The Left's Jewish Cover Story

Left-wing political parties and groups across the West claim to be protecting Jews, while advancing an agenda that most Jews oppose.

The Left creates an illusion of Jewish alignment with its policies, while erasing the broader Jewish mainstream. (photo: Levi Meir Clancy/Unsplash)

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Last month, Jews were targeted in 39 hate crimes in New York City — one of the most liberal places on this planet — according to New York Police Department data.

There were more antisemitic crimes than hate incidents targeting all other groups combined, like nearly every other month. Jewish security officials say many more antisemitic crimes likely go unreported.

This is not happening in the shadows. It’s happening in the heart of “progressive” America — in neighborhoods plastered with “Hate Has No Home Here” signs and rainbow flags, on the same streets where people march for justice, equity, and inclusion.

And yet, when it comes to Jews, that “progressive” solidarity often disappears. The targeted minority becomes invisible. Or worse — suspect.

In the wake of the October 7th Hamas-led attacks on Israel — the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — this contradiction has become impossible to ignore. One might have expected a unified condemnation of antisemitic violence and a surge of moral clarity.

Instead, the reaction from much of the “progressive” Left revealed a different reality: A movement that claims to protect Jews while pushing agendas that most Jews oppose, denying Jewish fears, and rationalizing hatred under the banner of justice.

This is the Left’s “Jewish cover story” — the language of concern, inclusion, and intersectionality used to mask complicity in antisemitism, justify ideological double standards, and protect political capital while ignoring the actual lives of Jews on the ground.

Across the United States, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Western Europe, “progressive” leaders and organizations have wrapped their post-October 7th messaging in the language of care. “We grieve for all loss of life,” they declare. “We denounce antisemitism and Islamophobia alike.” They invite Jewish voices to diversity panels and interfaith vigils. They commission statements against antisemitic hate crimes.

But these overtures often function more like political performances than authentic acts of solidarity. The same institutions that host menorah-lightings and Holocaust remembrance days now allow — and sometimes promote — rallies calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, the sole place of refuge for Jews worldwide.

Universities that draft generic condemnations of antisemitism still sponsor or tolerate student groups that call October 7th a form of “resistance.” And “progressive” city councils that decry “hate in all forms” pass resolutions condemning Israel without even acknowledging the Jewish lives lost to Hamas terror.

To maintain this illusion of support while pushing policies many Jews view as hostile, the Left has increasingly employed a sorting mechanism: distinguishing between “good Jews” — those who are critical of Israel, align with leftist orthodoxies, and reject traditional or Zionist identities — and “bad Jews,” those who affirm Jewish peoplehood, support Israel’s (obvious) right to exist, and demand equal moral standards.

Organizations like “Jewish Voice for Peace” (which is neither Jewish nor for peace) are elevated to give “progressive” movements Jewish cover. These voices are presented as proof that Left-wing causes are not antisemitic, even as the majority of Jewish communities recoil in horror at their positions. In reality, the views of these “token” Jews represent a tiny fraction of Jewish opinion, particularly in the diaspora.

By amplifying these marginal voices, the Left creates an illusion of Jewish alignment with its policies, while erasing the broader Jewish mainstream — a population that feels more vulnerable and politically homeless than ever before.

Poll after poll in recent months has shown that most Jews in the West — from secular to religious — felt deeply traumatized by October 7th. The overwhelming majority support Israel’s right to defend itself and are alarmed by rising antisemitism on college campuses, in political discourse, and on the streets of major Western cities.

Yet many “progressives” have ignored or downplayed these fears. Instead of engaging Jewish concerns on their own terms, they reframe them through intersectional lenses that flatten Jewish identity into whiteness, privilege, or “complicity with colonialism.” In this framework, the Jew is not a vulnerable minority — but a problematic figure to be corrected, managed, or explained away.

The consequence is chilling: Jews are told that if they want protection, they must first renounce their peoplehood, their homeland, and often their history. In essence, they are only welcome if they conform to a politics that has little interest in their actual safety.

Here’s the truth that too many on the Left refuse to acknowledge: You can’t be “progressive” if you don’t openly stand up for Jews. If you marched for Black Lives Matter, if you posted #StopAsianHate, if you wore a safety pin after Brexit or spoke out against Donald Trump’s Muslim ban — but you’ve gone silent about antisemitism, you are not “progressive.” You are a performative ally. You are complicit.

Progressivism, at its core, is about defending the rights and dignity of all marginalized peoples — not just the ones that score you social media points or fit neatly into ideological frameworks. If Jews (a 0.2-percent minority that has been targeted, expelled, ghettoized, massacred, and now globally attacked once again) do not qualify for your empathy, your solidarity, or your outrage, then your so-called progressivism is a fraud.

Worse than that, it is antisemitic — whether in intention or in outcome. There is no neutrality when Jews are under attack. Silence in the face of antisemitism, especially now, is not moral ambiguity; it is moral failure.

This is not just about identity politics; it’s about the fundamental betrayal of liberal values. Free societies are supposed to protect minority rights without demanding ideological conformity. But today, Jews are increasingly offered conditional belonging: You can be safe, but only if you agree to disavow your people’s story.

At a time when Jewish day schools, synagogues, and community centers are increasing their security, when Jewish students are hiding their Star of David on campus, and when hate crimes against Jews are rising at historic rates, the “progressive” Left’s insistence that it is protecting Jews rings hollow. The protection being offered is not safety; it’s silence. The condition for solidarity is surrender.

It’s time to name the contradiction. Western Jews — especially younger ones — are beginning to realize that the institutions they once saw as allies no longer have their backs. Many are seeking new political homes or calling for new frameworks that don’t ask them to choose between their values and their people.

Never would I have thought that Right-wing politicians would be doing far more for Jews and Jewish communities than their Left-wing counterparts.

In the United States, where I was born, the Trump Administration’s antisemitism task force initiated a review of billions in federal grants awarded to major universities like Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Brown. This investigation was not symbolic — it was a concrete effort to ensure compliance with civil rights laws and to hold elite institutions accountable for allowing or enabling campus environments hostile to Jewish students.

Last year, also in the United States, prospects looked promising for the Antisemitism Awareness Act — bipartisan legislation that passed the House of Representatives by a commanding 320-to-91 vote in May, in direct response to shocking scenes of anti-Israel extremism erupting on college campuses. The bill had broad support from major Jewish organizations and was seen as a vital response to the nationwide wave of antisemitism.

The bill sought to codify a Trump-era executive order declaring that antisemitism is a prohibited form of discrimination in federally funded schools and universities. Crucially, it directed the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism (a definition adopted by dozens of democratic nations) to help assess claims of antisemitic discrimination.

But after passing the House, the legislation stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Why?

Because bringing it to a standalone floor vote would have exposed a deep and uncomfortable divide among Senate Democrats — some of whom feared that codifying antisemitism protections might conflict with the Far-Left wing of their base. The same base that, in many cases, was organizing or applauding anti-Israel protests filled with openly antisemitic rhetoric.

Meanwhile, in Europe, several conservative political leaders have stood out for their clear and vocal support of Jews and Israel:

• In the UK, Conservative Member of Parliament Kemi Badenoch has emphasized the urgency of rooting out the resurgence of antisemitism in Britain and has praised Israel’s moral clarity in responding to terrorist threats.

• In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders has long supported Israel as a frontline defender of Western values, and recently linked the rise in European antisemitism to mass immigration — arguing that protecting Jewish life requires tackling the sources of imported hate.

• In Germany, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party that just won the general election, pledged to lift restrictions on arms exports to Israel imposed by the current Left-wing government under Olaf Scholz — sending a clear signal that Germany’s historic responsibility to Israel should translate into tangible support.

These actions are not without controversy. But to many Jews watching the global surge in antisemitism — while “progressive” leaders waffle, equivocate, or stay silent — they are a breath of clarity in a political fog. They send the message: “Your safety matters, your fears are real, your people are not alone.”

Support for Jews must begin with listening to Jewish fears, affirming Jewish peoplehood, and rejecting the idea that antisemitism is only real when it fits a Right-wing mold. Otherwise, what we are witnessing is not solidarity; it is erasure, disguised as inclusion.

The Left’s Jewish cover story has been exposed. The question now is whether it will double down on the fiction — or finally choose moral clarity over ideological lust.

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