Dear American Jews, stop knocking on the country club gates

In his Oct. 7 New York Times op-ed, Bret Stephens noted that “while friends and allies are nice… we [Jews] are alone. Survival means learning to live with it.”

“Live with it” sounds kind of bleak, though.

Run with it, I say.

To do that, we Jews must stop knocking on the gates of country clubs that have made perfectly clear they don’t want us — and start building our own alternatives.

Not that Jews shouldn’t remain part of the mainstream. We should; I hope we will.

But the signs of exclusion are there.

When Jewish and Israeli resumés are quietly set aside. A 2024 ADL study found that Jewish Americans had to send 24 percent more job applications for the same response. Israeli-sounding names? 39 percent more.

When colleagues are excluded from projects, frozen out of decisions, or “choose” to leave. An OLAM survey found that more than half of Jewish professionals in the humanitarian sector reported antisemitism; many were driven out entirely.

When “inclusive” global institutions hold flagship events on Judaism’s holiest days: the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers Gala on erev Rosh Hashanah, the UN’s Better Together debate on the day itself. When the UN Secretary-General sends greetings for Eid al-Fitr — but none for the Jewish New Year.

Jewish experts ignored. Backs turned in public. Boycotts.

And yet Jews keep acting as if it’s business as usual — diligently documenting, explaining, “proving,” and petitioning, as if logic or truth still mattered; as if anyone were listening.

The impulse is understandable. I did it too, at Human Rights Watch, where I was senior editor until 2023. We’re conditioned to believe that evidence persuades, that reason and decency will prevail.

But mostly, we’re begging for scraps.

By now, most people have either been swept onto the flotilla of anti-Israelism masquerading as moral progress — or they’re too afraid to speak. There’s been plenty of time, and plenty of evidence, for those who truly care to have acted by now. If your workplace is still hedging on running that antisemitism training you requested two years ago, you may want to stop holding your breath.

It’s painful to realize we’re not as woven into the social fabric of the places and professions we thought we belonged to. But this is not about self-isolating or paranoia. It’s about being prepared.

In the 1950s, Jews stopped waiting for invitations from Palm Beach’s Everglades Club — with its “restricted membership” — and from L.A.’s storied clubs that turned away even film moguls like 20th Century Fox’s Darryl Zanuck with the velvet rope of polite antisemitism: “Not our kind, dear.”

So they built their own — L.A.’s Hillcrest Country Club, the Fontainebleau in Miami, the Eden Roc, the Catskills resorts, hospitals like Mount Sinai and Cedars of Lebanon.

Exclusion bred independence — and independence bred flourishing.

It’s 2025. Turns out we’re still not their kind.

It’s time to build again.