At least they're consistent.
Antisemitism on the left is always the fault of Israel. If only Israel hadn't been created, the Soviet Union wouldn't have been anti-Semitic. Ira Stoll at the Algemeiner catches the old leftist lady in this smear.
The rest of the Times review is characterized by similar inaccuracy. “It was after World War II, and especially after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, that Stalin’s erratic stances toward Jews turned into full-bore anti-Semitism,” Mr. Farago writes.
The Soviet Union was always anti-Semitic because Communism was always anti-Semitic. The far left has always been anti-Semitic as the writings of Marx and Fourier make rather clear.
The worst abuses of the Yevsketisia, the Jewish Section, predated Stalin. The purge of synagogues, Rabbis, artists, writers and organizations had been underway before Stalin. And certainly long before 1948. Writing that Stalin turned anti-Semitic in 1948 betrays a malicious ignorance of history. That was the point where Stalin's anti-Semitism turned more overtly genocidal. But it was always there.
The gulags were full of Jews long before '48. Countless Jews had been murdered long before that.
And while Stalin was uniquely murderous, he just drew on an existing Communist template. He didn't invent or innovate Soviet anti-Semitism.
But the New York Times is more comfortable trying to justify anti-Semitism on the left by linking it to Israel. And that's another reminder that anti-Zionism is just anti-Semitism misspelled.