A People Divided Cannot Protect Itself: The Case for Jewish Unity and Pluralism

There’s something profoundly disheartening about realizing that the harshest treatment I receive on social media doesn’t come from antisemites, neo-Nazis, or random trolls hiding behind anime avatars. No—the ugliest, sharpest, most venomous comments come from fellow Jews. And not just any Jews, but Jews firmly planted on the political right. Jews who have fused their political identity so tightly with Donald Trump that he has effectively become their golden calf. They pray at his feet and, in doing so, have internalized his gleeful cruelty as a legitimate form of discourse.

But just because cruelty has become currency in Trump World doesn’t mean the rest of us need to spend it. Jews, of all people, should know better than to treat each other as ideological enemies. We have survived thousands of years not because we were uniform, but because we were unified. There’s a difference.

Unity is not sameness. Unity is not unanimity. Unity certainly isn’t silencing, shaming, or excommunicating one another based on political affiliation. Unity is the recognition that we share something deeper than partisan identity: a covenant, a history, a peoplehood that has weathered everything from Babylon to Rome to pogroms to Pittsburgh.

And yet, scroll through the replies on any Jewish political post (including mine on this very platform) and you’ll see Jews savaging other Jews with an intensity that should trouble all of us. People who boast about their Torah knowledge will, in the same breath, violate its most fundamental teachings. Lashon hara, baseless hatred, public shaming, demeaning fellow Jews—pick a prohibition. Some folks break all of them before breakfast.

Which commandment tells us to declare another Jew “not Jewish enough” because they voted differently? Which verse instructs us to rip apart someone’s Jewish identity because they advocate for nuance in Israeli policy? Which teaching says to weaponize our tradition like a cudgel?

I must have missed the chapter where the Torah says: “And thou shalt own the libs violently in the comments.”

We are commanded to remember that every person is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. Every Jew. Every spectrum of Jew. The ones we agree with. The ones we don’t. The ones who drive us nuts. The ones who challenge us. The ones whose politics make us want to scream.

This isn’t a suggestion. It’s a foundational idea of Judaism.

But today, too many on the Jewish right treat ideological conformity as the price of belonging. If you’re not sufficiently hawkish, not sufficiently devotional to Trump or the Republican Party, not sufficiently “anti-woke,” then you’re cast out. Not physically, but socially, communally, rhetorically. And in Judaism, words matter. Words create worlds—or destroy them.

The irony is stunning: those who claim to be the defenders of Jewish continuity are often the first to tear Jewish community apart.

And what does this achieve? Absolutely nothing good.

It weakens us.

Every time a Jew is mocked, bullied, or demeaned by another Jew because of political differences, our communal fabric frays a little more. Every time someone calls a fellow Jew a “self-hating Jew” or “kapo” or “enemy of the Jewish people,” the internal trust that holds us together erodes. Every time a Jew feels pushed out of Jewish spaces because their political stance isn’t in line with the dominant voices, we lose strength as a people.

Historically, the greatest threats to Jewish survival have never been internal disagreement. We’ve always disagreed. The Talmud is literally one long, 2,711-page argument. Dissent is our tradition, not a deviation from it.

No… the real danger has been when we allow disagreements to metastasize into hatred. Sinat chinam, baseless hatred, is what the sages say destroyed the Second Temple. Not Rome. Not swords. Not armies. Our own inability to treat one another with dignity.

We cannot afford to repeat that mistake, especially now, in a world where antisemitism is surging, conspiracy theories spread like wildfire, and the Jewish people are again forced to defend our right to exist.

At a moment when the world is eager to divide, scapegoat, and vilify us, why on earth are we doing that work for them?

Imagine instead a Jewish community where diversity of thought is not seen as a threat but as a strength. A community where conservative Jews, liberal Jews, secular Jews, observant Jews, Zionists, anti-occupation activists, Democrats, Republicans, and everyone in between all retain a seat at the table. A community where disagreement is passionate but grounded in mutual respect. A community where you don’t have to pass a political litmus test to be welcomed as a Jew among Jews.

That is not a pipe dream. That is the Judaism our ancestors built. That is the Judaism we inherited. And that is the Judaism we are commanded to maintain.

If we want to survive—not just physically but spiritually, ethically, communally—we must choose unity over uniformity. We must choose compassion over cruelty. And we must choose to treat one another as human beings made in God’s image, not avatars in some never-ending culture war.

We are one people. We forget that at our peril. Let’s remember it while we still can.