Controversial Poem Isn’t Anti-Semitic
Regarding the Feb. 9 story on New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka’s supposedly anti-Semitic poem, “Somebody Blew Up America,” I would suggest that the rest of the poem is being overlooked. In it Baraka asks:
Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said “America First”
and ok’d the yellow stars
Anti-Zionist he may be, and probably too controversial for the government post to which he was appointed, but I don’t think he can be accurately described as an anti-Semite based on the poem in question.
Alexander Wells
Hollywood
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