This is what Jews really need right now.

Most people mean well, but good intentions aren’t enough. Here’s what actually makes a difference for your Jewish family members, friends, and colleagues.

photo: Levi Meir Clancy/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Melissa Brodsky, a writer focused on media literacy, modern antisemitism, and history.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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According to an American Jewish Committee survey of Jewish Americans in the fall of 2025, 91 percent said they feel less safe than they did a year ago. Thirty-one percent were personally targeted by Jew-hatred. More than half have changed their daily behaviors because of fear.

A lot of people want to support their Jewish friends right now, but are finding it hard to know exactly how. The conversation has gotten so loud, so politicized, and so tangled up in other issues that even people with good intentions aren’t sure what to say, what not to say, or whether anything they do actually helps.

Here’s what actually helps.

Jewish people across the globe are tired — and not in a way that a good nap fixes. Tired in the way you get when you’ve been paying attention for a long time, your head is on a swivel, and what you’re watching keeps getting worse.

If you care about the Jewish people in your life and you want to know what genuine allyship looks like right now, it starts with trusting us when we say something is Jew-hatred. Don’t debate it, explain it away, or tell us we’re being sensitive.

According to the American Jewish Committee’s 2025 “State of Antisemitism in America Report,” 93 percent of American Jews say Jew-hatred is a serious problem in this country. Ninety-one percent say they feel less safe as a result of attacks on Jews in the past year. Thirty-one percent were personally targeted in 2025. Among Jewish Americans between 18 and 29, that number jumps to nearly half.

This isn’t perception; it’s a documented experience.

We are not political proxies. Don’t ask your Jewish friends to denounce Israel or prove where they stand before you treat them with basic decency. No other group has to pass a political test to deserve safety. The men who killed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in May 2025 near the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., and who drove a truck into a synagogue full of children in Michigan last month, didn’t ask their victims for their political opinions first.

Learn what Jew-hatred looks like today. It isn’t only slurs and symbols. It shows up as conspiracy theories about Jewish money and power, blaming all Jews for what any Jew does anywhere, and “anti-Zionism” that erases the Jewish People’s history and their right to exist as a people. If it sounds like an old accusation dressed in new language, it is. The Anti-Defamation League’s Global 100 survey found that 46 percent of the world’s adult population, or 2.2 billion people, hold antisemitic attitudes. That number has more than doubled in a decade.

This isn’t a fringe problem; it’s a mainstream one.

Understand that blood libels are tools of dehumanization, not ancient history. The blood libel, the claim that Jews murder non-Jewish children for religious purposes, is one of the oldest and most deadly lies ever told about Jewish people. It never went away.

Today it shows up as claims that Jewish or Israeli leaders celebrate the deaths of children, that Jews are deliberately genocidal, that Jewish identity itself requires killing innocents. These aren’t political arguments; they’re designed to push Jews outside the circle of human consideration. Once a group gets associated with harming children, violence against them gets treated as justified. Learn to recognize this when you see it, no matter what language it’s wrapped in or what cause it’s attached to.

Understand that the fear is real and reasonable. According to the American Jewish Committee report, more than half of American Jews have changed how they live their daily lives because of fear. Thirty percent have avoided places or events. Seventeen percent have considered leaving the country. If a Jewish person in your life seems more guarded or more watchful than you remember, that’s not overreaction. It’s a reasonable response to things that have actually happened.

Don’t minimize it by comparison. “Everyone is dealing with hate right now” doesn’t help. It skips over the fact that Jew-hatred has its own long history and its own specific consequences. Let it stand as its own issue.

Stop treating Jewish safety as a zero-sum issue. Caring about Jewish people doesn’t mean you care less about Palestinians, Muslims, Black Americans, or anyone else. The idea that you have to choose is itself part of the problem.

Understand that what you see online is shaping what you believe. Online Jew-hatred reached its highest level ever recorded in the American Jewish Committee’s 2025 survey, and more than 70 percent of American Jews say they’ve experienced it on social media. A Yale University poll from spring 2026 found that antisemitic views are most concentrated among Americans under 35 who get their news from social media.

And 20 percent of the general American public have heard the word “antisemitism” but can’t explain what it means. Ten percent have never heard the word at all. People are being shaped by content they can’t name, about a hatred they’ve never been taught to identify. That gap has consequences.

Call out “just asking questions.” Jew-hatred frequently travels as fake curiosity. “Why do Jews control...?” “Why won’t Jews admit...?” “Why does Israel always...?” These aren’t genuine questions; they’re accusations built to sound like dialogue. You know the difference when you hear it.

Pay attention to what’s happening on campus, and don’t mistake better rules for a better environment. The Anti-Defamation League’s 2026 “Campus Report Card” found real progress: 58 percent of the 150 universities assessed now earn A or B grades, up from just 23.5 percent two years ago.

But the same report found that nearly half of non-Jewish students reported witnessing or experiencing anti-Jewish behavior in the past year. Nearly half held at least one anti-Jewish belief. The rules are improving; the attitudes are not. Jewish classmates and colleagues are living inside that gap every day.

Speak up when we aren’t in the room. The most important allyship happens without an audience. Push back on the jokes, the bad information, and the casual conspiracy thinking in your own circles, especially when no Jewish person is there to do it themselves.

Check your blind spots. Don’t look the other way when Jew-hatred comes from someone you agree with on other things. Hate doesn’t get a pass because the person holding it is also hurting, or because you share their politics. The people responsible for the worst attacks on Jews in recent years believed they were doing something righteous.

Understand that Jewish identity is not just a religion. Jewish people share a land, a history, a culture, a language, and thousands of years of collective memory. Treating Judaism like a set of beliefs you can argue someone out of misses the point entirely.

Don’t demand that all Jews think the same. Jewish people don’t all vote the same, believe the same things, or anything else. Expecting us to do so before you offer basic solidarity is a form of exclusion.

Slow down before you share something. Jew-hatred spreads fastest through content designed to make you angry before you think. If a post about Jews, Israel, or Zionism feels like it’s pushing you toward outrage, stop and verify. The people who need to hear this most are the ones who already believe they’re paying attention.

Show up consistently, not just after something terrible happens. Anyone can post something after an attack. What matters is speaking up when Jew-hatred is normalized, when it’s trending, or when it’s coming from your own sociopolitical circles.

Notice who’s left out. If a space claims to stand for justice but Jewish voices are only welcome after they’ve proven something, or denounced something, or distanced themselves from their own people, that’s not an accident.

Stay when it gets uncomfortable. The moment you want to step away because it’s getting too complicated is usually the moment you’re actually needed.

True allyship isn’t about agreeing with Jewish people on everything. It’s about refusing to let us be scapegoated, erased, or treated as people whose safety is optional. Silence in the face of Jew-hatred isn’t neutral. And history has already shown us more than once where that road leads to.

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