Thanks to Future of Jewish for featuring my article.
I appreciate all the comments. Since there are so many, I just wanted to thank all of you here at once. Now that I've woken up to all the lies and psyops, I will do my best to undo the damage I've done to everyone—to you, my family, my friends, my fellow Marines, and my country—during the darkest years of my life.
It's always been in my nature to correct myself and make things right.
That said, I’m curious. In the article, you say that you had decided to abandon antisemitism, *before you met Jake Turx. What in yourself led you to that decision?
You are a beautiful soul. The Torah is all about forgiveness and teshuva. In fact those that return to goodness and truth stand even closer to G-d than those that never sinned (according to Judaism). Gmar Chasima Tova, blessed New Year.
I am always searching to find a better way to engage with prejudice. The guest column by Lucas Gage is both interesting and encouraging. However, the experiences described in the column all took place after Lucas, on his own, had decided to leave the antisemitic movement and made that decision public. How would this approach actually work for someone, who on their own, had not already decided to leave the antisemitic world.
Great article. It takes a big person to admit they had something wrong. I’ve had to do that regarding a few things in the past few years and it can be humbling
Great article, but anti-Zionism is antisemitism. As the author even pointed out, sometimes antisemitism was religious, sometimes it’s racial, now it’s landed on it. It’s just politics. Anti-Zionism is an antisemitic hate movement. It engages in di legitimization, dehumanization and double standards against Jews and Israel. And Greta herself has repeated Nazi and Soviet propaganda. Which is standard for anti-Zionist.
This is fascinating. In real life, I wonder how many antisemites and anti designers are willing to have a civil conversation. I hope there are many more people like you out there.
As the Haggadah says, just because someone is actively disengaged doesn't give you a pass about trying to engage him. Similarly, you have to also engage those who are wise, those who are simple, and those who are so befuddled they don't even know how to ask a question. You find a lot of the last group at protests repeating chants they were taught, unaware of what they mean.
Your essay leaves me hopeful that the jew hate, so prevalent now, may be on the wane. Thank you for your open mindedness. May your revelations spread among the wayward thinkers and bring peace with it.
Interesting essay by a man who was willing to listen and capable of critical thinking. My son went into the Army straight out of high school and served as an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gratitude to Lucas for his service, and to all those who serve in the military and in law enforcement.
Thank you for being so honest about your journey. You have taken a bold step and now you can, hopefully, influence and have conversations with others to rethink their antisemitism with the facts.
Appreciate your candor and insight. You nicely review the evolution of antisemitism from religious to racial. But I think antizionism is the natural and obvious evolutionary next step. Israel’s existence has changed the equation and antizionism in its modern manifestation - genocide libel; Israeli citizens treated as active soldiers; BDS; etc - is the new face of antisemitism.
I sincerely appreciate that Lucas had the humility to admit he was wrong and change course despite years being immersed in ideologies that were so hateful and ignorant. I can personally relate to that in a way, albeit from the opposite end of the spectrum, having previously been a radical leftist activist for years. I certainly feel remorse for that time in my life, and I know that people can change.
That said, I respectfully disagree with his suggestion on approach. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink. Lucas alone made a conscious choice to depart from the hate movement, and I don’t believe it was coincidental that the point at which he was open to engaging in more respectful conversations with non-judgmental Jews came after he had already experienced that seismic internal shift.
And what drove that shift? I firmly believe shame played a critical role. Of course, this is impossible to prove, but he acknowledged in this piece being worn down by over a decade of fighting— while the threats and vitriol may have to some extent fueled his rage, it seems to have also eroded his certainty and/or his stamina to fight in the longer term.
I think that’s important to highlight, because despite what he wrote, we actually do share many values. We may not believe in the same religious doctrines or behavioral codes of conduct, but Jews— radical, conservative, secular or orthodox, are as much part of the diverse patchwork of American society as White people (including supremacists, liberals, conservatives, Christians, etc). We share common laws and basic collective norms, and generally speaking we all mostly adhere to those.
In fact, the comparison between a minority of Jews excelling in America and a hypothetical minority of Arabs controlling the Jewish state and pushing Islamic values is moot because A) Jews don’t leverage positions of power to push Jewish doctrines (most Jews in positions of power are notably secular and assimilated), and B) American values are commonly referred to as “Judeo-Christian” for a reason— while I don’t broadly like that term, there were Jews here very early in American history, and our legal system was informed by the founders’ appreciation for the Hebrew bible. We are not outsiders or interlopers in America, we are part of it.
Regardless, being nicer is not something that has contributed to Jewish survival or historically changed minds. We do not owe friendly conversations to people who make habits of weaponizing, mocking and diminishing the genocide of our grandparents (the decimation of almost half our population, in this lifetime, which we still haven’t recovered from).
Anti-Zionism is almost always antisemitism. There is no other state that has its existence debated even when they commit clear atrocities, from North Korea to Russia and beyond. The singular obsession with vilifying the only Jewish state, whether they want the Jews expelled or exterminated, is still antisemitic.
We have every right to keep calling this out. Being nice or extremely conservative about when to label something antisemitic has not and will not curb the existence of antisemitism.
But as long as there continue to be consequences for antisemites within this legal and cultural paradigm, whether that is losing jobs or credibility (things that can happen to anyone, whether you’re Paula Deen saying the “n” word or Louis CK exposing yourself to random women), then so be it.
Macklemore lost a venue, boo hoo. He’s still wealthy, still has a massive platform, and even if he’s been made a martyr and even if it fuels paranoid delusions from racist morons who are already predisposed to believing Jews control everything, it draws a line. No, we will not condone Jewish people being subject to hateful vitriol at a concert they paid good money to attend (from an artist renowned for being typically politically neutral).
I don’t think Robert Kraft went far enough! He should’ve taken Macklemore and Ed Sheeran’s plea and made a $2 million donation to the FIDF in their names. But the beauty of being human beings is that we all have our own approach.
I don’t doubt that kindness and openness deepened your understanding. I don’t doubt that many Jews wish to take that approach with any antisemites (and I also personally feel many but not all of them are being doormats or cowards). But there is a season and a place for everything, and no one size fits all.
Many have tried to develop a perfect recipe for how to extricate people from cults or hateful ideologies, and many have failed. Germany deradicalized fairly successfully after the fall of the Nazis by effectively rubbing their noses in how evil what they did was, and that worked for a long time— until they were hoisted by their own petard and effectively taken over by Islamists because of their excessive collective guilt fueling extreme liberalism. But there was something there, and it’s shame.
Anyways, thanks for sharing your journey. Those people you used to be in community with sound very frightening, and I pray you stay safe from them— it’s not easy walking away from a group like that. I commend you for it.
I do not think that Lucas Gage is saying "one size fits all".
He is showing that some people who currently have antisemitic views may be amenable to changing their minds and that we should remember that and consider reaching out and trying to sort out who might be amenable and use the sort of approach that Jake Turx used:
"He didn’t accept my claims, and he didn’t just deny them either. He asked, “Why do you think that? What makes you think that?”"
"This approach was the key. Think about it: How would the conversation have gone if Jake used shaming tactics and brought up the Holocaust? The old playbook would have driven me away. More importantly, he didn’t deny history as it’s actually recorded, including the uncomfortable parts, like Jewish overrepresentation among early communist leaders. He just dealt with the points. But he also taught me how those things also led to Jewish persecution in Russia, how religious Jews were treated, and other things I didn’t know."
Yes, this approach requires patience! A willingness to listen and respond, and listen more and not switch into an attack mode. Not all of us will be willing to take the time to do this. Not all those to whom we speak will be as open to rethinking as Lucas Gage was. But I am glad that Gage has described what "worked" to change this mind, so that we can keep in mind that this will be fruitful with some people.
I'm glad you found your way back to reality and humanity. It seems you were already on the path back before you met with the Jewish man. God bless him for taking the time to sit with you. But...with respect. You are really in no position to advise us on how to deal with the avalanche of Jew hatred that is dropping on our heads. It is simply not possible to fight this scourge by sitting down and having coffee with every Jew hater or even some of them. Remember you were already on the path back. You were open. The people in your former "movement" are most certainly not. Moreover who are you to separate anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism and should not be separated. The spreading of blood libels about Israel is no different than claiming Jews control the world. Take this in. I do thank you for writing this.
Whoa! Why swat him down? Lucas Gage is not telling us what to do, as if what moved him is a panacea. He is just describing what worked to change his mind.
He is telling us what HE intends to do:
"There are many people I’ve turned into antisemites who I still want to reach. If they’re ever going to leave it, it will be through the same kind of conversation that reached me: honest, calm, with no covering up uncomfortable history and no excuses for anyone’s bad behavior. The order matters. De-escalate first, debunk the claims, and give the person room to deradicalize, because destroying the ones who could still be reached turns them into the ones who can’t.
I changed when the dust settled and the people across from me were willing to talk. If the censorship and the attacks had never stopped, when would I have been calm enough to even consider that I was wrong?"
Article is wonderful, as is the superb Future of Jewish, which keeps growing and broadening its understanding of what faces us. God bless you, editors and Mr. Gage.
The "problem" wasn´t an alleged "Jewish overrepresentation among early communist leaders" but that these Jews were Self-Haters. The Jew Hate among "Leftists","Socialists", "Communists" is NOTHING "new" but goes back to its very beginning: WHY does no one want to know this ? Still today, "Leftists" can make the world believe they were "poor persecuted victims" of Hitler just like the Jews.
But they said most similar things about "The Jews" before 1933 as the "Right Wing" fascists did and do.
Hitler didn´t eliminate "Socialists" because they were "enemies": they were competitors ! - to be shoved out of the way.
The Hitler movement was called "National Socialism".
Karl Marx "as a Jew" and founder of "Communism" was a blatant Jew Hater, there are several antisemitic quotings documented of him and have been recorded—for instance, regarding Ferdinand Lassalle, who frequently provided Marx with financial support.
Antisemitism—or self-hatred—is inherent to (not only Jewish) leftists.
In its early years, Israel was dominated primarily by "left-wing" politicians and parties.
To this day, Israeli and Jewish leftists - whose "Kibbuzism" is a more or less "Communist" idea - remain notably—and unpleasantly—prone to self-hatred and destructiveness, while adhering to an extraordinarily "orthodox" brand of leftism as I recall from many absolutely hopeless discussion with "Left" Kibbuzim Jews; however, they are certainly not alone worldwide as Leftists in their frantic anti-nationalist stance.
Sweden fought for its independence over the course of centuries and only managed to shake off Danish occupation after long, brutal conflicts in the 16th century. One would expect a Swedish woman to be aware of this history—and to grant Jews the same right.
If she refuses to do so—if she denies Jews the right to wage the kind of struggle that many other nations, not just Sweden, have had to endure—then that is, quite simply and obviously, antisemitism.
Apart from that, it is also obvious here that the babble of alleged "Elites" often takes a viceroy placeholder status for antisemitism.
Thanks to Future of Jewish for featuring my article.
I appreciate all the comments. Since there are so many, I just wanted to thank all of you here at once. Now that I've woken up to all the lies and psyops, I will do my best to undo the damage I've done to everyone—to you, my family, my friends, my fellow Marines, and my country—during the darkest years of my life.
It's always been in my nature to correct myself and make things right.
G'ma Chatima Tova, and a sweet year to you ✌️
That said, I’m curious. In the article, you say that you had decided to abandon antisemitism, *before you met Jake Turx. What in yourself led you to that decision?
@Lucas Gage Beautiful, thank you. I wrote a similar essay couple of years ago: “Confessions of a former antisemite”: https://t.ly/_sOxU
Would love to speak with you.
You are a beautiful soul. The Torah is all about forgiveness and teshuva. In fact those that return to goodness and truth stand even closer to G-d than those that never sinned (according to Judaism). Gmar Chasima Tova, blessed New Year.
I am always searching to find a better way to engage with prejudice. The guest column by Lucas Gage is both interesting and encouraging. However, the experiences described in the column all took place after Lucas, on his own, had decided to leave the antisemitic movement and made that decision public. How would this approach actually work for someone, who on their own, had not already decided to leave the antisemitic world.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes
I wondered that, too. What was it that initially made him decide to leave the antisemitic “movement”?
Exactly what I was going to comment. This approach only works on someone who has already come to that decision.
Great article. It takes a big person to admit they had something wrong. I’ve had to do that regarding a few things in the past few years and it can be humbling
‘It takes a big person’…
That’s what men do That’s what human beings do. That’s why Trump meets Xi, Thats why Sadat met Mier.
It’s rare but it happens. Thank God
It’s difficult to change long held beliefs. Your fine essay is a great roadmap for others who wish to honestly examine their own biases.
Perhaps a more difficult issue is that of Islam. How do you change those, “hearts and minds.”
Thank you for sharing your story. I hope it prompts others to follow your example.
Great article, but anti-Zionism is antisemitism. As the author even pointed out, sometimes antisemitism was religious, sometimes it’s racial, now it’s landed on it. It’s just politics. Anti-Zionism is an antisemitic hate movement. It engages in di legitimization, dehumanization and double standards against Jews and Israel. And Greta herself has repeated Nazi and Soviet propaganda. Which is standard for anti-Zionist.
This is fascinating. In real life, I wonder how many antisemites and anti designers are willing to have a civil conversation. I hope there are many more people like you out there.
As the Haggadah says, just because someone is actively disengaged doesn't give you a pass about trying to engage him. Similarly, you have to also engage those who are wise, those who are simple, and those who are so befuddled they don't even know how to ask a question. You find a lot of the last group at protests repeating chants they were taught, unaware of what they mean.
Your essay leaves me hopeful that the jew hate, so prevalent now, may be on the wane. Thank you for your open mindedness. May your revelations spread among the wayward thinkers and bring peace with it.
Interesting essay by a man who was willing to listen and capable of critical thinking. My son went into the Army straight out of high school and served as an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gratitude to Lucas for his service, and to all those who serve in the military and in law enforcement.
Thank you for being so honest about your journey. You have taken a bold step and now you can, hopefully, influence and have conversations with others to rethink their antisemitism with the facts.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Appreciate your candor and insight. You nicely review the evolution of antisemitism from religious to racial. But I think antizionism is the natural and obvious evolutionary next step. Israel’s existence has changed the equation and antizionism in its modern manifestation - genocide libel; Israeli citizens treated as active soldiers; BDS; etc - is the new face of antisemitism.
I sincerely appreciate that Lucas had the humility to admit he was wrong and change course despite years being immersed in ideologies that were so hateful and ignorant. I can personally relate to that in a way, albeit from the opposite end of the spectrum, having previously been a radical leftist activist for years. I certainly feel remorse for that time in my life, and I know that people can change.
That said, I respectfully disagree with his suggestion on approach. As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink. Lucas alone made a conscious choice to depart from the hate movement, and I don’t believe it was coincidental that the point at which he was open to engaging in more respectful conversations with non-judgmental Jews came after he had already experienced that seismic internal shift.
And what drove that shift? I firmly believe shame played a critical role. Of course, this is impossible to prove, but he acknowledged in this piece being worn down by over a decade of fighting— while the threats and vitriol may have to some extent fueled his rage, it seems to have also eroded his certainty and/or his stamina to fight in the longer term.
I think that’s important to highlight, because despite what he wrote, we actually do share many values. We may not believe in the same religious doctrines or behavioral codes of conduct, but Jews— radical, conservative, secular or orthodox, are as much part of the diverse patchwork of American society as White people (including supremacists, liberals, conservatives, Christians, etc). We share common laws and basic collective norms, and generally speaking we all mostly adhere to those.
In fact, the comparison between a minority of Jews excelling in America and a hypothetical minority of Arabs controlling the Jewish state and pushing Islamic values is moot because A) Jews don’t leverage positions of power to push Jewish doctrines (most Jews in positions of power are notably secular and assimilated), and B) American values are commonly referred to as “Judeo-Christian” for a reason— while I don’t broadly like that term, there were Jews here very early in American history, and our legal system was informed by the founders’ appreciation for the Hebrew bible. We are not outsiders or interlopers in America, we are part of it.
Regardless, being nicer is not something that has contributed to Jewish survival or historically changed minds. We do not owe friendly conversations to people who make habits of weaponizing, mocking and diminishing the genocide of our grandparents (the decimation of almost half our population, in this lifetime, which we still haven’t recovered from).
Anti-Zionism is almost always antisemitism. There is no other state that has its existence debated even when they commit clear atrocities, from North Korea to Russia and beyond. The singular obsession with vilifying the only Jewish state, whether they want the Jews expelled or exterminated, is still antisemitic.
We have every right to keep calling this out. Being nice or extremely conservative about when to label something antisemitic has not and will not curb the existence of antisemitism.
But as long as there continue to be consequences for antisemites within this legal and cultural paradigm, whether that is losing jobs or credibility (things that can happen to anyone, whether you’re Paula Deen saying the “n” word or Louis CK exposing yourself to random women), then so be it.
Macklemore lost a venue, boo hoo. He’s still wealthy, still has a massive platform, and even if he’s been made a martyr and even if it fuels paranoid delusions from racist morons who are already predisposed to believing Jews control everything, it draws a line. No, we will not condone Jewish people being subject to hateful vitriol at a concert they paid good money to attend (from an artist renowned for being typically politically neutral).
I don’t think Robert Kraft went far enough! He should’ve taken Macklemore and Ed Sheeran’s plea and made a $2 million donation to the FIDF in their names. But the beauty of being human beings is that we all have our own approach.
I don’t doubt that kindness and openness deepened your understanding. I don’t doubt that many Jews wish to take that approach with any antisemites (and I also personally feel many but not all of them are being doormats or cowards). But there is a season and a place for everything, and no one size fits all.
Many have tried to develop a perfect recipe for how to extricate people from cults or hateful ideologies, and many have failed. Germany deradicalized fairly successfully after the fall of the Nazis by effectively rubbing their noses in how evil what they did was, and that worked for a long time— until they were hoisted by their own petard and effectively taken over by Islamists because of their excessive collective guilt fueling extreme liberalism. But there was something there, and it’s shame.
Anyways, thanks for sharing your journey. Those people you used to be in community with sound very frightening, and I pray you stay safe from them— it’s not easy walking away from a group like that. I commend you for it.
I do not think that Lucas Gage is saying "one size fits all".
He is showing that some people who currently have antisemitic views may be amenable to changing their minds and that we should remember that and consider reaching out and trying to sort out who might be amenable and use the sort of approach that Jake Turx used:
"He didn’t accept my claims, and he didn’t just deny them either. He asked, “Why do you think that? What makes you think that?”"
"This approach was the key. Think about it: How would the conversation have gone if Jake used shaming tactics and brought up the Holocaust? The old playbook would have driven me away. More importantly, he didn’t deny history as it’s actually recorded, including the uncomfortable parts, like Jewish overrepresentation among early communist leaders. He just dealt with the points. But he also taught me how those things also led to Jewish persecution in Russia, how religious Jews were treated, and other things I didn’t know."
Yes, this approach requires patience! A willingness to listen and respond, and listen more and not switch into an attack mode. Not all of us will be willing to take the time to do this. Not all those to whom we speak will be as open to rethinking as Lucas Gage was. But I am glad that Gage has described what "worked" to change this mind, so that we can keep in mind that this will be fruitful with some people.
I'm glad you found your way back to reality and humanity. It seems you were already on the path back before you met with the Jewish man. God bless him for taking the time to sit with you. But...with respect. You are really in no position to advise us on how to deal with the avalanche of Jew hatred that is dropping on our heads. It is simply not possible to fight this scourge by sitting down and having coffee with every Jew hater or even some of them. Remember you were already on the path back. You were open. The people in your former "movement" are most certainly not. Moreover who are you to separate anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism and should not be separated. The spreading of blood libels about Israel is no different than claiming Jews control the world. Take this in. I do thank you for writing this.
" You are really in no position to advise us..."
Whoa! Why swat him down? Lucas Gage is not telling us what to do, as if what moved him is a panacea. He is just describing what worked to change his mind.
He is telling us what HE intends to do:
"There are many people I’ve turned into antisemites who I still want to reach. If they’re ever going to leave it, it will be through the same kind of conversation that reached me: honest, calm, with no covering up uncomfortable history and no excuses for anyone’s bad behavior. The order matters. De-escalate first, debunk the claims, and give the person room to deradicalize, because destroying the ones who could still be reached turns them into the ones who can’t.
I changed when the dust settled and the people across from me were willing to talk. If the censorship and the attacks had never stopped, when would I have been calm enough to even consider that I was wrong?"
Article is wonderful, as is the superb Future of Jewish, which keeps growing and broadening its understanding of what faces us. God bless you, editors and Mr. Gage.
The journey of a thousand miles can begin with a single step as a Chinese proverb!
The "problem" wasn´t an alleged "Jewish overrepresentation among early communist leaders" but that these Jews were Self-Haters. The Jew Hate among "Leftists","Socialists", "Communists" is NOTHING "new" but goes back to its very beginning: WHY does no one want to know this ? Still today, "Leftists" can make the world believe they were "poor persecuted victims" of Hitler just like the Jews.
But they said most similar things about "The Jews" before 1933 as the "Right Wing" fascists did and do.
Hitler didn´t eliminate "Socialists" because they were "enemies": they were competitors ! - to be shoved out of the way.
The Hitler movement was called "National Socialism".
Karl Marx "as a Jew" and founder of "Communism" was a blatant Jew Hater, there are several antisemitic quotings documented of him and have been recorded—for instance, regarding Ferdinand Lassalle, who frequently provided Marx with financial support.
Antisemitism—or self-hatred—is inherent to (not only Jewish) leftists.
In its early years, Israel was dominated primarily by "left-wing" politicians and parties.
To this day, Israeli and Jewish leftists - whose "Kibbuzism" is a more or less "Communist" idea - remain notably—and unpleasantly—prone to self-hatred and destructiveness, while adhering to an extraordinarily "orthodox" brand of leftism as I recall from many absolutely hopeless discussion with "Left" Kibbuzim Jews; however, they are certainly not alone worldwide as Leftists in their frantic anti-nationalist stance.
Sweden fought for its independence over the course of centuries and only managed to shake off Danish occupation after long, brutal conflicts in the 16th century. One would expect a Swedish woman to be aware of this history—and to grant Jews the same right.
If she refuses to do so—if she denies Jews the right to wage the kind of struggle that many other nations, not just Sweden, have had to endure—then that is, quite simply and obviously, antisemitism.
Apart from that, it is also obvious here that the babble of alleged "Elites" often takes a viceroy placeholder status for antisemitism.
Thank you for this. 🙏