It's Jew Hatred, Stupid
Antisemitism is an indicator of societal health.
Evan Gottesman is the director of communications and special projects at the Renew Democracy Initiative and managing editor of The Next Move.
Someone woke up yesterday and decided to have a go at murdering Jews. That seems to be an increasingly common phenomenon in America.
This time around, it was in West Bloomfield, Michigan. A man rammed a truck into a synagogue and started shooting. There were children in the building. Mercifully, the only one killed was the would-be killer.
It’s a terrible thing to admit, but these attacks sort of blend together for me. Place names stick out, yet the details fade. Pittsburgh. Poway. Boulder. The last outrage is always replaced by a newer, fresher outrage.
I am an American and I am a Jew. We, Jew and non-Jew alike, need to have a talk before another US town becomes a byword for lethal antisemitism. Jew hatred is a whole-of-society problem. Antisemitism is a moral stain. More than that, it erodes the institutions around which all Americans structure our lives.
The FBI tracked 7,773 antisemitic incidents over the last five years, more attacks than any other religious group experienced in that timeframe. Jews are only two percent of the US population, meaning we’re overrepresented as doctors, lawyers, and hate crime targets.
Those statistics should jolt you. The world’s most antisemitic societies aren’t doing so hot. Look at Russia. Hungary. Many Arab and Muslim states. There were 100,000 Jews in Iran in 1979. Today, there are fewer than 10,000.
Nations that succumb to antisemitism also suffer authoritarianism, corruption, and poverty. This isn’t divine punishment (I’m an atheist, goddamnit). Instead, antisemitism is an indicator of societal health. Pointing fingers at Jews means eschewing complexity and embracing conspiratorial thinking. Standards fall, and politics becomes grievance theater, more about casting blame than coming up with solutions.
That scourge is taking root in the United States.
The rejoinder to complaints about antisemitism these days is almost always the same: Israel.
Earlier this month, left-wing commentator David Klion bemoaned that “every synagogue and community center flying an Israeli flag has made us all less safe, and for what?”
I have no illusions about Israel. I proudly worked for an Israeli human rights watchdog and made multiple visits to the occupied Palestinian territories.
I accept that Israel, especially under its current far-right government, is a factor in global antisemitism. I accept that in the same way that I accept that Islamist regimes and terrorists shape perceptions of Muslims worldwide, while also rejecting Islamophobic vitriol and violence.
But I refuse to accept Klion’s claim that synagogues flying the Israeli flag—or associating with Israel—make Jews less safe.
First of all, a synagogue is a Jewish space, and half of the world’s Jews live in… Israel. For many American Jews, myself included, Israelis are relatives and friends. Most shuls display the Stars and Stripes on the bimah alongside the Israeli flag. Does that make them responsible for America’s sins too?
Let’s indulge this most uncharitable assessment of American Jewish life. Assume that US synagogues all back the Israeli government to the hilt (which is not true).
You still don’t know the politics of every church or mosque that you pass. I suspect that some of these institutions promote ideas you dislike. Yet you somehow resist the urge to break down their doors and murder the people inside. If someone attacked another house of worship, you would condemn it without qualification.
Excuses for antisemitic violence premised on a congregation’s supposed politics invite a breakdown of ordered society. Vigilantes get to decide who lives and who dies. It’s another trend that should alarm every American.
The decay is already visible. Consider the canonization of the January 6 insurrectionists on the right. Look at how CEO-killer Luigi Mangione became a folk hero. Read the confused, passive messages from major news outlets and Mayor Zohran Mamdani after two ISIS-inspired teens threw homemade bombs in New York City.
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If we are going to talk about Israel, then we also need to discuss the mainstreaming of hating Israelis. Not the government of Israel. The people of Israel.
A few days before the Michigan attack, hooligans assaulted two Israeli Americans at a San Jose restaurant. The victims made the mistake of speaking Hebrew in public. That earned them a “fucking Jew” and some punches to the face.
My wife and I have wedding bands with matching Hebrew inscriptions—matzati et she’ahava nafshi—“I have found whom my soul loves.” It’s small enough to evade detection in most encounters. But when we’re sitting in a public place for a long time, I start to think about what happens if the wrong person takes notice.
This very real anxiety is made possible by the fact that Israelis (or Zionists, if you’re feeling spicy) have become the objects of socially acceptable hate in American popular discourse.
Often the hatred emerges in ways so banal they’re almost comical.
People were thrilled when the Israeli team was knocked out of the World Baseball Classic this week. I mean ecstatic. Not because their team won. Because the Israelis lost. The tournament’s official graphic, bluntly announcing in all caps, “ISRAEL ELIMINATED,” probably didn’t help. (To be honest, I found it darkly funny; America’s pastime has joined the Axis of Resistance!)
The New York Mets’ official network, SNY, posted that the team had beaten Israel in an exhibition game. That post drew thousands more likes than any other recent content from the account. Hundreds piled into the comments to share that this was the one time they’d root for the Mets.
It’s weird, off-putting behavior. Meanwhile, those intense feelings are conspicuously absent when teams from authoritarian countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua take to the field.
There’s a term popular with Gen Z: “spiritually Israeli.” If it’s tacky or bad or needlessly expensive, it’s spiritually Israeli. Taylor Swift’s newest album. The Dodgers winning the World Series. AI-generated art.
“Spiritually Israeli” is my generation’s “late-stage capitalism,” a phrase conjured up to absolve those using it of any critical thinking. Except, unlike “late-stage capitalism,” “spiritually Israeli” assigns society’s problems to a specific group of people.
This fad pairs nicely with the casual abuse of the term “Zionist.” The Z-word has been drained of its meaning, becoming shorthand for “person or thing I don’t like.” A viral TikTok describes Starbucks employees as Zionist. I’m not quite sure what that means. I have to assume it’s nothing good.
Sometimes, the animosity is entirely transparent.
I recently saw a tweet from a college classmate, shared to his not-insignificant following of 14,000 people. “I’m so sick of these baby-killing parasites sucking away my tax dollars in service of their unending bloodlust & religious nuttery while I can barely afford housing, healthcare, and education.” He wrote this above a video of Israeli civilians in a bomb shelter, dancing and singing al tira Yisrael (“don’t be afraid, Israel”).
It bears repeating that Israelis account for half of world Jewry. You can’t credibly say that you don’t hate American Jews, you just despise the 50% of Jews—some seven million people—who live outside of the US.
This sort of bile inspires a few crackpots to actually try killing their fellow Americans, and it lulls many more into complacency and denial. Despising strangers because of where they were born or the language they speak is trendy if the targets had it coming. It is dumb, mind-rotting hate, and it makes us all stupid.
I’ve felt for a long time that we need a better bullshit meter for evaluating antisemitism.
Here is a simple thought experiment: Substitute “Jews” for any other group when the charge of antisemitism is being debated.
Take the role of AIPAC, the Israel-right-or-wrong lobby. I’m not a fan, and the organization is fair game for critique. Calling out AIPAC is not antisemitic, just as pointed criticism of CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is not Islamophobic. However, someone who obsesses over Muslim organizations is probably an Islamophobe. And if someone only talks about AIPAC, if the group becomes shorthand for everything wrong in American politics, might there be a whiff of Jew-baiting in the air?
Be honest about the excuses we make for politicians if they represent our side. All is apparently forgiven when it comes to the rightwing pundits who catapulted Holocaust revisionist Candace Owens from a nobody recording videos at her kitchen table to the apex of political stardom. The president can play footsie with as many white nationalists as he likes since he has Jewish advisors and his daughter happens to have converted to Judaism. Is “I have a black friend” still an acceptable pass for racism? Well, “he’s good for Israel”—whatever that means.
What about a politician who needs to be pressed multiple times to denounce the slogan “globalize the intifada”? Intifada just means “uprising” in Arabic! (Google what kampf means in German; it’s not literally “kill the Jews,” so it’s fine, I guess). What should we think if that same politician’s wife likes social media posts glorifying the “resistance” of October 7, “resistance” that overwhelmingly killed Jewish civilians?
How many Nazi-adjacent controversies can a Democratic candidate (who until a few months ago had a tattoo resembling an SS symbol on his chest) rack up before it’s weird? How much rope would you give to a Republican in the same position, especially if they lied about their totenkopf tat?
Is “all forms of hate” a useful way to discuss antisemitism? Is “all lives matter” a sincere reckoning with racism?
We scrutinize problematic statements from Israeli and American officials down to the letter. But when a regime’s raison d’etre is “death to Israel,” and they repeat the chant over and over again for decades and back it up with missiles, are we supposed to believe that what they really mean is that they want to be our friends, and maybe play some sports with us on weekends?
Reconciling all of these comparisons assumes good faith. Sure, there are plenty of bad actors out there. All the same, I believe many well-meaning people also struggle to identify antisemitism because Jew hatred is the subject of a lot of overwrought intra-communal discourse. Naming antisemitism can mean navigating a sea of academic jargon, when a little perspective and a simple smell test will often do just fine.
Of course, we Jews have agency too, which means part of this conversation must be inward-facing.
Jewish organizations need to be judicious about what they call antisemitism. There is a boy-who-cried-wolf dynamic at play. It doesn’t excuse murder, but it muddies the waters.
Communal institutions frequently say they welcome “legitimate criticism of Israel,” while overreacting to what appears to be legitimate criticism of Israel.
Look at the communal meltdown over the word “apartheid.”
When California Governor Gavin Newsom described Israel as “sort of an apartheid state” as it pursues annexation of the West Bank, several Jewish organizations erupted.
Jewish California, a coalition of local community groups in the Golden State, called Newsom’s comments “inflammatory.” Yet the apartheid label is bog-standard criticism among many left-leaning Israelis, including multiple former prime ministers.
Apartheid (and, for that matter, genocide) is ultimately a legal term for a specific set of abuses. Israel is a state, which, like all mortal institutions, has the capacity to commit abuses. You can dispute these allegations on the merits, but blood libels they are not.
Frenzied responses to comments like Newsom’s are irresponsible. They risk adding fuel to attacks on America’s liberal democratic institutions in the name of protecting Jews.
Remember that the Trump administration’s war on universities is being justified as a crusade against antisemitism. ICE kidnapped an international student over an op-ed she wrote about Gaza. Brazenly unconstitutional overreach endangers everyone. Minorities don’t tend to fare well under the tyranny of the majority. Do not think American Jews will be an exception.
This is all rather bleak. So let me close by saying, to the extent it’s possible: try to be happy and normal about all of it.
There are plenty of grifters in our community who get off telling other American Jews that everything is antisemitic, and we should be pissed off all the time. And then there are another set of grifters whose Jewish identities revolve around dismissing antisemitism as one big Israeli psyop.
Right-wing influencer Lizzy Savetsky wears a permanent scowl while posting videos of her children crying at pro-Palestinian protests (don’t do this to your own kids, by the way). Matt Bernstein, her left-wing foil, smugly proclaims that “Zionism will be the cause of the greatest surge of antisemitism in my lifetime” (and not, you know, antisemites). Sometimes I wonder if either could sit through a Passover seder without being an insufferable dweeb.
Yes, someone tried to kill Jews in America yesterday. Yes, it’s making our country worse. But being miserable will leave you considerably less effective at combating antisemitism (or any societal ill).
Turn your phone off, tune out the noise, and find some joy in who you are.
More from The Next Move:
The Trojan Horse of Campus Antisemitism
The federal government is exploiting real concerns about Jew hatred as a vehicle to deliver a right-wing policy grab-bag.
The Russians Are Loving This
Charlie Kirk’s assassination and political violence in America have Russian propagandists downright giddy. It’s all fodder for a war being waged on social media.
Thank you. I’ve been waiting too long for an article to articulate this. The far left claims that the Israeli flag is a shield, but they are using it as a shield as well. A shield to deflect all antisemitic thought and chalk up to “well actually we are just mad at Israel. Being mad at a sovereign state isn’t antisemitic”
This is a lie they tell themselves. Their judgements and biases still stem from antisemitic sentiments.
When you hear somebody cry that Israel controls all the world’s purse strings and acts as a puppet master, that’s an inherently antisemitic thought predicated on the idea that Jews are greedy manipulators that control everything. The fact is Israel does not control much at all. You can easily observe this if you simply pay attention. Like any state, Israel seeks to influence social narratives to its favor. It tries and it largely fails. That’s just self interest, a theme all sovereign states are guilty of. They would not be sovereign if they weren’t self interested…
If you’re going to pick on a single state and build a case that it’s unusually and unacceptably aggressive, your argument should not be littered with hypocrisies about every other state in existence. You should take other states into consideration in your condemnation of Israel, lest you be accused of closed-minded bigotry and stereotyping. This is the very foundation of antisemitism, double standards and punishing Jews for not behaving according to how they think a Jew should behave.
Very thoughtful piece with well written and excellent points, Evan, even though I personally do not agree with all of them.
Antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred and, very sadly, disturbingly, and horrifically will likely increase in the United States and world in the near future partly because of the appalling conduct of the Israeli government and foolish, reckless, illegal, and immoral decision of the Trump regime to take our nation to war with Iran.