Last week, I wrote about the importance of relying on mainstream institutions and leaders of our community to determine what is antisemitism. I identified three that I, as one individual, look to: the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, and Dr. Deborah Lipstadt. Predictably – I got flak over my choices.

I heard from some on the left of our community who objected to these voices. They offered alternatives; progressive organizations with a solid track-record of calling out antisemitism on the right. Others, on the right of our community, had their own objections. And they suggested their own trusted sources; conservative groups with a solid track-record of calling out antisemitism on the left.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repetition because we’ve got a problem here. Antisemitism is on the rise in this country.

Right here in Massachusetts, over the last fortnight we’ve had incidents in at least seven school districts: Brookline, Melrose, Newton, Sharon, Watertown, Weston, and Westwood. We’ve had three arson attempts in Arlington and Needham. We’ve had vandalism at Brandeis University and seen a disgusting Holocaust-related cartoon at Harvard University.

Despite the protestations of ideological purists, the ways in which antisemitism is rising in the United States do not conform to some neat partisan confirmation. 

While we don’t know the perpetrators and motives for all of the above incidents, we do know that the man who killed eleven of us in Pittsburgh invoked the ideologies and conspiracies of white supremacy (and saw President Trump as too beholden to Jewish advisors). And the man who killed one of us in Poway published a manifesto deeply rooted in white Christian nationalist ideologies. And, as New York City, my hometown, experiences an unprecedented wave of violent attacks on visibly presenting (i.e. kippah-wearing) Jews, the evidence – in camera footage and comments by the attackers – makes clear that not one of those attackers yet identified could be classified as a white supremacist.

To further complicate matters, when it comes to public rhetoric by political officials, there have been Democrats (including in Congress) who have invoked antisemitic tropes when talking about Jews, including the charge of dual loyalty to another country. And, we have a sitting President who has invoked that same trope of dual loyalty to “your country” when talking to Jews. We have political actors on the left who normalize Louis Farrakhan even as he dehumanizes Jews with his antisemitic ravings, such as calling us termites. And, we have a President who refused to marginalize people who chant “Jews will not replace us” and has never walked back his “good people on both sides” comment about their rally.

I could go on for pages.

My point is simply this:

• We cannot fight antisemitism in this country without confronting white supremacy in its most blatant form and in its more subtle presence in mainstream culture, and;
• If we only fight the forms of antisemitism that present as white supremacy, then we are ignoring the circumstances in which the world’s oldest hatred also shows up in ways that have nothing to do with the far right.

An analysis of antisemitism that only critiques the other side of the ideological spectrum, no matter how thoughtful that op-ed is, is one that I personally view as unhelpful and even counterproductive for framing this crisis. Telling a progressive to look only at antisemitism on the right is dangerous for our community. Telling a conservative to look only at antisemitism on the left is equally dangerous for our community. There is no denying the fact that antisemitism motivated by a white supremacist ideology is more lethal in our country right now. We have been stricken with grief and horror in witnessing the murder of Jews celebrating shabbat in two different synagogues within six months. Yet, as an Orthodox Jew, I cannot deny the real concern and trepidation that I experienced while wearing my kippah in the streets of Brooklyn on my most recent visit.  All forms of antisemitism threaten our community and they need to be confronted.

One final point worth making this week, when ugly racism here in Boston is once again on the front page:

If we only fight antisemitism and don’t stand up to the other forms of bigotry that are rising in our society (and that are distressingly present in our own community) then we’re doing a disservice to ourselves and our country. We’ll end up alone and abandoned by many people we need as allies in this work, and we’ll end up with a country that isn’t a very good place to live for us and for a whole lot of other people.

I hope you’ll join us in this urgent struggle.

Shabbat Shalom,

Jeremy