I'm an elderly Jewish-American. A point mentioned (but not emphasized) in your essay is the decline in antisemitism in the US. When my father was a kid, quotas were routine, Jews were simply excluded from some professions, and there were towns where it was understood that Jews would not be permitted after dark. Progress happens.
Throughout this debate about whether we're witnessing elevated levels of antisemitism in the US, I've found that my answer is... I don't actually care.
"Antisemitism" is too amorphous a term that leaves us arguing over the definition all day long. We lump together distinct attitudes held by people on different points of the political spectrum. There are even some definitions that would include attitudes held by a large number of young Jews!
I can describe what's upsetting me without making any reference to antisemitism. There's a war going on between the armies of radical Islam and the Jewish state. Where I live, the Islamists' supporters consist mostly of (1) hard-line Arab nationalists and (2) leftists (some of whom are Jewish themselves).
(1) will occasionally taunt or intimidate Jews, and they know exactly what they're doing. Example 1: Chanting "from the river to the sea" at a vigil for those killed on October 7th at a school where I was teaching (translation in Arabic: "From the water to the water, Palestine is Arab/Muslim"). Example 2: Physically preventing Jewish students from getting to class (without interference by the administration) at MIT...
(2) will simply do whatever seems aligned with the interests of (1). The college students mostly don't know what's going on. Less so for the media/NGOs/etc. See, for instance, Amnesty International's recent sad post about the "Palestinian writer" (actually a terrorist with blood on his hands) who died in an Israeli prison last week.
I don't know if any of these behaviors are antisemitic. I don't need to know in order to understand that these people are my enemies. Moreover, in this moment, I have no idea why anyone would care if somewhere far, far away there are some right-wingers who hold highly offensive but unrelated attitudes about the relationship between Jews and immigration.
This article kind of misses the point, in my opinion. Among immigrants and students from Islamic countries, extreme antisemitism is as common as it has been throughout history. They have not undergone the process of reducing antisemitism that the European person has gone through following the Holocaust. On the contrary, the Israeli-Arab conflict has only intensified their antisemitism.
The main issue with white people holding leftist views is not their antisemitism per se, but their absolute loyalty to their allies, the immigrants from Islamic countries. Is there a big difference between being an extreme antisemite yourself and showing absolute loyalty to your allies who are extreme antisemites? Not really.
One challenge for the third kind of study is the actual success of Jews in America. We really are overrepresented in finance/politics/media/journalism/academia! And so you have to ask about the reasons for that to get at the conspiracy theories (in contrast to similar questions about say Black Americans, who are underrepresented).
Looking at the ADL's list of 11 statements that "indicate classic anti-Jewish conspiratorial beliefs" they range from clearly anti-semitic and also rarely endorsed ("Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind", 7.7% of Americans say this is "mostly true") to borderline innocuous and more widely adopted ("Jews stick together more than other Americans," 20.8% "mostly true"). Like isn't it true for most ethnic and religious groups that they "stick together" more than "other Americans"? At least one way to interpret this statement is just that two randomly selected American Jews are more likely to associate with each other than two randomly selected Americans. That's almost certainly true, and probably true for almost any ethnic or religious subgroup in America. Part of my family is Jewish but it wouldn't really concern me at all if other Americans thought this statement was true about Jews. Whereas I would be concerned if most of the country thought Jews "don't care about anyone but their own kind" or "are more loyal to Israel than America" or "do not share my values," which are other items on the ADL list.
I wonder if there are any studies tracking exposure to anti semitic discourse or actions?
Something I've experienced since 10/7 is that I will be casually browsing social media, run into content by or about a Jewish person, and as soon as I read the comments I see a ton of antisemitic ones. For example, on Instagram I ran into a clip of orthodox Jews walking on NYC's streets in the 60s and many comments were Gifs of someone using a flamethrower.
I'm not Jewish and find this upsetting. I can only imagine if you are. It's fairly prevalent all over the Internet.
Something that may impact this is that people are now exposed to opinions from all over the world, and the rest of the world has a different dynamic than in the US. It may explain why studies show that antisemitism is down in the US but Jewish people report feeling worse about it.
The general thrust of this article I think is quite good. Figuring out just how prevalent anti-Semitic people are can be quite difficult as stuff like slight changes in word choice can skew answers. In addition, defining what is anti-Semitic is blurry as well.
But a few criticisms. First, the authors actually sort of unintentionally demonstrate the problems with using surveys when they cite the ADL survey showing 85% of Americans believe in an anti-Semitic trope. Immediately my “this doesn’t pass the smell test” radar went up. So I checked the survey and one question is doing a lot of work here; “Jews stick together more than other Americans”. I’m sorry, I’m guessing you’re getting similar answers for literally religious sect or ethnicity. What this is describing is very basic patterns of immigration and history of how immigrant communities were and are formed. It’s interesting because the whole post is I think correctly trying to note that measuring antisemitism is hard because subtle word choices in question can skew answers. And then the authors sort of unintentionally prove that point, while trying to make another point all together.
Second, why oh why do the authors have to start their post with the laziest “both sides” framing and lead up. It’s infuriating especially because the writer of this substack provided pretty good evidence that antisemitism is higher on the right than left. And what’s weirder is the authors seems to acknowledge this at the end of their post. So what the heck is the point of opening your post with “both sides” framing.
I think a huge problem for all of this discourse--and one I'm not sure you can escape--is the influence of the state of Israel as a political actor and nation-state with its own strategic, economic, and internal interests. Like, I'm just totally unconvinced that leftist discourse takes the same shape absent the behavior of Israel as a nation-state vis-a-vis the Palestinian population, but it's also not like you can unwind that stuff. And, conversely, you can't have the US backing Israel in areas like the UN security council without providing fodder for antisemitic conspiracy theories EVEN IF those choices make sense on other geostrategic levels.
I don't see this as a particularly novel problem; you could just as easily apply it to sentiment about people of Chinese heritage. But I'm also not sure that it is a fixable problem. I think it really does just confound the data.
"accusations against diaspora Jews of being more loyal to Israel than to their own country"
I guess this may be a little off topic, but my impression is that Israel actively cultivates something like that sort of loyalty from Jewish Americans. I remember reading about a "birthright trip" that an America Sportswriter took:
"One tactic they used was to gather us all together and announce a choice:
If you feel like you’re more Jewish than American, you should walk over to one side of the room. If you feel like you’re more American than Jewish, you should walk over to the other side of the room.
Tempting as it was to claim an identity more exotic than “White American tricked into the ideological version of a timeshare,” I was the only person who trudged over to the U.S. side."
I'm not sure if Israel is uniquely bad about this or not. China and Russia are the only other countries I'm aware of that seem to be aggressive about hereditary loyalty, but there are probably more given that most of Europe, Asia and Africa have an ancestral or tribal vision of nationhood and citizenship that directly clashes with the Western Hemisphere's immigrant assimilationist mentality.
I feel like the end point of a lot of this debate becomes a really annoying meta discussion - if you talk about anti-semitism, you get people saying "yeah yeah whatever there are literally children starving to death in Gaza" (true), and if you talk about Gaza you get American Jews who bring up all of the anti-semitism going on here and the ways in which Palestinian activists are involved in it/ stoke it/ etc. (also true). These two aren't, like, opposed beliefs. I think what is going on in Gaza is absolutely deplorable and I also haven't ever felt the presence of anti-semitism quite as closely as I did in the weeks following 10/7.
Anyway, I would encourage anyone who's arguing in the comments on the meta point about what we're "not focusing on" or "not talking about" to consider that, in fact, we are talking about all of this quite a lot, and if you're not seeing it its probably down to your Twitter algo or TikTok FYP.
I looked carefully at the double standard study, which was fascinating, and what it showed was that respondents treated Catholics and Jews similarly to each other, and differently from Indians. Which isn't a double standard between Jews and everyone else.
Indian-American are people who used to live in India and moved to the US, who could be of any religion. Whereas the relationship between Jews and Israel, and Catholics and The Vatican is of a group of Americans with a perceived affinity with the rest of their religious group. These are two very different relationships, so respondents treated them differently. Interestingly, in almost every category, respondents were the hardest on Catholics, as far as taking responsibility for the actions of The Vatican.
Can I just say that I find it depressingly ironic that in a post trying to tease out how prevalent antisemitism is, there are multiple comments that other commentators have flagged as Islamophobic or anti-Muslim (I think correctly). It says something and I’m not entirely sure what. But thought it worth pointing out.
Any Jewish American who contributes to AIPAC or supports American subsidies to Israel values Israel enough to undermine American material interests. America has no material interest in supporting Israel. Israel does not control rare natural resources or have a huge semiconductor industry. It does have many, many enemies, some of whom want to drive it into the sea. Supporting Israel vastly complicates American dealings with the Islamic world. It prevents normal relations with Iran. It turns our support for nuclear nonproliferation into a farce. Ethnic solidarity is a powerful drug and American Jews who support Israel have subordinated American patriotism to ethnic interests.
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.
I'm an elderly Jewish-American. A point mentioned (but not emphasized) in your essay is the decline in antisemitism in the US. When my father was a kid, quotas were routine, Jews were simply excluded from some professions, and there were towns where it was understood that Jews would not be permitted after dark. Progress happens.
Throughout this debate about whether we're witnessing elevated levels of antisemitism in the US, I've found that my answer is... I don't actually care.
"Antisemitism" is too amorphous a term that leaves us arguing over the definition all day long. We lump together distinct attitudes held by people on different points of the political spectrum. There are even some definitions that would include attitudes held by a large number of young Jews!
I can describe what's upsetting me without making any reference to antisemitism. There's a war going on between the armies of radical Islam and the Jewish state. Where I live, the Islamists' supporters consist mostly of (1) hard-line Arab nationalists and (2) leftists (some of whom are Jewish themselves).
(1) will occasionally taunt or intimidate Jews, and they know exactly what they're doing. Example 1: Chanting "from the river to the sea" at a vigil for those killed on October 7th at a school where I was teaching (translation in Arabic: "From the water to the water, Palestine is Arab/Muslim"). Example 2: Physically preventing Jewish students from getting to class (without interference by the administration) at MIT...
(2) will simply do whatever seems aligned with the interests of (1). The college students mostly don't know what's going on. Less so for the media/NGOs/etc. See, for instance, Amnesty International's recent sad post about the "Palestinian writer" (actually a terrorist with blood on his hands) who died in an Israeli prison last week.
I don't know if any of these behaviors are antisemitic. I don't need to know in order to understand that these people are my enemies. Moreover, in this moment, I have no idea why anyone would care if somewhere far, far away there are some right-wingers who hold highly offensive but unrelated attitudes about the relationship between Jews and immigration.
This article kind of misses the point, in my opinion. Among immigrants and students from Islamic countries, extreme antisemitism is as common as it has been throughout history. They have not undergone the process of reducing antisemitism that the European person has gone through following the Holocaust. On the contrary, the Israeli-Arab conflict has only intensified their antisemitism.
The main issue with white people holding leftist views is not their antisemitism per se, but their absolute loyalty to their allies, the immigrants from Islamic countries. Is there a big difference between being an extreme antisemite yourself and showing absolute loyalty to your allies who are extreme antisemites? Not really.
One challenge for the third kind of study is the actual success of Jews in America. We really are overrepresented in finance/politics/media/journalism/academia! And so you have to ask about the reasons for that to get at the conspiracy theories (in contrast to similar questions about say Black Americans, who are underrepresented).
Looking at the ADL's list of 11 statements that "indicate classic anti-Jewish conspiratorial beliefs" they range from clearly anti-semitic and also rarely endorsed ("Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind", 7.7% of Americans say this is "mostly true") to borderline innocuous and more widely adopted ("Jews stick together more than other Americans," 20.8% "mostly true"). Like isn't it true for most ethnic and religious groups that they "stick together" more than "other Americans"? At least one way to interpret this statement is just that two randomly selected American Jews are more likely to associate with each other than two randomly selected Americans. That's almost certainly true, and probably true for almost any ethnic or religious subgroup in America. Part of my family is Jewish but it wouldn't really concern me at all if other Americans thought this statement was true about Jews. Whereas I would be concerned if most of the country thought Jews "don't care about anyone but their own kind" or "are more loyal to Israel than America" or "do not share my values," which are other items on the ADL list.
I wonder if there are any studies tracking exposure to anti semitic discourse or actions?
Something I've experienced since 10/7 is that I will be casually browsing social media, run into content by or about a Jewish person, and as soon as I read the comments I see a ton of antisemitic ones. For example, on Instagram I ran into a clip of orthodox Jews walking on NYC's streets in the 60s and many comments were Gifs of someone using a flamethrower.
I'm not Jewish and find this upsetting. I can only imagine if you are. It's fairly prevalent all over the Internet.
Something that may impact this is that people are now exposed to opinions from all over the world, and the rest of the world has a different dynamic than in the US. It may explain why studies show that antisemitism is down in the US but Jewish people report feeling worse about it.
The general thrust of this article I think is quite good. Figuring out just how prevalent anti-Semitic people are can be quite difficult as stuff like slight changes in word choice can skew answers. In addition, defining what is anti-Semitic is blurry as well.
But a few criticisms. First, the authors actually sort of unintentionally demonstrate the problems with using surveys when they cite the ADL survey showing 85% of Americans believe in an anti-Semitic trope. Immediately my “this doesn’t pass the smell test” radar went up. So I checked the survey and one question is doing a lot of work here; “Jews stick together more than other Americans”. I’m sorry, I’m guessing you’re getting similar answers for literally religious sect or ethnicity. What this is describing is very basic patterns of immigration and history of how immigrant communities were and are formed. It’s interesting because the whole post is I think correctly trying to note that measuring antisemitism is hard because subtle word choices in question can skew answers. And then the authors sort of unintentionally prove that point, while trying to make another point all together.
Second, why oh why do the authors have to start their post with the laziest “both sides” framing and lead up. It’s infuriating especially because the writer of this substack provided pretty good evidence that antisemitism is higher on the right than left. And what’s weirder is the authors seems to acknowledge this at the end of their post. So what the heck is the point of opening your post with “both sides” framing.
I think a huge problem for all of this discourse--and one I'm not sure you can escape--is the influence of the state of Israel as a political actor and nation-state with its own strategic, economic, and internal interests. Like, I'm just totally unconvinced that leftist discourse takes the same shape absent the behavior of Israel as a nation-state vis-a-vis the Palestinian population, but it's also not like you can unwind that stuff. And, conversely, you can't have the US backing Israel in areas like the UN security council without providing fodder for antisemitic conspiracy theories EVEN IF those choices make sense on other geostrategic levels.
I don't see this as a particularly novel problem; you could just as easily apply it to sentiment about people of Chinese heritage. But I'm also not sure that it is a fixable problem. I think it really does just confound the data.
"accusations against diaspora Jews of being more loyal to Israel than to their own country"
I guess this may be a little off topic, but my impression is that Israel actively cultivates something like that sort of loyalty from Jewish Americans. I remember reading about a "birthright trip" that an America Sportswriter took:
"One tactic they used was to gather us all together and announce a choice:
If you feel like you’re more Jewish than American, you should walk over to one side of the room. If you feel like you’re more American than Jewish, you should walk over to the other side of the room.
Tempting as it was to claim an identity more exotic than “White American tricked into the ideological version of a timeshare,” I was the only person who trudged over to the U.S. side."
https://www.houseofstrauss.com/p/no-offence-but-americans-arent-canadian
I'm not sure if Israel is uniquely bad about this or not. China and Russia are the only other countries I'm aware of that seem to be aggressive about hereditary loyalty, but there are probably more given that most of Europe, Asia and Africa have an ancestral or tribal vision of nationhood and citizenship that directly clashes with the Western Hemisphere's immigrant assimilationist mentality.
I feel like the end point of a lot of this debate becomes a really annoying meta discussion - if you talk about anti-semitism, you get people saying "yeah yeah whatever there are literally children starving to death in Gaza" (true), and if you talk about Gaza you get American Jews who bring up all of the anti-semitism going on here and the ways in which Palestinian activists are involved in it/ stoke it/ etc. (also true). These two aren't, like, opposed beliefs. I think what is going on in Gaza is absolutely deplorable and I also haven't ever felt the presence of anti-semitism quite as closely as I did in the weeks following 10/7.
Anyway, I would encourage anyone who's arguing in the comments on the meta point about what we're "not focusing on" or "not talking about" to consider that, in fact, we are talking about all of this quite a lot, and if you're not seeing it its probably down to your Twitter algo or TikTok FYP.
1 in 4 hiring managers being less likely to move forward with Jewish applicants is *nuts*.
I looked carefully at the double standard study, which was fascinating, and what it showed was that respondents treated Catholics and Jews similarly to each other, and differently from Indians. Which isn't a double standard between Jews and everyone else.
Indian-American are people who used to live in India and moved to the US, who could be of any religion. Whereas the relationship between Jews and Israel, and Catholics and The Vatican is of a group of Americans with a perceived affinity with the rest of their religious group. These are two very different relationships, so respondents treated them differently. Interestingly, in almost every category, respondents were the hardest on Catholics, as far as taking responsibility for the actions of The Vatican.
Can I just say that I find it depressingly ironic that in a post trying to tease out how prevalent antisemitism is, there are multiple comments that other commentators have flagged as Islamophobic or anti-Muslim (I think correctly). It says something and I’m not entirely sure what. But thought it worth pointing out.
Any Jewish American who contributes to AIPAC or supports American subsidies to Israel values Israel enough to undermine American material interests. America has no material interest in supporting Israel. Israel does not control rare natural resources or have a huge semiconductor industry. It does have many, many enemies, some of whom want to drive it into the sea. Supporting Israel vastly complicates American dealings with the Islamic world. It prevents normal relations with Iran. It turns our support for nuclear nonproliferation into a farce. Ethnic solidarity is a powerful drug and American Jews who support Israel have subordinated American patriotism to ethnic interests.
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.
Responsible adults should be able to delineate between a person, their culture, their time/place and their religion.
People, in my experience; are often greater than the sum of their parts. The further we zoom out the messier and meaner this all gets.