The question, for me, is how do Jews define “normal.” One could argue that the treatment of Jews and the Western view of Israel post-WW2 was actually “abnormal” when compared to the prior 2000 years (more so in Europe than America). The tidal wave of antisemitism that building before and exploded after 10/7, the “othering” of Jews, the blood libels and conspiracy theories is actually a return to “normal” for much of the West. The mistake isn’t the hope that pre-10/7 normalcy would return, it’s the belief that the abnormal was the new normal.
We are not actually alone in this regard. I spend my time listening to the Terror of the non-Jewish Services I monitor in Britain that living standards in this country are about to collapse taking everything with it. So we are not alone. Fear it would seem is actually universal. This need not be I should add.
I find much of what you describe deeply disturbing, and I do not doubt the reality of the antisemitism you are witnessing. But I am left with an uneasy feeling after reading this: are we perhaps spending too much time describing the manifestations of antisemitism and too little trying to understand the mechanisms that reproduce it?
The statistics, the political examples, the language used at demonstrations, universities and in the media are important. But they tell us mainly what is happening. They do not yet explain why it is happening, why it has become socially and politically effective, or why so many people are willing to adopt narratives that turn Jews, Israel or Zionism into convenient symbols of a much broader conflict.
This matters because a struggle between competing narratives can easily become self-perpetuating. One side says, “Look how antisemitic the world has become.” The other replies, “Look how Israel is being defended against criticism.” Each side accumulates evidence for its own narrative, while the underlying social mechanisms remain largely unexamined.
I wonder whether the more difficult and ultimately more productive questions are elsewhere. What social conditions make scapegoating effective? Why does moral polarization make particular groups so useful as symbols of collective guilt? How do political incentives, identity, social media, group conformity and the need for simple explanations transform criticism of Israel into something much broader? And why do certain ideas migrate so successfully from the margins into mainstream institutions?
Without addressing questions like these, the fight against antisemitism risks becoming largely a fight over narratives: one narrative against another, one moral vocabulary against another. That may mobilize people who already agree with us, but I am not sure it changes the mechanisms that generate the phenomenon in the first place.
Your final distinction between optimism and hope is powerful. But perhaps there is another distinction worth making: between condemning antisemitism and understanding it. The first is necessary. The second is indispensable if we want to become more effective than simply reacting to its next manifestation.
I would be very interested in seeing more of that second kind of analysis. Not because the danger is exaggerated, but precisely because it is serious enough that moral denunciation alone seems insufficient.
When I visited last October the Nova killings (364 dead) and the horrors at Nir Oz Kibbutz and Nahal Oz military base brought it all home. I relished the revenge Israel was delivering to Hamas and the Gazans. Their beautiful coastal enclave was destroyed, thousands died, yet they never surrendered. Instead, they became the victims of 'colonial oppression' and garnered the world's sympathy, a reversal of unimaginable proportions, quite unlike our own 9/11. Then the killing continued, the forever wars against Iran and its proxies, the condemnation of Israel as a pariah state, the rise of antisemitism, the loss of support among the Democrats here, and soon the Republicans. American Jews, huge supporters of Israel, Zionists really, began to waver: is this what being Jewish means today? Are our lives threatened in America by the actions of a bad government there? If so, what to do about it? It calls into question the very meaning of Judaism to those who practice it, from the most secular to the most orthodox. For me, enough is enough: both Israel and the US must move to more democracy and away from forever wars never won. Bad actors in the West Bank. Somewhere peace must be sought, even as Iran grows in power and its proxies succeed in Yemen and elsewhere, as whatever Israel is doing, and the US in support of it, isn't working. The Palestinians need new leadership as badly as Israel and the US; surely there is sanity to be found among those who tend away from the autocratic toward more freedom in the 21st century. But if such is not our reality, I find myself distancing myself from Israel, and hope that the policies it pursues will not rebound in some awful way on the Jews here in America. The elections this year are a start, and will tell us more about the feelings citizens of both nations are experiencing. But Jews here at home, here in NYC for example, are wondering if the success and safety of the American Diaspora is ending.
You're an optimist if you expect normalcy to return in our lifetime.
The question, for me, is how do Jews define “normal.” One could argue that the treatment of Jews and the Western view of Israel post-WW2 was actually “abnormal” when compared to the prior 2000 years (more so in Europe than America). The tidal wave of antisemitism that building before and exploded after 10/7, the “othering” of Jews, the blood libels and conspiracy theories is actually a return to “normal” for much of the West. The mistake isn’t the hope that pre-10/7 normalcy would return, it’s the belief that the abnormal was the new normal.
We’re back in Poland in other words.
We are not actually alone in this regard. I spend my time listening to the Terror of the non-Jewish Services I monitor in Britain that living standards in this country are about to collapse taking everything with it. So we are not alone. Fear it would seem is actually universal. This need not be I should add.
I find much of what you describe deeply disturbing, and I do not doubt the reality of the antisemitism you are witnessing. But I am left with an uneasy feeling after reading this: are we perhaps spending too much time describing the manifestations of antisemitism and too little trying to understand the mechanisms that reproduce it?
The statistics, the political examples, the language used at demonstrations, universities and in the media are important. But they tell us mainly what is happening. They do not yet explain why it is happening, why it has become socially and politically effective, or why so many people are willing to adopt narratives that turn Jews, Israel or Zionism into convenient symbols of a much broader conflict.
This matters because a struggle between competing narratives can easily become self-perpetuating. One side says, “Look how antisemitic the world has become.” The other replies, “Look how Israel is being defended against criticism.” Each side accumulates evidence for its own narrative, while the underlying social mechanisms remain largely unexamined.
I wonder whether the more difficult and ultimately more productive questions are elsewhere. What social conditions make scapegoating effective? Why does moral polarization make particular groups so useful as symbols of collective guilt? How do political incentives, identity, social media, group conformity and the need for simple explanations transform criticism of Israel into something much broader? And why do certain ideas migrate so successfully from the margins into mainstream institutions?
Without addressing questions like these, the fight against antisemitism risks becoming largely a fight over narratives: one narrative against another, one moral vocabulary against another. That may mobilize people who already agree with us, but I am not sure it changes the mechanisms that generate the phenomenon in the first place.
Your final distinction between optimism and hope is powerful. But perhaps there is another distinction worth making: between condemning antisemitism and understanding it. The first is necessary. The second is indispensable if we want to become more effective than simply reacting to its next manifestation.
I would be very interested in seeing more of that second kind of analysis. Not because the danger is exaggerated, but precisely because it is serious enough that moral denunciation alone seems insufficient.
When I visited last October the Nova killings (364 dead) and the horrors at Nir Oz Kibbutz and Nahal Oz military base brought it all home. I relished the revenge Israel was delivering to Hamas and the Gazans. Their beautiful coastal enclave was destroyed, thousands died, yet they never surrendered. Instead, they became the victims of 'colonial oppression' and garnered the world's sympathy, a reversal of unimaginable proportions, quite unlike our own 9/11. Then the killing continued, the forever wars against Iran and its proxies, the condemnation of Israel as a pariah state, the rise of antisemitism, the loss of support among the Democrats here, and soon the Republicans. American Jews, huge supporters of Israel, Zionists really, began to waver: is this what being Jewish means today? Are our lives threatened in America by the actions of a bad government there? If so, what to do about it? It calls into question the very meaning of Judaism to those who practice it, from the most secular to the most orthodox. For me, enough is enough: both Israel and the US must move to more democracy and away from forever wars never won. Bad actors in the West Bank. Somewhere peace must be sought, even as Iran grows in power and its proxies succeed in Yemen and elsewhere, as whatever Israel is doing, and the US in support of it, isn't working. The Palestinians need new leadership as badly as Israel and the US; surely there is sanity to be found among those who tend away from the autocratic toward more freedom in the 21st century. But if such is not our reality, I find myself distancing myself from Israel, and hope that the policies it pursues will not rebound in some awful way on the Jews here in America. The elections this year are a start, and will tell us more about the feelings citizens of both nations are experiencing. But Jews here at home, here in NYC for example, are wondering if the success and safety of the American Diaspora is ending.