The trouble with LeBron’s ‘Jewish money’ Instagram post

LeBron inadvertently boosted a smear against Jews. The response should be about education, not anger.

Over the weekend, LeBron James posted a video to his Instagram Story of himself nodding along to 21 Savage’s “ASMR” in a car. It’s something he often does when new music drops. On the screen, LeBron typed out a stretch of the song’s lyrics: “We been getting that Jewish money, Everything is Kosher.”

The lyric 21 Savage put in his song and James typed out to his 46 million followers is unquestionably antisemitic. The big problem is not that it refers to money as “kosher,” a reference to a Jewish dietary restriction that probably means, in context, that the money was cleanly earned. The big problem is calling it “Jewish money.”

The association with Jews and money goes back to at least the Middle Ages and has had dire consequences all over the world. It played a key role in Nazi propaganda leading up to the Holocaust, when Hitler sought to portray Jews as leaches sucking up the German state’s resources as they infringed on the country’s racial purity. Visit any Holocaust museum, and you’ll see 1920s and ‘30s propaganda like this poster, which depicted Jews as rich people “pulling the wires” on the rest of society:

The Nazi regime then killed six million Jews.

The branding of Jews as a money-grabbing cabal quietly corrupting society has persisted, sometimes subtly, as a tool of bigotry for generations. It goes right along with insinuations that we, the Jews, control global politics and media. Sometimes it’s cloaked, like when you hear people talking about how Democratic donor George Soros, who’s Jewish, is actually paying off protesters or media who said something he doesn’t like.

Many of the people who boost this trope don’t realize what they’re doing. It appears LeBron didn’t. He deleted the video and apologized to those who were offended:

Apologies, for sure, if I offended anyone. That’s not why I chose to share that lyric. I always [post lyrics]. That’s what I do. I ride in my car, I listen to great music, and that was the byproduct of it. So, I actually thought it was a compliment, and obviously it wasn’t through the lens of a lot of people. My apologies. It definitely was not the intent, obviously, to hurt anybody.”

I believe that. The NBA does, too, and won’t take further action. This story will fade away shortly, and LeBron will return to making more positive headlines both on and off the floor.

The reason LeBron’s amplification of the lyrics is so troubling is that he has carved out a role for himself as the sports world’s moral conscience. He’s come by that job unofficially, but legitimately. He’s shown himself to be an incredible father to his own kids, and he’s invested time and money in a transformative school for underserved kids in Northeast Ohio. He’s spoken out against Donald Trump’s racism and spoken up for worthy causes he believes in. LeBron is now a social authority as much as he’s a basketball star. In this way, he’s become the definitive athlete of his generation.

In addition to all his followers, LeBron is reported on breathlessly by all of us in the sports media and by people who just want to tell their friends about his life. I can’t say how many, but there will be people who saw LeBron’s Instagram Story and will be more inclined to think allusions to “Jewish money” are OK.

Far more harmfully, there will be people who saw the (relatively light) media backlash to the whole episode and will blame those unhappy with LeBron for being mad. They’ll call the entire ordeal a big overreaction. If he could make clear that’s the wrong response, it’d be great.

Some have wondered about double standards and what the response would have looked like if a white person had sent out a song lyric including the N-word. In this case, though, it’s wholly possible that a person acting in good faith might not be up to speed on why this passage from a song is an expression of antisemitism.

Of course, many people know exactly what they’re doing when they lob this trash at the Jewish people, who make up 2 or 3 percent of the American population. Most do it from the safety of a keyboard. Others act on their hate, like the man who shot dead 11 people on a recent Saturday morning at the synagogue where most of my family grew up: Tree of Life in Pittsburgh. That was the worst of a troubling trend of rising hate crimes against Jews. The shooter had been active in the online antisemitic community, where nods to Jewish financial control are an ideological cornerstone.

LeBron is not within a million miles of that horrible camp. He’s devoted so much of himself to fighting for people who need it, embodying the Jewish principle of tikkun olam — making the world better for others, not just yourself. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt by never giving off a whiff of antisemitism before and going above and beyond to be good. Even the smartest among us mess up.

I won’t stop liking LeBron because he erred in signal-boosting antisemitism one time. I also don’t expect him to take up the mantle of Chief Antisemitism Fighter. He has enough on his hands with his own off-court work and the (probably) impossible work of getting the Lakers to a championship.

But I do hope he’s more careful. If he wants to make a better apology than the one to anyone he offended, that would go a long way.