12 | OCTOBER 7 • 2021

opinion

Beyond Naming and Shaming: New
Strategies Needed to Combat Antisemitism
T

he American Jewish
Committee (AJC)
announced in August a
“Disrupt antisemitism” initia-
tive offering funding “for new
ideas to combat antisemitism,
locally, nationally or virtually.”
The initiative
is to be com-
mended both
because it may
produce new
approaches and
in launching this
effort, the AJC is
acknowledging
that existing strategies may not
be able to reverse the alarm-
ing increase of antisemitism
underway. The rabbinic sage
Rav Nachman is oft quoted:
“The endpoint of knowledge is
to know that we don’t know.”
Fighting antisemitism is now
one of the highest priorities of
virtually every North American
Jewish federation and many
national Jewish organizations.
Community security systems
are being strengthened and
there are continuous calls for
bold new initiatives to combat
antisemitism. Determining the
most effective strategies for the
North American Jewish com-
munity to respond to increased
antisemitism requires clarify-
ing our understanding of what
is taking place, assessing what
has and is being done, and
developing strategies for the
most effective ways to move
forward.
“Naming and shaming” has
been the Jewish community’s
primary strategy to combat
antisemitism for decades.
Acknowledging that hate, racial

stereotyping and antisemitism
are part of the human con-
dition, multiple efforts were
forged including litigation,
legislation and arguably most
important, successfully creat-
ing a broad public consensus
— among elites and the media
— that expressions of antisemi-
tism were simply unacceptable.
When we read or heard of an
antisemitic speech, statement,
article or book, Jewish leaders
called it out and pressed politi-
cal, cultural and religious lead-
ers and the media to denounce
those responsible and insist
they be shamed, censured
or removed from leadership
positions. These efforts were,
and remain, impactful and
no doubt deterred unknown
numbers of purveyors of hate
from expressing their antise-
mitic views. That said, “naming
and shaming” is clearly not
sufficient on its own to halt,
let alone reverse, the growth of
antisemitism.
Local and national Jewish
organizations have also long
sponsored dialogues with lead-
ers of other ethnic, racial and
religious groups. These efforts

created valuable relationships
essential when crises occur,
strengthened partnerships to
advocate for Israel, and enabled
collaborative endeavors to work
on a range of issues nationally
and locally. That said, such dia-
logues have been almost always
limited to relatively small elite/
leadership groups.
As a community, we instinc-
tively understand reports of
attacks on Jews as being part
of the centuries-long history of
Jew hatred that led to attacks
on Jews and Jewish commu-
nities, pogroms and, ulti-
mately, the Holocaust. While
understandable, we might
ask whether this is the wisest,
most strategic way to frame
our collective response. As but
one example, in 2018 when
the horrendous attack took
place at Tree of Life synagogue
in Pittsburgh, there were over
320 mass killings in America
defined by four or more people
being killed. After most mass
killings, media and public
officials primarily focused on
the promiscuous availability of
guns and mental illness. After
Tree of Life, the public focus

— with the active participation
of Jewish leadership — was
overwhelmingly on combating
antisemitism. And we ought
to note while the murderer
uttered vile antisemitic state-
ments, he focused on the role
of Jewish organizations, HIAS
in particular, for sponsoring its
Refugee Shabbat program and
related work.

JEWISH WORLD DIALOGUE
The Jewish People Policy
Institute (JPPI) conducts annual
dialogues of community leader-
ship in the Jewish world. JPPI’s
eighth Jewish World Dialogue,
in 2020, focused on the rise
of antisemitism and how it is
understood principally by Jews
in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Eleven
dialogue sessions were conduct-
ed by my colleague Dr. Shlomo
Fischer and me, nine in North
America and two in Israel, with
154 participants.
While we ought to be cau-
tious generalizing from the
limited number of Dialogue
participants, what emerged
from JPPI’s 2020 Dialogue
may be helpful. “Most partici-
pants attributed the increase of
antisemitic views and acts to
the increase of racism broadly
and pointed to the growing
role of social media” in dis-
seminating hate, racism and
antisemitism.
In terms of how to respond
most effectively, “most believe
the Jewish community should
develop coalitions with other
racial and ethnic groups to
combat racism broadly — even
with groups that hold views on
Israel and other issues (such

John Ruskay,
Ph.D.

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