Antisemitic Violence Is Always the Responsibility of Antisemites: A Response to Hasan Piker
There are warnings that protect people, and there are warnings that transfer responsibility from those who threaten violence to those who may become its victims. Hasan Piker’s recent comments belong to the second category.
While displaying an image of Jeremy Moss, a Jewish candidate for Congress in Michigan, Piker suggested that if American Jews continue presenting themselves as singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone will “take action” – not against Israel, but against American Jews. Piker insists that he was warning against violence, not advocating it. But the moral failure lies within the warning itself. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries rightly called the formulation dangerous and antisemitic.
The message to American Jews is unmistakable: If you continue expressing the wrong kind of Jewish politics, what happens to you may become understandable. Your safety depends upon your behavior.
We have heard versions of this logic before. Do not wear a kippah too publicly. Do not display a mezuzah too prominently. Do not gather too visibly. Do not speak too loudly about Israel. Do not make other people angry. And if violence follows, perhaps you should ask what you did to provoke it.
No.
Antisemitic violence is the responsibility of antisemites. Always.
Jews are not politically monolithic. American Jews hold a wide range of views about Israel, its government, Zionism, Palestinian freedom, military policy and the future of the region. Those disagreements are real, consequential and often painful. We challenge one another. We should listen more deeply. We are real and interesting and human and all this complexity is part of what’s makes Jewish community so beautiful.
None of those commitments requires accepting the premise that Jewish safety must be earned through political compliance.
A Jew who supports Israel’s policies has the right to be safe. A Jew who opposes Israel’s policies has the right to be safe. A Jew who waves an Israeli flag, protests an Israeli government, advocates for Palestinian dignity or refuses to discuss the conflict at all has the right to be safe. That right is not a reward for holding acceptable opinions. It is a fundamental human right.
For many Jews, attachment to Israel is not a lobbying position or partisan calculation. It is woven into family, memory, prayer, peoplehood and history. Zionism, for us, is the modern expression of an ancient Jewish longing for collective self-determination in our ancestral homeland. It can and must include moral accountability, democratic responsibility, and a commitment to equal dignity for all. But no Jew should be told that expressing this connection places other Jews in danger.
That is not analysis. It is victim-blaming dressed as political sophistication.
This moment also reveals how dramatically political authority has shifted. Online influencers now command audiences larger than many newspapers, institutions and elected officials. Candidates seek their approval, borrow their platforms and fear their disfavor. They function as political constituencies without the accountability expected of communal organizations or public leaders. Their words travel quickly, especially among young people still learning which moral boundaries should never be crossed.
This is one of those boundaries.
We must teach younger Jews and the wider society that political disagreement never suspends another person’s right to safety. No minority should be warned that violence will become predictable if it refuses to behave properly. No community should be held responsible for the hatred directed against it.
Jewish safety is not conditional. It does not depend on Jewish silence, Jewish invisibility or Jewish disavowal of Israel. It is not ours to earn.
It is society’s obligation to defend.
