On Anti-Semitism

We've been hearing a lot about anti-Semitism over the last 20 months. But what exactly is it - and what is it not?

As I’ve stated multiple times here on Substack, I’m Jewish. My name is a dead giveaway. I was born in Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, lived on Long Island as a child, and spent my late childhood and adolescence in Delray Beach and Boca Raton, Florida. You don’t get much more Jewish than that.

I’ve experienced a great deal of prejudice for being Jewish. A friend of my mother’s once asked me if I had horns. Another friend of my mom’s told me that Hitler had nice ovens. And a guy I met in Great Britain told me he wished that Hitler had finished the job. I’ve been called a kike, a Jewboy, a dirty Jew, and just about every other nasty anti-Jewish word you can think of. I can remember the time I tipped a server 20% of the restaurant bill (I’ve always done that), and someone told me I tipped well for a Jew. I’ve been told that my people killed Jesus Christ (who was a Jew himself). My friends and I protested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Tallahassee, Florida, in the fall of 1989, and the Grand Wizard shouted through his loudspeaker how much he despised Jews. I could come up with more examples, but you probably understand what I’m getting at.

What do all of these examples I listed here have in common? They all came from people on the right side of the political aisle.

But since October 7, 2023, there has been a great deal of anti-Jewish sentiment coming from the left. Even before that, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar had said that “Jewish money was controlling Congress” and that “it was all about the Benjamins [$100 bills], baby.” The stereotype of Jews as greedy, money-hungry crooks goes back at least to the days of Shakespeare, whose play The Merchant of Venice included a Jewish money lender named Shylock who exhibited these traits. But the anti-Jewish rhetoric was ratcheted up exponentially after Hamas terrorists slaughtered over 1,200 Jews in Israel in the fall of 2023. Before Israel had even had a chance to respond, several Ivy League universities came out in support of Hamas, and the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter tweeted a picture of a paraglider with a Palestinian flag - a clear show of support for the terrorists. Even on my campus at the University of Texas at Austin, Jewish students and faculty were warned to stay inside as a group of protesters (most of whom had no affiliation with the university) tried to set up tents on campus and intimidate Jews.

People on the left get very sensitive and irritated when they are accused of being anti-Jewish. One woman I interacted with on Facebook (she was a friend of a friend - I didn’t know her) insisted that there was no anti-Jewish sentiment on the left, only “an abundance of care for the Palestinian people.” I didn’t realize that supporting Jews and supporting Palestinians were mutually exclusive.

But you will notice that I have not used the word “anti-Semitic” in this post - at least not so far. I’m not sure how clear we are about what that word actually means. Some people seem to believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Others believe that you can criticize Israel all you want and still not be engaging in bigotry. (My Jewish colleague Dave Moshman is no fan of Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu, and Dave calls out the Israeli regime many, many times in his new book that will be coming out next year.) Is Dave anti-Semitic because he thinks Netanyahu is engaging in genocide? Are people who chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” anti-Semitic? Are people who hold up “Globalize the intifada” signs anti-Semitic? What about people who throw around the words “Hitler” and “Nazi”? Are they anti-Semitic?

The Concept Creep Problem

The term “concept creep” refers to a gradual expansion of an idea to encompass more and more phenomena, until eventually that idea represents almost everything. Think about the term “racism.” For most of my life - up until about 2010 - that word was reserved for pretty heinous actions. If you called a Black person a slur word, that was a racist act. If you hung a noose in front of a Black family’s home, that was racist. If you told an Asian person to “open your eyes!” even though their eyes were already open (as a way of making fun of how many Asian people’s eyelids look), that was racist. But simply disagreeing with something a Black person said was not racist. Opposing unauthorized immigration was not racist. No one claimed that math was racist.

Then came Barack Obama’s second term, when all hell broke loose. Suddenly everything was racist. People who didn’t like the Obamacare health plan were accused of being racist “because a Black man proposed it.” (These people must have forgotten that Obamacare was originally proposed by Hillary Clinton, who is certainly not Black.) Saying anything critical of a Black person, or of that person’s views, was now racist. If you were White, you had to smile and agree (even if you didn’t agree). Criticizing Obama or his policies was a major no-no.

The problem with concept creep is simple. If everything is racist, then nothing is racist. If you cannot give me an example of something that is not racist, then the term “racism” loses its meaning. And I say this out of concern for people of color, some of whom do experience racism. Are their experiences dismissed out of hand because “racism” now means pretty much anything and everything? I have seen more than one instance where that has happened - and it’s not good for anyone involved.

The same thing has been happening with “anti-Semitism.” Any criticism of a Jewish person is now labeled as anti-Semitic, even if it has nothing to do with that person being Jewish. A few years ago, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused a group of Republicans of engaging in “anti-Semitic attacks against Chairman Adam Schiff,” even though their criticism of Schiff centered only on his zealous prosecution of Donald Trump over accusations of colluding with Russia. None of the Republicans in question said anything about Schiff being Jewish. So was Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez simply trying to silence the people she disagreed with by calling them anti-Semitic?

Since the October 7th attacks, Israel has engaged in an all-out assault on Hamas. They have correctly surmised that Hamas cannot be allowed to rule Gaza any longer - Hamas has vowed to repeat the October 7th attacks over and over again, so Israel clearly must destroy Hamas. But the Israeli military actions over the past 20 months have not accomplished that goal. They have destroyed many buildings in Gaza, and although the casualty numbers coming from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry cannot be trusted, I can say with certainty that many innocent Palestinian people have been killed. And although several Hamas commanders have been assassinated, the group is still very much alive, and very much in charge of Gaza.

Is it anti-Semitic to point this out?

Bibi Netanyahu’s strategy has alienated many people within his own government. Surely they are not anti-Semitic for criticizing his tactics. There has got to be a way to take Hamas out without leveling all of Gaza - but Netanyahu has not pursued such a path. He has become his own worst enemy in terms of gaining support for what he’s doing. Yes, there is plenty of anti-Semitism in the world, and much of it is directed at Israel. Retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz refers to Israel as “the Jew among nations,” and at least some of the vitriol directed at Israel over the last 76 years certainly is rooted in anti-Jewish bigotry. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamanei, has been leading chants of “Death to Israel” for decades, and he has recently escalated his rhetoric about destroying Israel. So I don’t blame Israel for taking out Iran’s nuclear arsenal this past week. That was a good move by Bibi - if an adversary has been threatening to attack you, you need to take away the means with which he can do that. But leveling Gaza without actually getting rid of Hamas has been a bad move, and it has invited a lot of criticism - much of which is valid (and is not anti-Semitic).

What about Zionism? I have heard many, many people saying that they despise Zionists. But what is a Zionist? Is it simply someone who advocates for Israel’s right to exist? Or is it someone who thinks that Israeli settlers can build homes within Palestinian territories - which is a violation of the agreements between Israel and the Palestinians (where each side is entitled to its territory)? Those settlements were being built long before October 7, 2023. If Zionism means simply believing that Israel should exist as a nation, then count me in. But if it means that Israeli settlers should be able to build homes wherever they want - including on Palestinian lands - then count me out. And criticizing people who advocate for Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories is not anti-Semitic in my opinion.

Are The Pro-Palestinian Protests Anti-Semitic?

This is the $100 million question, isn’t it? And it’s actually not a single question - it’s multiple questions. Does advocating for the Palestinian people necessarily require opposing Israel and Jews? Does being pro-Palestinian also mean being pro-Hamas? Can someone advocate for both Palestinians and Jews at the same time? If so, how?

Let me start with the most obvious point. “From the river to the sea” comes directly from Hamas’s founding charter - where they vowed to push the Jews into the Mediterranean Sea. Israel’s entire territory lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, so if Palestine is indeed free from the river the sea, does that not imply the end of Israel as a nation?

If you assume a zero-sum argument, where any land that the Palestinians gain is taken away from Israel, then of course “from the river to the sea” means the destruction of Israel. This is Hamas’s goal and is, in fact, their very reason for existing as a group. But is there a way for Israelis and Palestinians to share the same territories and lands? Many people assume this is impossible, but I say it’s not only possible - it’s already happening.

Israel’s population of 9 million people includes 2 million Israeli Arabs, the majority of whom are Palestinian. These Israeli Arabs are full citizens of Israel, and many of them speak Hebrew as a first language. Israeli Arabs serve in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), they teach at Israeli universities, and they enlist in the Israeli armed forces. Many Israeli Arabs are married to Jews, and they live peacefully in Israel along with the 7 million other Israeli citizens.

If Arabs of Palestinian descent live happily and peacefully with other Israelis, then isn’t that evidence that Jews and Palestinians can coexist? Might one argue that Hamas, along with other militant and terrorist organizations, are largely responsible for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians - and that all Palestinians could conceivably live the same lives that the Israeli Arabs live? I’m not exempting Israel from blame here - Bibi Netanyahu and his predecessors have done plenty to antagonize the Palestinian leadership and to make life difficult for Palestinians who wish to enter Israel. But my point here is that the protesters chanting on the streets of New York City, London, Paris, Sydney, and other places are completely missing the point.

But are the protesters anti-Semitic? Some surely are. Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student who led a series of protests in April 2024, threatened Jewish students, and damaged university property - while also handing out pro-Hamas propaganda - was clearly anti-Semitic. But I know some of the students who protested here in Austin, and they are not anti-Semitic at all. They saw people in Gaza being forced out of their homes, hurt, or killed, and they saw a cause worth advocating for. One of those students works in my lab, and I have gotten to know her very well. She is one of the least bigoted people I’ve ever met.

In any movement, there are always leaders and followers. The followers can become involved for any number of reasons - such as taking up a cause, wanting to fit in, or trying to appear virtuous. So the leaders of these campus and street protests may have been anti-Semitic, and some of their followers surely were as well. But saying that every single person who attended a protest is anti-Semitic is definitely a stretch (to say the least). My student is not anti-Semitic, and neither are many of the others who were there with her. Russell Spears at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands has done a lot of research on crowd behavior, and he has found that leader-follower dynamics govern much of what happens in any kind of crowd (including protests). Charismatic leaders attract lots of followers, and it continues from there. But it would not be accurate to assume that everyone in the crowd is equally committed to the cause.

So What Is Anti-Semitism?

Let me circle back to where I started - defining what anti-Semitism is. My personal definition (and others may disagree with my definition) is that anti-Semitism refers to beliefs, statements, or behaviors that demean Jewish people, lead them to feel physically or psychologically unsafe, or are based in assumptions that Jews are inferior. When Kamala Harris passed over Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro - who would have been a far superior and more strategic choice of running mate than Minnesota governor Tim Walz - that decision seems anti-Semitic to me. I don’t necessarily believe that Harris herself is anti-Semitic - her husband is Jewish - but I do believe that the Democratic Party leadership would not have allowed her to nominate a Jewish person as her vice presidential candidate. Shapiro was the governor of the most important state in the election, and selecting him would likely have won that state (and perhaps others) for her campaign. Choosing Walz made no sense at all.

Throwing around the words “Hitler” and “Nazi” to refer to people one doesn’t like is also anti-Semitic. If I were African American, I would not want to see and hear people casually referring to the transatlantic slave trade, Southern slave plantations, or crosses burning in people’s yards. If I were Japanese American, I would not want to see and hear people casually referring to World War II internment camps. If I were Armenian, I would not want to see and hear people casually referring to the Turkish genocide of my people. All of these examples would be highly offensive. So why do people get a pass for calling others Hitler and Nazis?

This needs to stop. No one alive today is comparable to Adolf Hitler or to the Nazi Party. Using this rhetoric is offensive to Jewish people. If anyone went around calling people slave ship captains or plantation owners, African Americans would rightly be upset and angry. Find another label for people you don’t like. Even Donald Trump, whom I cannot stand, is not Hitler. Not even close. The pre-election comparisons in the US legacy media likening Trump to Hitler were offensive to me, and likely to other Jewish people as well. As awful as Trump has shown himself to be, he has not gassed anyone to death, and he has not rounded up millions of people and sent them to campus to be executed simply because of their religious heritage. Believe me, I am no defender of Trump - but the Hitler comparisons are way out of bounds.

So we need to avoid concept creep and be very precise about what we mean by anti-Semitism. If you insult, demean, intimidate, or harass a Jewish person, your behavior is anti-Semitic. If you call out Bibi Netanyahu for being a warmonger, that is not anti-Semitic. If you refuse to engage with someone because they are Jewish, then you are being anti-Semitic. If you criticize Israeli settlers for building homes on Palestinian land, then you are not. If you call for Israel to be destroyed, your statements are anti-Semitic. If you disagree with their policies, you are not.

Now, can we please learn how to treat other people with dignity and respect - regardless of their background?