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After the Yom Kippur synagogue attack in the UK this week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the terrorist “attacked Jews because they are Jews.”
Really?
What a revelation.
As though this is some profound discovery, as though it requires commentary. Jews have always been attacked because they are Jews. From Pharaoh to Haman, from the Crusaders to the Nazis, from Hamas gunmen to the so-called “lone wolves” roaming the streets of London, New York, and Melbourne — antisemitism has never needed another reason.
To restate it with wide-eyed wonder is to betray how little our leaders understand the nature of the war being waged against us. They speak as if antisemitism is an occasional outbreak, an aberration, when in fact it is a permanent, metastasizing feature of global society, shifting shape but never disappearing.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the way the Jewish state itself is treated. Israel is unique among nations not simply because it exists, but because it is told that it has no right to win. Every war Israel fights is judged not by the justice of its cause, but by whether it dares to survive. Its victories are treated as “disproportionate,” even criminal.
The world never asks Hamas or Hezbollah to lose. It never asks Iran to give up its genocidal ambitions. It only demands that Israel exercise restraint, that Jews absorb endless violence without defending themselves too effectively. Jewish survival, when it is active and muscular, is seen as offensive. Victory, in the case of the Jews, is the ultimate sin.
Meanwhile, in the West, leaders wring their hands about antisemitism, promising inquiries and commissions and extra protection, while allowing the very conditions for violence to fester. Governments grant permits for marches where mobs chant “Death to the Jews!” — while police arrest Jews for standing up to Hamas supporters. Universities that meticulously police pronouns look away at open calls for Jewish extermination. Media outlets produce sanctimonious headlines about “cycles of violence” that erase the fact that one side seeks genocide while the other seeks survival.
Why?
Because, as the great writer Dara Horn wrote in her book, people love dead Jews. Much of the world honors Anne Frank in hiding, but not the Jewish soldier defending his homeland. It loves Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day of mourning, but sneers at Israeli Independence Day, the day of rebirth. It loves Jews as victims but resents them as survivors. It will weep for the dead, but rage against the living who refuse to die.
Part of the reason Jews are caught off guard is that we are too stuck on the Holocaust. We imagine that the next catastrophe will look like the last one: another Auschwitz, another Hitler, another Final Solution.
But that blinds us to what is happening right before our eyes. This is not another centralized Holocaust with cattle cars and camps. It is a decentralized Holocaust. Instead of gas chambers, there are car rammings, knife attacks, shootings, synagogue sieges, and mobs.
Instead of a single dictator, there are networks of radical Islamists, campus radicals, and online propagandists. They are called “lone wolves,” but they are not lone. They are linked by ideology, funded by foreign powers, emboldened by governments who tell police to stand down, and shielded by media that rebrands terror as protest.
In Britain, Jews who dare to oppose Hamas publicly are arrested, while those who march with terrorist flags go untouched. In Los Angeles, police were told not to preemptively intervene as a synagogue was surrounded by a hostile mob. This is not random chaos; it is systemic permission. The Nazis wore uniforms; these terrorists wear keffiyehs. The intent is the same.
The war against the Jews is not only physical; it is also fought with cameras and headlines. Every time Israel defends itself, the global media turns its lens not on the massacre that provoked the war, but on carefully staged images of Palestinian suffering. Jewish blood barely registers, but Jewish defense becomes a scandal. “If it bleeds, it leads,” but only if Jews are bleeding, not if Jews are fighting back.
The result is devastating: Media coverage does not just reflect antisemitism, it manufactures it, ensuring every Jewish act of self-defense is delegitimized and every Jewish victory painted as a crime.
We are told we have allies, but we must face the illusion of what that really means. Western politicians post “Never Again” on Holocaust Remembrance Day, then vote to fund Palestinian schools that teach children to stab Jews. Universities hold diversity summits that erase Jewish security concerns. Clergy proclaim love for the Jewish People while urging Israel to make concessions that would leave it defenseless. These are not allies. They are mourners-in-waiting, who love us most when we are powerless and voiceless, when we are a memory to be pitied rather than a people defending itself.
And, so, we must stop using the term “anti-Zionism” and we must call any form of it antisemitism, Jew-hatred, racism, bigotry. The distinction between “anti-Zionism” and antisemitism is a grandiose lie. The “Israel only” standard — no right to borders, no right to self-defense, no right to exist — is nothing more than the oldest hatred in modern clothing.
When Jews in London or Los Angeles are attacked, it is not because of Israeli settlements or Benjamin Netanyahu. It is because, to the antisemite, the Jew on the street is the same as the Jew in Israel. “Anti-Zionism” is not a political position. It is antisemitism with a press pass.
This war is not only about bombs and bullets; it is also about psychology. Jews are told to hide their kippot, to take down their mezuzot, to “avoid confrontation.” Employers advise Jews not to be “too loud” about Israel. Politicians tell us not to provoke. It is nothing less than a return to the ghetto — except this time the walls are self-imposed through fear. The effect is corrosive. Jews begin to believe they cannot be fully themselves unless they shrink, apologize, or camouflage. The long-term cost is spiritual as much as physical: the erosion of Jewish confidence, the internalization of Jewish insecurity.
Thankfully, today I saw a video circulating of an American Jew confronting a man in a keffiyeh with simple, undeniable truth: “Just be honest, you hate Jews.” The man instantly grew tense, flustered, exposed. As he should have. That is the lesson. We must stop indulging the euphemisms. “Anti-Zionist,” “pro-Palestinian” — these are fig leaves for the oldest hatred. Call it what it is. Name it. Shame it. Strip away the mask.
And while we are stripping away masks, let’s be honest about how the world sees us: The media almost always illustrate stories about antisemitism with images of bearded Hasidic men or sidelocked Hasidic boys. Secular Jews, Modern Orthodox Jews, Jewish women of any kind — they’re nowhere to be found.
Apparently, in the popular imagination, Jews are like the dwarves of fantasy: short, male, and eternally bearded. It’s a lazy stereotype, but also a revealing one. The world wants us caricatured, reduced, frozen in a single costume. Because the more they flatten us, the easier it becomes to hate us.
We have seen this before. Every generation invents a justification for why Jews are fair game — religion, race, money, nationalism. The costumes change, the excuses change, but the outcome remains the same: Jewish survival itself is treated as the ultimate crime. To understand this history is not despair; it is clarity. Antisemitism does not disappear; it mutates; it flows into new channels, finding new masks, but always carrying the same hatred forward.
So, what must we do?
The answer is not to beg for protection from leaders who betray us, nor to appeal to international law that is enforced selectively. The answer is to turn inward, to strengthen Jewish unity and Jewish power. We must invest in self-defense — not only physical protection for our synagogues, schools, and communities, but also intellectual, cultural, and political defense. We must stop waiting for others to secure us and secure ourselves.
Diaspora Jews should consider dual citizenship in Israel, not only as an escape hatch, but as an affirmation of identity and solidarity.
We must build economic solidarity, supporting Jewish businesses, philanthropy, and investment in Jewish futures. We must invest in cultural resilience, producing media, art, technology, and education that tell our story with pride rather than apology.
The global war against the Jews will not end by appealing to the consciences of those who have none. It will not end by trusting those who love us only in death, but resent us in life. It will end when Jews stop apologizing for their survival and begin exercising unapologetic power.
The lesson of history is unambiguous: Those who love dead Jews will never defend living ones. Only Jews can do that. And we must.
Sadly everything you say is true. The revolting hatred from Countries is vomit inducing. I agree that separating Zionism from antisemitism is ridiculous. It’s one and the same. The Government must stop these evil marches as a start. The are acting in a vacuum cowering like frightened animals. I will never forgive them. My prayers are for all Jewish people and for Israel. 🙏
Very well written and explained, however we can see example after example of Jews, being their own worst enemies always voting party line even if the politician is clearly against what is best for the Jewish people someone I know who is quite religious and observant she is voting for Hochul who endorsed Mandani