We are now in the post-Holocaust sympathy era.

The days of proud antisemitism are back.

An exhibit at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial institution to the victims of the Holocaust (photo: Marie Bellando Mitjans/Unsplash)

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This is a guest essay by Ted Goldstein, a Jewish poet and educator.

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

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Something wicked comes this way, and it doesn’t bother with calling itself “anti-Zionism.”

The days of disguising antisemitism are over; the days of proud antisemitism have begun.

When the digital jihad began, it was not acceptable to peddle traditional antisemitic narratives, so our enemies disguised their motives and their intentions in the language of “anti-Zionism.” Now that is no longer necessary; they can say what they want about Jews outright.

For the people who were early to the dangers of the digital jihad, this transition is not surprising; it was obvious that it was the intention the whole time. However, for the people who woke up to the new antisemitism on October 8, 2023, this transition was and continues to be shocking. The people who grew up in a world filled with Holocaust survivors could not believe that the world would ever dismiss the dangers of antisemitism ever again.

But they were wrong.

They were wrong because they mistook the guilt of the world for growth. They thought the world had grown out of its ancient antisemitic roots. They thought the darkness of the Holocaust shed light upon the evil of antisemitism, exposing it to the scorching flame of truth, and that no one who had heard those horrors could dismiss the dangers of antisemitism ever again.

But they were wrong.

The relative peace the Jews experienced in the world, post-World War II, was because the world felt guilty. However, it is becoming more and more clear that, like almost everyone, the world did not feel guilty for the crimes it committed; the world felt guilty for getting caught. And now, 80 years later, the world has decided that the statute of limitations on dead-Jew guilt has passed. The Holocaust simply means nothing anymore.

Last week, American TV host Greg Gutfeld went on air talking about how much the Right should re-appropriate the word “Nazi” just like the Black community re-appropriated the n-word. His argument is that, since the Left is calling every conservative a Nazi for anything, conservatives might as well take back the word and change its meaning.

Most of the commentary about this incident has been about Gutfeld and the racism of his joke. Say what you will about Gutfeld, the joke, or the political factions fighting about it, but one thing is abundantly clear: Nazi doesn’t mean anything anymore.

No one cares.

The Holocaust has been so savagely overused that it now means absolutely nothing. Everything is a Holocaust; everyone is a Nazi. We have become so accustomed to the constant beating of the Nazi-drum that we have become deaf to its meaning. And this is very dangerous. The Holocaust has been so deeply de-contextualized that even capitalizing the word feels wrong. The Holocaust is no longer a historical event that was the greatest demonstration of cruelty, callousness, and contempt in human history; the Holocaust is now just any bad thing that anyone has ever done.

When I was younger, older Jews told my generation that we needed to learn as many Holocaust stories as possible because, when the survivors died, the deniers would come out. And they were right, but there was also nothing we could have done. We spent 80 years educating the world about the Holocaust, and we had 80 years of relative peace during that time.

But all things must come to an end.

Now, we are living in the post-Holocaust sympathy era. An era with no Holocaust consciousness, with no understanding of how or why those horrible years came to pass. And there is very little we can do about it.

The biggest mistake in Holocaust education was convincing people that they would have been righteous had they lived in Germany at the time. We let everyone leave every Holocaust discussion thinking that they would have done the right thing and hidden Jews if they had ever seen the rise of that much antisemitism. We let them think they were better than the millions of Germans who silently watched Hitler rise.

But now we know the truth.

We have seen more antisemitism in the past two years than at any point in any of our lifetimes. And what did those people do — the ones who told themselves they would have stood up for the Jewish People? Nothing.

The only thing that remains of Holocaust-consciousness is the self-satisfaction that modern-day bystanders feel as they stand idly by. The people who feel the most sure that they would have stood up to the Nazis of the past are the ones who are doing the most to empower the Nazis of the present. And that is infuriating.

Unfortunately, we are now living in the post-Holocaust sympathy era. We cannot expect that any invocation or mention of the Holocaust will mean anything to anyone. We can, however, make sure that the modern-day bystanders do not smugly pat themselves on the back. The questions are simple:

1. Are you the kind of person who would have stood up to the Nazis?

2. Was October 7th and its aftermath the greatest outpouring of antisemitism you had ever seen?

3. Did you take a serious stand against that wave of antisemitism?

If the answer to number three is no (you have not taken seriously the post-October 7th wave of antisemitism), then the answer to number one is no as well (you are not the kind of person who would have stood up to the Nazis).

In the next few years, we will see all of the old antisemitic stereotypes rehashed and played out. Antisemites have been clamoring to play in mainstream media for decades. Until recently, they had been kept on the fringes, publishing and pontificating on random websites and outlets. Today, they boldly go where no antisemites had gone before and shattered the glass ceiling for Jew-haters everywhere.

Like baseball legend Jackie Robinson, they came out swinging in the big leagues to nothing but jeers and mockery. And, like Jackie Robinson, they are only the first.

In 1947, Jackie Robinson was the only Black player in the majors. In 1948, there were many more. In 2025, only a few mainstream pundits and influencers are openly peddling antisemitism. In 2026, there will be many more.

So it is time for us to bear down and get ready for the long haul, but we cannot give in to despair. It is easy, in times like these, to feel that the gravity of these events is too immense to overcome, that the wave of antisemitism is too great to be defeated, that we are simply living out a repetition of the decades that led to devastation. But we are not. There is a very significant difference between our time and the past.

And that difference is you.

You are the only thing that separates 2025 from 1925. You weren’t alive then; there was nothing you could do. But you are now, and that will make all the difference.

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