4 | DECEMBER 29 • 2022
opinion
In Fighting Antisemitism, Jews
Can Be Our Own Worst Enemies.
We Shouldn’t Be.
U
nless you have been
living under a rock
for the past few
weeks, and even if you’re not
Jewish, you can’t miss the
fact that antisemitism is back
in the news
again: Kanye
West, Kyrie
Irving, Nick
Fuentes; extrem-
ists returning
in droves
to Twitter;
President
Donald Trump kowtowing
to antisemites over dinner at
Mar-a-Lago; Saturday Night
Live opening with a mono-
logue trafficking in antise-
mitic tropes; members of the
Black Hebrew Israelites intim-
idating Jewish fans coming to
Brooklyn’s Barclays Center,
and an endless feedback loop
of antisemitism coursing
across social media.
Coming at a time when
antisemitic incidents already
had reached the highest point
in recent memory, this is the
kind of mainstreaming of
antisemitism that we haven’t
seen since the 1930s.
If there’s one thing I’ve
learned as CEO of the Anti-
Defamation League, it is that
when it comes to the Jewish
people, hatred doesn’t dis-
criminate. When Kanye says
Jews control the music indus-
try, he’s not talking about rich
Jews or conservative Jews.
He’s not singling those who
may support Likud or those
who back Meretz, two Israeli
political parties. He’s not call-
ing out Orthodox Jews versus
Reform Jews. He’s talking
about us all.
Same with the white
supremacists who are circulat-
ing Great Replacement con-
spiracy theories about Jews
conspiring to bring more peo-
ple of color and immigrants
into America to “replace”
white people. They don’t care
if you are a die-hard MAGA
voter or a card-carrying mem-
ber of Democratic Socialists
of America. It doesn’t matter:
If you’re Jewish, you are in
their crosshairs.
Another unfortunate exam-
ple is the Mapping Project,
an insidious campaign that
ostensibly accused pro-Israel
Jews of conspiring together
in Boston. However, it didn’t
target only Zionist organiza-
tions. They targeted all Jewish
organizations, from a non-
profit helping the disabled to
a Jewish high school.
And yet, while our enemies
see us as one, the Jewish com-
munity too often seems riven
by discord and infighting.
We are divided around
religious practices and beliefs.
We are deeply riven by poli-
tics. We do not see eye to eye
when it comes to the State of
Israel, and at times we can’t
even agree on the definition
of antisemitism itself. At
times, absurdly, some Jewish
leaders seek to tear down
other Jewish leaders even as
it tears apart the communi-
ty, as Steven Windmuller, a
retired professor at Hebrew
Union College in Los Angeles,
recently documented.
I point this out not to
diminish the value of debate
and dissent — these are fun-
damental to our tradition.
But we need to be mindful of
when debate descends into
division.
Indeed, when viewed by
those on the outside, these
internecine divisions within
our community can lead to
misunderstandings and con-
fusion. Why can’t Jews agree
on anything? At best, hostility
makes us look petty, mean
and foolish. At worst, it allows
antisemites to see within us
whatever it is that they hate
the most.
Usually in the aftermath
of antisemitic attacks such as
we saw after the Tree of Life
shooting or the hostage sit-
uation in Colleyville, Texas,
Jews from across the political
spectrum set aside our differ-
ences and come together in a
show of unity. We lock arms,
proclaim we are one, call on
our policymakers to do more,
put up our defensive shields
and hope for the best.
But at a time when a celeb-
rity with a cult-like following,
Kanye West, or Ye as he now
calls himself, is using his
platform of 38 million-plus
social media followers to
spread hateful tropes about
Jews — the kinds of unhinged
and hateful canards, such as
Jewish control and power, that
have led to antisemitic attacks
throughout history — I would
argue that the locking-arms
response, while effective in
the moment, does not have
the staying power that we
could achieve if we had a
more unified and close-knit
Jewish community.
What does have staying
power? In this uniquely frag-
ile moment, we must choose
to embrace our differences, or
at least accept them and lean
into Ahavat Yisrael, the love
STEFANO MONTESI/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
PURELY COMMENTARY
Jonathan A.
Greenblatt
JTA