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