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Dismantling Antisemitism
- Rabbi Sarah Weissman
- 3 hours ago
- 8 min read
Rosh Hashanah 5786
Two old Jews are sitting on a park bench in Nazi Germany. One is reading a Yiddish newspaper, and the other is reading Der Sturmer. When the second man starts chuckling to himself, the first man cries, “It isn’t enough that you’re reading that Nazi rag, but now you actually find it funny?!” The second man answers, “Look, if I read your paper, what do I see? Jews deported, Jews assaulted… but in this one, I finally get some good news! It turns out, we run the banks, the government, the whole world!”
The oldest hatred. Antisemitism has existed practically as long as Judaism itself. In every generation, to be a Jew has been to know that not everyone likes Jews. Consider the words of Haman to King Ahasuerus in the book of Esther, written at least 2200 years ago: “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws; and it is not in Your Majesty’s interest to tolerate them.” (3:8). 2200 years ago, Jews were already familiar with some of the antisemitic tropes we encounter today: the Jews are scattered everywhere, hiding among regular people but following their own strange practices, disloyal and dangerous to the countries they live in. By the time the Talmud was written around 1500 years ago, being hated was an integral part of Jewish identity. So the Sages declare, “When a potential convert who comes to a court in order to convert to Judaism, the judges of the court say to him: ‘What did you see that motivated you to come to convert? Don’t you know that the Jewish people at the present time are anguished, suppressed, despised, and harassed, and hardships are frequently visited upon them?’” (Yev. 47a). In other words, seriously? You want to be Jewish? Does this look like fun to you? And only if the convert answers, “I know, and although I am unworthy of joining the Jewish people and sharing in their sorrow, I nevertheless desire to do so,” does the court accept him to begin the conversion process. Crusades, blood libels, ghettoes, pogroms, the Holocaust, to be a Jew has very often meant to suffer at the hands of those who hate Jews.
Some of us may have thought we’d left that identity behind. Growing up, I assumed that antisemitism was something my parents and grandparents had to deal with, but that, aside from an occasional ignorant remark, it wasn’t really a problem in this country anymore. The Jews I knew who were most worked up about antisemitism were, in a word, old, or at least old-fashioned. They were understandably traumatized by their memories, or their family’s memories, of the Holocaust, and so saw antisemitism everywhere they looked. But everyone I knew, everyone in my generation, thought of antisemitism as history.
It would be hard to make that argument now. In the last ten years, and especially in the two years since October 7, the number of antisemitic incidents has soared. I don’t need to recount the most horrific for you. Suffice it to say that today, many Jewish people are afraid. And while scholars and pundits have numerous theories for why antisemitism has reared its ugly head in this way, on my most pessimistic days, I fear that author Dara Horn’s argument might be the one closest to the truth: “The last few generations of American non-Jews had been chagrined by the enormity of the Holocaust–which had been perpetrated by America’s enemy, and which was grotesque enough to make antisemitism socially unacceptable, even shameful. Now that people who remembered the shock of those events were dying off, the public shame associated with expressing antisemitism was dying too. In other words, hating Jews was normal. And historically speaking, the decades in which my parents and I had grown up simply hadn’t been normal. Now, normal was coming back.”[1]
From the view of history, it might seem that hating Jews is normal. Antisemitism has, after all, been a surprisingly adaptable hatred. We’ve been hated for being capitalists and Communists, for being too clannish and too cosmopolitan, for being too weak and too powerful. Today there are antisemites on the left, right, and middle of the political spectrum. As Elie Wiesel observed, “All the contradictions of human nature converge in anti-Semitism.”[2] But just because it seems normal, and just because it feels like it’s everywhere, doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do about it.
I want to be clear that antisemitism is not a problem to be solved by Jews any more than racism is a problem to be solved by people of color. But there are things that Jewish people and those who love Jewish people can do to both mitigate the harmful effects of antisemitism and to join with others in helping to create a world in which antisemitism has no place.
First, we can change the way we talk about antisemitism. Have you ever noticed the metaphors that are often used to describe antisemitism? Two of the most common analogies are antisemitism as water and antisemitism as disease. We hear news reports on “waves” of antisemitism, or the “rising tide” of antisemitism, or how antisemitism “ebbs and flows.” Or we read about how antisemitism has “infected” the world, how it’s “spread” across the globe, or how someone is a particularly “virulent” antisemite. As the Jewish social justice organization Bend the Arc points out in their guide “Dismantling Antisemitism,” “Both of these metaphors reinforce a flawed analysis of antisemitism: that it is a part of nature and therefore will always exist; that it was not created by humans and cannot ever truly be stopped by humans; and that it is indiscriminate, equally present and equally damaging no matter its source or their political motives. [T]he effect of this story on listeners is to increase the unhelpful feelings of isolation, fear, and division, making us less likely to take action to end antisemitism.”[3] In other words, by using these metaphors to describe antisemitism, we unconsciously reinforce and perpetuate its power. Instead, we can acknowledge the long history of antisemitism without drawing the conclusion that it is therefore a permanent, innate part of society.
Bend the Arc argues that we should use the metaphor of antisemitism as a machine. A machine suggests several important concepts: “[that] antisemitism was built by people and is used by people for a specific purpose… [that] anyone can fuel antisemitism, intentionally or even unintentionally; [that] we can stop it, shut it down, dismantle it; and [that] antisemitism is part of a larger whole, directly connected to other problems, and addressing it is intrinsically connected to other struggles.”[4] While changing the way we speak about antisemitism may seem inconsequential, Jewish tradition teaches us that language is powerful, that words create worlds.
The last point about dismantling the machine of antisemitism by connecting the fight against it to other struggles is fundamental to our task. It is both morally, factually, and strategically the appropriate orientation to have. Morally speaking, how can we advocate for an end to hatred of Jews without also working towards ending the hatred of Black people or women or members of the LGBTQ community? If we believe that every person is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God, and should be treated as such, then we have a moral obligation to work towards making that real, not just for us, but for everyone. Factually, antisemitism is deeply connected to anti-Black racism and other forms of hate. As the civil rights organizer Eric Ward explains,
The successes of the civil rights movement created a terrible problem for White supremacist ideology… How could a race of inferiors have unseated this power structure through organizing alone? For that matter, how could feminists and LGBTQ people have upended traditional gender relations, leftists mounted a challenge to global capitalism, Muslims won billions of converts to Islam?... Some secret cabal, some mythological power, must be manipulating the social order behind the scenes. This diabolical evil must control television, banking, entertainment, education, and even Washington, D.C. It must be brainwashing White people, rendering them racially unconscious. What is this arch-nemesis of the White race, whose machinations have prevented the natural and inevitable imposition of white supremacy? It is, of course, the Jews.[5]
Ward’s conclusion that “antisemitism forms the theoretical core of White nationalism” suggests that we cannot undo one without addressing the other. And strategically speaking, Ward adds, it’s much easier to find allies and build coalitions once we realize that we all have skin in the same game.
Linking the fight against antisemitism to struggles against other forms of bigotry is also more effective and less risky. It might be tempting for us to believe that antisemitism is unique and therefore deserves special attention, but we should be wary when those in power single out antisemitism as a wrong to be righted. Too often, these endeavors come at the expense of other marginalized people, or are really just a pretext to advance an autocratic political agenda. As Rabbi Sharon Brous points out,
“[T]his tactic– Jews as a scapegoat to divide our society and weaken democratic institutions– is not new. This is a playbook that has been used by authoritarians of the far right and the far left throughout history, those whose interest is in sowing division, justifying repressive policies, and distracting the population from the truly nefarious and rapacious agenda it is advancing at warped speed.”[6] Antisemitism should be taken as seriously as other forms of bigotry are, and of course we should insist that Jews be included in the protection provided by antidiscrimination laws and policies. But safety and dignity are not zero sum games; they are actually the opposite. As the great Jewish poet Emma Lazarus put it, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”[7]
There’s one more thing we can do, in addition to changing the way we speak about antisemitism and in working with other communities to end antisemitism along with other forms of hate and oppression. We can remember to love Judaism and live by its ideals. Remember the convert in the Talmud, who’s asked, “Are you sure you want to become Jewish, given everything we have to endure?” He says, “Yes, I know, and even so, I want to join you.” All of us here today have chosen, in one way or another, to associate ourselves with this people and this tradition. It must be somehow worth all the tzuris! Deborah Lipstadt, the historian and former Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, writes, “Combating antisemitism requires a shift in perspective…. It must sprout from a positive place. We must know what we are protecting from assault. We must be motivated far more by our love for the insights, wisdom and joy embedded in Jewish culture than by the fight against those who harbor an insane hatred of it.”[8] Antisemitism has endured for millennia, but that’s because Judaism has endured for millennia. Our tradition is deeper and stronger than hate will ever be.
As we enter this new year, let us renew our commitment to dismantling the machine of antisemitism, racism, and bigotry. And may we never forget the precious heritage and the precious people who make our struggle worthwhile.
[1] People Love Dead Jews, pg. 217.
[4] Ibid.
[5] https://politicalresearch.org/2017/06/29/skin-in-the-game-how-antisemitism-animates-white-nationalism
