commentary
Jews Increasingly See Discrimination
and Danger in U.S. Culture
Views
T
here is an old expression to
describe the Jewish love for debate
that goes something like this:
Where you have two Jews, you have three
opinions.
Yet when my organization, American
Jewish Committee (AJC), undertook the
largest and most comprehensive survey
of American Jews ever on
the topic of anti-Semitism
in the United States, we dis-
covered amazing agreement
across Jews of different
ages, political affiliations
and religious orientations.
What we found should
alarm not only Jews, but all
people of conscience.
Eighty-eight percent of American Jews
believe anti-Semitism is a problem in
America today and 84 percent say it has
gotten worse over the past five years. A
plurality — 43 percent — think it has
increased a lot.
More than one in three American Jews
(35 percent) say they have personally
been the targets of anti-Semitism over
the past five years. A similar number, 31
percent, avoid publicly wearing, carrying
or displaying things that might identi-
fy them as Jews and 25 percent at least
sometimes avoid certain places or events
out of concern for their safety as Jews.
American Jews do not believe that
anti-Semitism comes from a single
source. Eighty-nine percent of American
Jews believe the extreme political right-
wing represents a threat to Jews in the
U.S., 85 percent say the same of extrem-
ism in the name of Islam and 64 percent
say so about the extreme political left-
wing.
Finally, American Jews see a connec-
tion between undue criticism of Israel
and anti-Semitism. Eighty-four percent
of respondents said the statement “Israel
has no right to exist” is anti-Semitic. The
belief that rejecting Israel’
s existence is
anti-Semitic cuts across differences of
party affiliation, age and religious iden-
tity.
Eighty percent of respondents said the
statement “The U.S. government only
supports Israel because of Jewish money”
is anti-Semitic and 73 percent said so
about the statement “American Jews are
more loyal to Israel than America.”
Of course, the opinions of American
Jews are not the only barometer of
anti-Semitism, but they are an import-
ant one. Government officials, opinion
shapers and civil society leaders who
wish to be allies in the fight against
anti-Semitism should listen closely to
these views.
Aside from the State of Israel, there is
no nation that has proven to be a better
home for Jews than America. By any pos-
sible objective metric, few communities
in any country can match the success of
the American Jewish community.
Nevertheless, the fact that such a sig-
nificant percentage of American Jews
believe that hatred against them is on the
rise must not pass without notice.
What must be done? There are many
answers, including adopting a concrete
definition of anti-Semitism, increasing
education on the issue, protecting Jewish
institutions and publicly condemning
anti-Semitism, even when politically
inconvenient.
Yet, the first step may be as simple as
listening. When a swastika is spray paint-
ed on a building, don’
t dismiss it as mere
vandalism. When Jews object to the lan-
guage of a politician or leader you admire
or support, do not dismiss these charges
of anti-Semitism out of hand. When
Israel is demonized or singled out for
criticism, ask yourself if the same thing
could be said about any other country.
The overwhelming majority of
American Jews believe that anti-Semitism
is a real problem in the U.S. and that it’
s
getting worse. The question now should
be: What is the rest of America going to
do about it?
Daniel Elbaum is the American Jewish Committee’
s
Chief Advocacy Officer. This essay was first pub-
lished in the Chicago Tribune.
Daniel
Elbaum
10 | OCTOBER 31 • 2019
first half of 2019, compared to
785 incidents reported for the
same period in 2018.
In the year since the Tree
of Life attack, there have
been 15 plots, attacks or ter-
rorist threats against Jews by
extremists of all types.
The threats in these cases
were not idle, and the risks
were exacerbated by aggravat-
ing circumstances, including
criminal histories and/or the
possession of weapons or
bomb-making materials by the
prospective attackers.
In each case, explicit threats
were made against members
of the Jewish community and,
in most cases, the would-
be terrorists cited previous
white supremacist murders as
inspiration. In at least three of
these cases, ADL’
s Center on
Extremism provided critical
intelligence to law enforce-
ment, leading directly to
investigations and arrests.
ONE YEAR AFTER continued from page 8