The article doesn’t directly state this, but if America has recently (1960s-2000s) had low anti-Semitic attitudes compared to the rest of the world, but we’re rapidly gaining immigrants that (statistically speaking) have higher rates of anti-semitism, that might be a major cause in the increase. It would logically follow that most of the world has not forged ties like white Americans who - like me growing up near Albany, NY - had many Jewish classmates.
They are different concepts, but clearly overlapping. So many dumb takes on social media and elsewhere claiming they are the same thing, or totally distinct. Whenever I hear about this, I always think, "OK, anti-Israel views aren't inherently anti-semitic, but would we be talking about Israel at all if if wasn't Jewish?"
I don't just mean that Westerners are Jew-obsessed, which they are. Jewishness is at the core of the whole conflict. If Palestine had been comprised of Capitalists and Communists, and the UN proposed a partition of the country into Capitalist and Communist states (as happened in many, many other places), I doubt there would be have been such massive rage in the region about that partition. How you feel about this anti-Jewish attitude in the region, which persists to this day, has much to do with your views on Israel today.
I have never heard a good argument from Pro-Palestinian types about why it was fundamentally wrong to partition the land into two states in 1947. The argument against seems to be that Muslim Arabs were a majority (about 70%) at the time. Bizarre argument. US Americans are a majority of North Americans, but we accept Canadian and Mexican sovereignty. They seem to be presupposing an All-Palestine state, and then invoking democracy (most residents didn't want a Jewish state). Circular logic. Why presume one state to begin with? Yet there is no such demand that other newly formed states in the region *must* be a single democratic blob. Modern Syria and Jordan, and Lebanon were founded in 1946, 1921, and 1920 and we aren't raging to this day about those "partitions".
I guess you could say that the Jews tended to be more recent immigrants than the Arabs at that time, so they should not have been granted any sovereignty for that reason. Seems ridiculously anti-immigrant to me, coming from purportedly lefty camp. Clearly the Jews had/have a long-term connection to the place and Palestine has been conquered and re-conquered so many times that it's absurd to talk about the "indigenous inhabitants" as if the local Arabs were Native Americans that had no contact with Eurasia/Africa for something like 10,000 years.
One thing that gives me pause is noticing the dynamic between Black Americans and other successful minorities like Asians, who are also viewed as “white-adjacent” in the American context and are assumed to be complicit in systemic oppression, rather than as “allies”. So, the question is are Jewish Americans viewed the same as other successful minorities, or are they especially scrutinized? In terms of third-world antisemitism, I think it is true that immigrants don’t have a great deal of sensitivity/understanding of the Jewish experience in the 20th century, but imo first-gen immigrants also don’t display sensitivity when it comes to the Black experience in America, since they haven’t marinated in the history of either. I would love to see a calibrated expression of anti-semitism taking all these comparative variables into account.
When I was in high school in the early 2000s, I was in an honors social studies class, where a female classmate lamented how the media was so biased because it was controlled by Jewish people loyal to Israeli interests (this was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the second intifada). When I confronted her as a Jewish person to tell her that was offensive, she bent over backwards to make sure I knew she had nothing against me personally, and thus I was wrong to be offended. If only the term “gaslighting” had been invented then…
I'd just add that the rising feelings of danger felt by US Jews are -- though very important for understanding their experience -- virtually useless for asking about the prevelance of anti-Semitism.
After all, every time an issue comes up that raises the worry that anti-Semitism might be increasing the very existence of think pieces about it are going to increase safety worries.
Moreover, it's only rational for Jews to worry the people protesting Israel might actually be close to turning on Jews -- but that's the question we want to answer so and all that statistic tell us is the jews are wondering about it too.
Also, I think it might help these discussions just to jettison the word anti-Semitism all together. Like 'racism' the problem is many people really understand the term to mean: the morally objectionable behavior that's in a certain neighborhood (e.g. of having negative stereotypes about Jews or discriminating against them). As such the argument ends up being as much about making value judgements like: is treating Israel worse than 'similarly situated' countries morally bad in the relevant way.
Just talk about how many people have the particular trait in question, e.g., negative stereotypes.
I often defend Israel (lived there for a number of years) from accusations of genocide [1] and being unduly blamed (not just asked to meet the higher western standard). But it's really misleading to point out that criticism of Israel is correlated with antisemitism as a way to cast aspersions on such criticism (or use it as a measurement proxy).
Of fucking course they are correlated!! It would be shocking if anti-Semities weren't more likely to critisize Israel. Guess what, I bet white supremacy is correlated with disliking black panther -- so should we be sus about people who hate superhero movies.
Look, I understand that it's frustrating because often people don't come out and admit they dislike Jews. Just like anti-black racists might say they aren't racist and instead critisize "ghetto culture" of course anti-Semities will pick the closest socially acceptable thing to say.
But, just like using base rates of criminal activity by race to suspect a neighbor is guilty of the recent theft it's a problem to use this correlation alone to suspect anti-Semitism. It's more prejudicial than probative and, whenever this actually comes up, we have plenty of other evidence that lets us impute motives. Are they obsessed with bankers being evil, are Jewish conspiracy curious etc -- probably anti-Semitism. Are they obsessed with racial justice, anti-muslim bigotry etc etc? Then, even though their faulty reasoning might happen to give Jews the short end of the stick, it's not antisemitism.
--
1: Its not only wrong but kinda silly as well. Why the hell should it matter is Israel is trying to eliminate (in whole or in part) an ethnic group? If you believe they are massacring innocent Palestinians isn't that horrific enough on its own?
I was looking at Pew survey data recently for how different religious groups feel about each other, but what occurred to me is, the question of whether you like or dislike Jews is really different from the question of whether you like or dislike, say, Presbyterians. Not only is the history different, but Jews really constitute a "people" (at least for Americans, and for Jews themselves) in a way that most religious groups don't (in this time and place). So being asked whether you like Jews is more like being asked whether you like Filipinos, and being asked whether you like Presbyterians feels more like being asked whether you like Freemasons. If I say I dislike Presbyterians, I'm probably not saying that I actually dislike individual people for being Presbyterians, but more that I dislike Presbyterianism the religion. I don't know. I just think the results are not fully comparable for that reason.
I am grateful that the United States has become far more amenable to so many people, and personally I think that story is completely under covered. We rarely talk about how racial attitudes have dramatically improved, how overt racism is increasingly considered taboo (as is overt bigotry towards most and other groups). I am gay, and in my lifetime I have never once been called a slur, never felt even uncomfortable for who I am since coming out. I say this not to claim that these problems are solved (they aren't, nor do I think you can ever fully eliminate bigotry and bias) but to say that those who paint the US as a hateful place miss the forest for the trees.
This was a well written article explaining the many different challenges facing the Jewish community. All we can do is be aware of it and try to educate where possible, and isolate where necessary.
I'm glad you've never been called a slur, though it surprises me a little (I've only ever lived in very pro LGBT places and I've been called anti-gay slurs).
True though that the climate has palpably shifted even from when I was a teenager (I'm in my early 30s) and that I am very comfortable engaging in normal public space affection with my partner that I would have been way more nervous to do 15 years ago.
On the other hand, as to the OP, I am more nervous wearing a yarmulke these days than I was when I first moved to NYC in 2016-2017.
I understand that my experience is unusual, and I would never claim that my experience proves the US is past its issues. For me the point is that experiences are variable and I dislike using individual experiences to prove a point.
I had interesting experience growing up in an major minority area with a lot of white-black tension, but not a lot of Jewish people. The mild white stereotypes I grew up with - nerdy, uncool, lack of masculinity, out of touch, wealthy, weird, entitled, chatty, pedantic - blended with self-mocking Jewish humor on TV. So in this framework Jewish stereotypes became the apotheosis of whiteness, and I didn't know much about Jewishness in any other context. So in a reverse-polarization kind of way, the idea that Jewish people could be anything other than White, is as strange to me as splitting off white Americans of Irish or Italian ancestry - It feels like technically you can make the distinction, but you are only fooling yourself.
You could say that this is all an internalization of black anti-semitism, but I do think its true that class and income are just much more salient dividing lines in the American experience than ethnicity or religion.
I'm sure you know this, but there are plenty of Jews from the Greater Middle East who are culturally and physically pretty far removed from the European Jews who settled in the US. They are mostly in Israel now, though.
I grew up in Tidewater Virginia (Hampton Roads / Norfolk / Virginia Beach) South of DC. I think there is a vague awareness of the Jewish population in NYC, DC, and even Richmond VA - but I had never met anyone who identified as Jewish or talked about anyone they knew who was Jewish until I went to college and met more East Coasters.
Being on the bottom of the North and top of the South, it has a funny mixture of Southern Conservativism and Northern Liberalism. Being poor and black was associated with Christianity, and being rich and white was associated with secularism, and so I have to think that was another important element of it. The idea "the Jews" would be working with "the Blacks" to takeover "White America" just wouldn't make any sense - Black political power was already the norm and it wasn't particularly Jewish.
One thing I wish I had more clarity on is the difference between what I'll call "exotic stereotypes" and "familiar stereotypes".
A familiar stereotype is something like "The Chinese girl beat me at the science fair, I'll bet she cheated" or "a Hispanic man broke into my house, I think they're all crooks". An exotic stereotype is something more like "I've never met a Native American before, but the first thing everyone knows about them is they are alcoholics" or "I keep seeing these Jews with media elites, but none of them have been to my hometown, I'll bet they are responsible for the factory closing".
In other words, which stereotypes are generated by interpersonal greivance and which stereotypes are generated by abstract imagining of enemies? With the Internet the line between the two may be blurred, but I still think there is a difference between finding a stranger on the Internet to argue with versus going to the Internet to validate a sentiment developed in your daily life.
Is anti-semitism generally an exotic stereotype? Does is share qualities with other exotic stereotypes or is it wholly unique? Are there people who have anti-semitism from another place and how do they differ?
That's an interesting breakdown. I think there's some of both in this case, with the familiar stereotypes mostly appearing in places like NYC, especially in areas where some of the Jewish communities self-segregate, like the Hasidis.
I haven't fully fleshed out the thought yet, but one of the things I've been thinking since October is how the social justice language (the actual words and phrases but also just the style) that's become so prominent over the past ten years has really left people unable to communicate now that we've come across an issue with somewhat higher stakes, and where you're allowed to publicly argue on either side. You spend the entire time fighting over the meanings of the words and dwelling on things you're absolutely not going to change. Plus, the tactics are incredibly ineffectual. You're disrupting a suburban school board meeting in the Upper Midwest to call for a ceasefire...okay...who told you to do that? What is anyone doing?
I think it’s important to distinguish between attitudes and behavior. Discovering hidden beliefs is ultimately a lot more difficult than examining how people actually act in the real world.
I haven’t looked at the stats recently, but by the behavior metric, I think Jews are one of the groups that receive the most amount of negative behaviors because of their Jewishness.
And I would think that the amount has spiked significantly in the past six months as some in the anti-zionist crowd have painted with a very broad brush in their zealous opposition to Israel.
It’s interesting to me that one of the ADL’s antisemitic tropes is “Jews stick together more than other Americans”. That’s generally a positive descriptor and Americans say the same things about small town life and whatever else they hold in high regard.
The article doesn’t directly state this, but if America has recently (1960s-2000s) had low anti-Semitic attitudes compared to the rest of the world, but we’re rapidly gaining immigrants that (statistically speaking) have higher rates of anti-semitism, that might be a major cause in the increase. It would logically follow that most of the world has not forged ties like white Americans who - like me growing up near Albany, NY - had many Jewish classmates.
Anti-Zionism versus Anti-semitism:
They are different concepts, but clearly overlapping. So many dumb takes on social media and elsewhere claiming they are the same thing, or totally distinct. Whenever I hear about this, I always think, "OK, anti-Israel views aren't inherently anti-semitic, but would we be talking about Israel at all if if wasn't Jewish?"
I don't just mean that Westerners are Jew-obsessed, which they are. Jewishness is at the core of the whole conflict. If Palestine had been comprised of Capitalists and Communists, and the UN proposed a partition of the country into Capitalist and Communist states (as happened in many, many other places), I doubt there would be have been such massive rage in the region about that partition. How you feel about this anti-Jewish attitude in the region, which persists to this day, has much to do with your views on Israel today.
I have never heard a good argument from Pro-Palestinian types about why it was fundamentally wrong to partition the land into two states in 1947. The argument against seems to be that Muslim Arabs were a majority (about 70%) at the time. Bizarre argument. US Americans are a majority of North Americans, but we accept Canadian and Mexican sovereignty. They seem to be presupposing an All-Palestine state, and then invoking democracy (most residents didn't want a Jewish state). Circular logic. Why presume one state to begin with? Yet there is no such demand that other newly formed states in the region *must* be a single democratic blob. Modern Syria and Jordan, and Lebanon were founded in 1946, 1921, and 1920 and we aren't raging to this day about those "partitions".
I guess you could say that the Jews tended to be more recent immigrants than the Arabs at that time, so they should not have been granted any sovereignty for that reason. Seems ridiculously anti-immigrant to me, coming from purportedly lefty camp. Clearly the Jews had/have a long-term connection to the place and Palestine has been conquered and re-conquered so many times that it's absurd to talk about the "indigenous inhabitants" as if the local Arabs were Native Americans that had no contact with Eurasia/Africa for something like 10,000 years.
One thing that gives me pause is noticing the dynamic between Black Americans and other successful minorities like Asians, who are also viewed as “white-adjacent” in the American context and are assumed to be complicit in systemic oppression, rather than as “allies”. So, the question is are Jewish Americans viewed the same as other successful minorities, or are they especially scrutinized? In terms of third-world antisemitism, I think it is true that immigrants don’t have a great deal of sensitivity/understanding of the Jewish experience in the 20th century, but imo first-gen immigrants also don’t display sensitivity when it comes to the Black experience in America, since they haven’t marinated in the history of either. I would love to see a calibrated expression of anti-semitism taking all these comparative variables into account.
When I was in high school in the early 2000s, I was in an honors social studies class, where a female classmate lamented how the media was so biased because it was controlled by Jewish people loyal to Israeli interests (this was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the second intifada). When I confronted her as a Jewish person to tell her that was offensive, she bent over backwards to make sure I knew she had nothing against me personally, and thus I was wrong to be offended. If only the term “gaslighting” had been invented then…
Oh, and the teacher agreed with her assessment
I'd just add that the rising feelings of danger felt by US Jews are -- though very important for understanding their experience -- virtually useless for asking about the prevelance of anti-Semitism.
After all, every time an issue comes up that raises the worry that anti-Semitism might be increasing the very existence of think pieces about it are going to increase safety worries.
Moreover, it's only rational for Jews to worry the people protesting Israel might actually be close to turning on Jews -- but that's the question we want to answer so and all that statistic tell us is the jews are wondering about it too.
Also, I think it might help these discussions just to jettison the word anti-Semitism all together. Like 'racism' the problem is many people really understand the term to mean: the morally objectionable behavior that's in a certain neighborhood (e.g. of having negative stereotypes about Jews or discriminating against them). As such the argument ends up being as much about making value judgements like: is treating Israel worse than 'similarly situated' countries morally bad in the relevant way.
Just talk about how many people have the particular trait in question, e.g., negative stereotypes.
I often defend Israel (lived there for a number of years) from accusations of genocide [1] and being unduly blamed (not just asked to meet the higher western standard). But it's really misleading to point out that criticism of Israel is correlated with antisemitism as a way to cast aspersions on such criticism (or use it as a measurement proxy).
Of fucking course they are correlated!! It would be shocking if anti-Semities weren't more likely to critisize Israel. Guess what, I bet white supremacy is correlated with disliking black panther -- so should we be sus about people who hate superhero movies.
Look, I understand that it's frustrating because often people don't come out and admit they dislike Jews. Just like anti-black racists might say they aren't racist and instead critisize "ghetto culture" of course anti-Semities will pick the closest socially acceptable thing to say.
But, just like using base rates of criminal activity by race to suspect a neighbor is guilty of the recent theft it's a problem to use this correlation alone to suspect anti-Semitism. It's more prejudicial than probative and, whenever this actually comes up, we have plenty of other evidence that lets us impute motives. Are they obsessed with bankers being evil, are Jewish conspiracy curious etc -- probably anti-Semitism. Are they obsessed with racial justice, anti-muslim bigotry etc etc? Then, even though their faulty reasoning might happen to give Jews the short end of the stick, it's not antisemitism.
--
1: Its not only wrong but kinda silly as well. Why the hell should it matter is Israel is trying to eliminate (in whole or in part) an ethnic group? If you believe they are massacring innocent Palestinians isn't that horrific enough on its own?
I was looking at Pew survey data recently for how different religious groups feel about each other, but what occurred to me is, the question of whether you like or dislike Jews is really different from the question of whether you like or dislike, say, Presbyterians. Not only is the history different, but Jews really constitute a "people" (at least for Americans, and for Jews themselves) in a way that most religious groups don't (in this time and place). So being asked whether you like Jews is more like being asked whether you like Filipinos, and being asked whether you like Presbyterians feels more like being asked whether you like Freemasons. If I say I dislike Presbyterians, I'm probably not saying that I actually dislike individual people for being Presbyterians, but more that I dislike Presbyterianism the religion. I don't know. I just think the results are not fully comparable for that reason.
Excited to report this confirms all my priors. Great article.
I am grateful that the United States has become far more amenable to so many people, and personally I think that story is completely under covered. We rarely talk about how racial attitudes have dramatically improved, how overt racism is increasingly considered taboo (as is overt bigotry towards most and other groups). I am gay, and in my lifetime I have never once been called a slur, never felt even uncomfortable for who I am since coming out. I say this not to claim that these problems are solved (they aren't, nor do I think you can ever fully eliminate bigotry and bias) but to say that those who paint the US as a hateful place miss the forest for the trees.
This was a well written article explaining the many different challenges facing the Jewish community. All we can do is be aware of it and try to educate where possible, and isolate where necessary.
I'm glad you've never been called a slur, though it surprises me a little (I've only ever lived in very pro LGBT places and I've been called anti-gay slurs).
True though that the climate has palpably shifted even from when I was a teenager (I'm in my early 30s) and that I am very comfortable engaging in normal public space affection with my partner that I would have been way more nervous to do 15 years ago.
On the other hand, as to the OP, I am more nervous wearing a yarmulke these days than I was when I first moved to NYC in 2016-2017.
It is possible that there is more pushback in proLGBT areas. Many people participate in demonstrating affinity by opposing a local out group.
I understand that my experience is unusual, and I would never claim that my experience proves the US is past its issues. For me the point is that experiences are variable and I dislike using individual experiences to prove a point.
I had interesting experience growing up in an major minority area with a lot of white-black tension, but not a lot of Jewish people. The mild white stereotypes I grew up with - nerdy, uncool, lack of masculinity, out of touch, wealthy, weird, entitled, chatty, pedantic - blended with self-mocking Jewish humor on TV. So in this framework Jewish stereotypes became the apotheosis of whiteness, and I didn't know much about Jewishness in any other context. So in a reverse-polarization kind of way, the idea that Jewish people could be anything other than White, is as strange to me as splitting off white Americans of Irish or Italian ancestry - It feels like technically you can make the distinction, but you are only fooling yourself.
You could say that this is all an internalization of black anti-semitism, but I do think its true that class and income are just much more salient dividing lines in the American experience than ethnicity or religion.
I'm just curious - where did you grow up?
I'm sure you know this, but there are plenty of Jews from the Greater Middle East who are culturally and physically pretty far removed from the European Jews who settled in the US. They are mostly in Israel now, though.
I grew up in Tidewater Virginia (Hampton Roads / Norfolk / Virginia Beach) South of DC. I think there is a vague awareness of the Jewish population in NYC, DC, and even Richmond VA - but I had never met anyone who identified as Jewish or talked about anyone they knew who was Jewish until I went to college and met more East Coasters.
Being on the bottom of the North and top of the South, it has a funny mixture of Southern Conservativism and Northern Liberalism. Being poor and black was associated with Christianity, and being rich and white was associated with secularism, and so I have to think that was another important element of it. The idea "the Jews" would be working with "the Blacks" to takeover "White America" just wouldn't make any sense - Black political power was already the norm and it wasn't particularly Jewish.
One thing I wish I had more clarity on is the difference between what I'll call "exotic stereotypes" and "familiar stereotypes".
A familiar stereotype is something like "The Chinese girl beat me at the science fair, I'll bet she cheated" or "a Hispanic man broke into my house, I think they're all crooks". An exotic stereotype is something more like "I've never met a Native American before, but the first thing everyone knows about them is they are alcoholics" or "I keep seeing these Jews with media elites, but none of them have been to my hometown, I'll bet they are responsible for the factory closing".
In other words, which stereotypes are generated by interpersonal greivance and which stereotypes are generated by abstract imagining of enemies? With the Internet the line between the two may be blurred, but I still think there is a difference between finding a stranger on the Internet to argue with versus going to the Internet to validate a sentiment developed in your daily life.
Is anti-semitism generally an exotic stereotype? Does is share qualities with other exotic stereotypes or is it wholly unique? Are there people who have anti-semitism from another place and how do they differ?
That's an interesting breakdown. I think there's some of both in this case, with the familiar stereotypes mostly appearing in places like NYC, especially in areas where some of the Jewish communities self-segregate, like the Hasidis.
I haven't fully fleshed out the thought yet, but one of the things I've been thinking since October is how the social justice language (the actual words and phrases but also just the style) that's become so prominent over the past ten years has really left people unable to communicate now that we've come across an issue with somewhat higher stakes, and where you're allowed to publicly argue on either side. You spend the entire time fighting over the meanings of the words and dwelling on things you're absolutely not going to change. Plus, the tactics are incredibly ineffectual. You're disrupting a suburban school board meeting in the Upper Midwest to call for a ceasefire...okay...who told you to do that? What is anyone doing?
I think it’s important to distinguish between attitudes and behavior. Discovering hidden beliefs is ultimately a lot more difficult than examining how people actually act in the real world.
I haven’t looked at the stats recently, but by the behavior metric, I think Jews are one of the groups that receive the most amount of negative behaviors because of their Jewishness.
And I would think that the amount has spiked significantly in the past six months as some in the anti-zionist crowd have painted with a very broad brush in their zealous opposition to Israel.
It’s interesting to me that one of the ADL’s antisemitic tropes is “Jews stick together more than other Americans”. That’s generally a positive descriptor and Americans say the same things about small town life and whatever else they hold in high regard.
It’s one reason why I’d really like to see the baselines in bias tests, honestly.
At first I thought this was written by Matthew Yglesias himself and I got excited. No offense to the authors. Just a popularity things I guess.