referring when he decried “the Jewish underground media mafia” is, I confess, not entirely clear to me. Nor did Chris Cuomo press the point in their interview on Monday. Nonetheless, as a Jewish person who publishes a newspaper, I’m happy to respond. 

Our paper, The New York Sun, has been among the most spirited defenders of the free exchange of ideas and has opposed from the start the “cancel culture” that has ravaged our public discourse. It has also, in the past, defended Mr. West while others have condemned his antics. 

Yet the extent to which Mr. West has absorbed the vast cannon of antisemitic thought has now become clear. In recent interviews he’s accused “Jewish Zionists” of sexual depravity, and said Jewish people “own the Black voice.” He also claimed that Jewish success is tainted by immorality.

His remarks were described by journalist Bari Weiss as “a perfect antisemitic hat trick.” Later, he blustered, “I want Jewish children to look at their Jewish daddies and say, ‘why is Ye mad at us?’” In an interview with Piers Morgan on Wednesday, Mr. West was unrepentant. “I fought fire with fire,” he explained. 

On one level, I must admit, I’ve actually found Mr. West’s remarks somewhat motivational.  It is, after all, hostility of the kind he is airing that inspired me to cast my lot with the newsmen in the first place. Sometimes, no doubt, the mental illness of which he himself has spoken gets the better of him. 

Yet both of my grandmothers are child survivors of the Holocaust. They faced markedly similar accusations from the antisemites of their own day. It’s ironic that Mr. West is echoing these ideologues, who would have condemned both my family and his to the same fate. 

Among the many absurdities of antisemitism are its inconsistencies. Despite its exclusionary nature, its adherents occupy a broad and diverse tent. They come, at times, from the right and the left, from capitalists and communists, minorities and majorities, light and dark skinned people, old and young, and members of every nation. 

I’m also aware of the likely outcome of Mr. West’s tirades. They will, in effect, assign a target to the backs of my own children, just like was done to their great-grandmothers before them. Surely Mr. West must appreciate this as well as I do; it’s hard not to imagine that it’s his intent.

Yet I do not take for granted that unlike at the time of our matriarchs, condemned to suffer in silence as they were, I do not have to stay silent in today’s America, where a Jewish man or woman may publish a newspaper and thus, as they see fit, respond to the bigots.

It is this medium, in particular, that draws inspiration from Jewish tradition, which carries among its central tenets an appreciation for the power of words and the written word, as both positive and negative forces.

Mr. West should be aware, given his turn in recent years to born-again Christianity, that, according to the Hebrew Bible, the world was brought into being by the word. Also spoken were the Ten Commandments, laws that are cherished by both Jews and Christians, and form the bedrock of modern society.

The saga of Mr. West reminds us that for every destructive word that is spewed there is a constructive word that may be mobilized to confront it. He has affirmed that the opportunity to educate and inform in the face of ignorance is never one that should be taken for granted. 

The Jewish track record over millennia has been unfailing. We are the people of the word, and the words will long outlast Mr. West. His fate will be to live out his days in the long shadow that his own utterances have cast. 

Mr. West walked into that trap himself, though it was warned of in the ancient treatise on Jewish ethics known as Orchot Tzadikim: “Before you speak, you are the master of your words. After you speak, your words master you.”