Fighting Antisemitism Again and Again

Ed was a longtime member of our synagogue. He died four years ago at the age of eighty-five. I still remember the stories he told me about his childhood in Baghdad.  He lived a privilege life there until his bar mitzvah year. Then his parents sent him to England to continue his studies and escape the growing threat of antisemitism.  Eventually he made his way to Israel where he served in the 1967 Six-Day war and more importantly as far as he was concerned married Margeurite. From there they made their way to Long Island where I continue to have the privilege of serving as her rabbi. Ed was more traditional and so after the merger when the combined synagogue became Reform it required some adjusting. I expected his difficulties would be about something technical like we sometimes we light Shabbat candles after sunset or we don’t sing every verse of Lecha Dodi, but I was surprised to discover it was more basic, or perhaps primal.

“In Baghdad,” I can still hear him telling me, “We never went outside at night. We were afraid we might be beaten up or worse yet, killed. And so, we only went to synagogue on Shabbat morning and never for Friday evening Shabbat services. On Friday night, we made Shabbat at home quietly. Now that our services are only on Friday nights and not Saturday mornings it’s really hard for me.” I did not know what to say. How could I respond to his fears? How could I make him more comfortable? How could I convince him that New York of 2016 is not Baghdad of the 1950’s? How could I help him let go of his childhood traumas? I realized I could not assuage his feelings? I can’t undo anyone’s fears. I offered him a hug and said, “I hope to see you at Shabbat services sometime soon.”

I have been thinking about Ed a lot this past year. I wish he was here so I could ask him more. I wish I could learn from him again.

I have been thinking about my Papa Bill as well. He and I used to talk about everything and debate many things, especially The New York Times Op-Eds. He died thirty-five years ago. One of our ongoing debates was about antisemitism. He was a traveling liquor salesman, and he used to regale me with stories about his travels throughout New York City.  How someone who did not drink alcohol could be such a successful salesman is a story for another time, but I recall how he would tell me that he mostly kept his Jewishness private.  This proved advantageous in two ways.  At times the restauranter would make some comment in Yiddish about what he thought was a goyish salesman who would then laugh and respond in Yiddish.  At other times it was advantageous because it protected him from antisemites.  Sometimes I wonder if his stories about boxing, and his brief desire to become a professional boxer, were really sugarcoating for how he had to fight to protect himself.

I would often get excited and ask him with a heavy dose of incredulity “Why would you hide being Jewish?”  (My sermonizing began at an early age.)  And Papa would smile at my youthful idealism.  He was so happy that his grandson had never once experienced antisemitism.  For me it was only the stuff of history books.  “It’s different now, Papa,” I would always shout.  And Papa would always respond, “Steven, I’m glad things are different for you.  But antisemitism is always there.  It will never go away.”  I have been thinking about Papa Bill a lot.  I have been thinking about how cautious he was about sharing his Jewish identity.  And so, these days, every time I pause before telling someone about my recent trip to Israel or hesitate to profess my Zionist commitments or catch myself using Hebrew words in public, I think about him. I get it now, Papa.

This morning I need to speak about antisemitism and the threats that so many of us are feeling. It is often wrapped up in our attachment to Israel. On the right we hear Tucker Carlson accusing Israel of dragging the United States into the war with Iran.  He regularly promotes conspiracy theories that Zionists manipulate the US government. On the left we hear Hasan Piker speaking about similar conspiracies.  He celebrates terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. At a protest outside a Young Israel in Queens he said, “Hamas is a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state.  The real harm happening is that another illegal stolen land sale is taking place at another synagogue!”  Make no mistake.  These are not criticisms of Israeli policy.  They are instead populist rage.  And this growing populism on the left and the right represent a clear and present danger to Jewish safety.

Mark my words.  Hear my grandfather’s warning.  The growing isolationism finding root in the Republican party will metastasize into Lindbergh like antisemitism.   Vice President JD Vance’s hesitancy in condemning Tucker Carlson and his conspiracy theories is going to make things more dangerous for Jews.  Our president’s praise for the electoral success of Germany’s extremist far-right party offers more foreboding.  On the left the problem is even more acute.  In Michigan the Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s failure to forcefully denounce the Temple Israel attacker or the words of Hasan Piker represent a clear moral failure.  When he calls Israel bloodthirsty or irredeemably evil it conjures old antisemitic tropes.  The vilifying of Israel is dangerous for all Jews whether they feel connected to Israel or not, whether they identify as Zionists or not, whether they are critical of Israel’s policies or not.  The Democratic Party must refuse haven to these dangers.  They represent threats to our safety.

Closer to home Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s video address labeling Prime Minister Netanyahu a war criminal was frightening to watch.  He said in part, “Anyone with their eyes, with their heart, with their conscience should recognize the devastation [Netanyahu] has wrought and understand that he belongs before a court of law.”  While I have offered forceful criticisms of Israel’s policies and said that its destruction of Gaza has not only undermined its long-term security but also our Jewish morals, the notion that we can accuse Netanyahu of grave crimes without even mentioning Hamas’ genocidal aims and its celebration of the murder of Jews reveals an extraordinary moral obtuseness.  It’s you Mayor Mamdani who does not have eyes to see.  The mayor reveals a populist rage cloaked in moral language.  And this rage makes it dangerous for anyone who loves Israel, Israelis, the Jewish people and Jews.  Look at the difference between the Hamas charter and Israel’s Declaration of Independence.  The declaration offers peace to its neighbors.  The charter offers death.

While we might have misgivings about Israel’s conduct during these past three years of war or Netanyahu’s empowerment of racists like Itamar Ben Gvir or his government’s utter failure to root out Jewish terror in the West Bank the delegitimization of Israel’s very existence and the vilification of its prime minister will lead to attacks on our fellow Jews. When someone calls Israel a settler colonial state it leads to the excusing of the rape and murder of Jews as legitimate resistance.  When someone says Israel does not have a right to exist people start thinking Jews do not have a right to exist.  I have no problem with Israel’s critics.  But they must begin with this simple fact.  Israel exists.  It is here to stay.  Let’s debate how it should change.  Let’s argue about how Israelis and Palestinians can be reconciled and how both can be healed.

Let go of the populist rage.  It’s making the world dangerous for Jews.  Our history is filled with examples of mobs turning violent against Jews.  And populists, whether they sit on the right or the left, whip up mobs.  We see the confluence of these factors, of the rage and conspiracies and vilification of Israel, in the attack on Detroit’s Temple Israel.  In 2025 the American Jewish community was forced to spend $1 billion securing its institutions.  We could have done so many other wonderful things with those dollars—for ourselves and for others.  There is a direct line between this dangerous rhetoric and recent protests against New York City housing developments.  There signs were plastered on buildings saying, “Beware: Talmudists are trained to cheat.  Locals vs. Rothschilds.  Stop Zionist occupation of Manhattan.”  I turn to our leaders.  I plead with them to do better.  Hear Temple Israel’s pain. Listen to our fears. Mr. Mayor, stand by the countless Jewish constituents who are proud to called themselves Jews and Zionists. Protect them with your words.

I should not wonder if it is safe to declare, “I am a Zionist” or fear saying, “I am a Jew,” or worry about saying, “Shabbat Shalom” in public.

In 1790, President George Washington penned a letter to Newport’s Hebrew Congregation. He wrote, “The Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.”  From that moment on, America offered something different to Jews.  Here we did not have to renounce our attachment to peoplehood.  In France, things were different.  One year later, when the French National Assembly emancipated the Jews, it came with a condition.  As Claremont-Tonnerre said the Jews should be denied everything as a nation and granted everything as individuals.

The European Enlightenment required that we let go of peoplehood.  But Judaism is not just a religion.  We are a people.  To be a Jew is not simply about believing but about belonging.  We appear to be entering a period where our Jewishness comes with a condition.  That we must renounce our commitment to the Jewish people and our attachment to the nation, that only anti-Zionist Jews who have renounced their devotion to Zion will be accepted into polite company.  Zionism professes that the Jewish people like all other peoples have a right to self-determination in their ancient land.  This requires one accept two facts.  Number one.  The Jews are a people.  And number two.  The Jewish people have an indigenous connection to the land of Israel.  Our attackers seek to deny both truths.  To deny the Jews are a people is to deny a basic tenet of Judaism.  And to deny our connection to the land is to deny history.

Let’s be honest.  Zionism is a modern idea.  And I confess Palestinians suffered terrible injustices when Israel was founded and we should do better acknowledging they continue to suffer far too much, but there is no denying the Jewish story runs through the land of Israel.  We are not colonizers but returnees.  When we weren’t there, we dreamed about getting there, whether that was when we first set out from Egypt to return to the land Abraham first settled or after we were forcibly expelled from there when we celebrated Passover in fifth century Babylon or when we recited birkat hamazon after our meals in eleventh century Spain or when we chanted the sheva brachot at weddings in nineteenth century Ukraine.  The centuries of dreaming outpaced the years of sovereignty, but the story always turned on Zion.  It is what has tied us together as a people.  It is also today what divides us.

Our detractors wish to see us only as a religion that is not rooted in a place.  They deny Jewish peoplehood.  When Israel was attacked on October 7^th and so many were murdered, raped and taken hostage, we felt the pain and heartache six thousand miles away.  Even though we have no family ties to the victims we felt as if we did.  It was as if Hersh was our son too.  Our neighbors did not understand our pain.  They could not understand how we felt so connected to something happening so far away.

Compare that with the response to attack on Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.  Eight years ago, there was an outpouring of support.  Three years ago, there was none.  Why?  Because our friends and neighbors see our synagogues like they see their churches or mosques.  They see Judaism as they see Christianity and Islam, namely as religions that center faith.  But we center not only God but the Jewish people.  For us there was no difference of feelings between October 7^th and Pittsburgh.  In both, we felt as if we were attacked.  We felt as if our family members were killed or taken hostage.  That is what it means to be a Jew.  It is about an attachment to the Jewish people.

The Torah was not revealed to one person but to the entire people.  We gathered together around Mount Sinai to receive God’s revelation after being freed as a people.  The Torah is not a story about Moses, but instead about the Jewish people.  Even our prayers are recited in the plural not the singular.  We require a minyan for our most important prayers.  The group, the community, the people is how we approach God and live out our obligations.  You cannot do Jewish without others.  It is that simple and that fundamental.

My faith demands that I remain attached to Jews throughout the world—both here and in Israel.  And I am not about to renounce my connections to half of the world’s Jewish population, the seven and a half million Jews living in Israel.  I am not about to give up on our three-thousand-year attachment to Zion.  No matter what our deniers say we are a people tied to a land.

So how are we to respond to these attacks on our very identity?  How do we protect ourselves?  Obviously, we must continue to invest in security.  And I want to thank our dedicated security guards for helping to keep us safe throughout the year.  Number two. We must be clear eyed about the dangers facing us.  We must be tireless in our efforts of communicating how words can be dangerous.  If you are a Republican, you have the responsibility to call out the dangerous words emanating from your camp.  And if you are a Democrat, you have the duty to call out the threatening rhetoric coming from your side of the aisle.  It is too easy to castigate the other and point fingers at the opposition.  It is decidedly unhelpful to offer up excuses and apologies for your own side.  There is a direct line between saying Israel does not have a right to exist, or Israel is a settler colonial state and the increase in antisemitic attacks.

And number three.  Be not afraid.  Dara Horn recently said that this moment does not require more knowledge but more courage.  And that means working to make sure our dreams remain bigger than our fears.  It is easy to allow our fears to mushroom so that they overwhelm all else, but Judaism insists we continue to hope. We have always kept our dreams for a better tomorrow front and center.  We must not allow our fears to crowd them out.  We must work to place our dreams before our fears.

People often say to me, “This is the worst antisemitism has ever been.”  And that is true if the measure is one’s own lifetime.  For the vast majority of us this is the worst we have ever seen it, but we need to remember this is not the worst our people has ever seen it.  We have not only survived far worse, but persevered.  Hold on to that.  Hold on to hope.

I found hope in the most unlikely of places this past year.  It was on our congregational trip to Morocco.  After the war with Iran began, people kept asking me if we were still planning on going.  We were to be honest, a bit nervous.  We were traveling to a Muslim country with an Israeli tour company and being led by Israeli guides.  But in Morocco we spoke Hebrew freely.  Our Israeli guides were greeted with hugs and kisses at every place we visited.  This was their first trip to Morocco since October 7^th.  Our hosts kept saying how much they missed seeing them.

There are only a few thousand Jews remaining in Morocco.  The 300,000 large community left Morocco in the 1950’s.  Most made their way to Israel.  In their absence their synagogues did not fall into disrepair but were maintained by the local community.  We visited a number of these synagogues on our trip.  In Fez, in a synagogue that is no longer used, we sang our tradition’s prayers as onlookers snapped pictures.  In Rabat we discovered that the synagogue was locked.  Someone on the street realized we were a Jewish group and so he told us to wait.  He knew who had the key.  He ran off and returned ten minutes later to open the synagogue for us.  In Morocco, we were made to feel like celebrities.

My hope was also renewed in the dialogue we began with our neighbors at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church.  In that discussion Father Kedjierski spoke about how antisemitism should be more his problem than mine.  He then surprised me by asking what more he and his parishioners can do.  I answered, “This is what would be most helpful right now.  When we tell you we are afraid believe us.  Don’t tell us we should not be afraid.  Don’t minimize our fears and tell us that it’s not as bad as we think.  Don’t say that’s not what they really mean.”  We need to be heard.  Our fears need to be taken seriously.  And I can assure you, Father Kedjierski hears us.  Our fears pain him.  It is leaders like this who can make a difference.

And my hope is restored every time I think about Ed.  I hold on to his smile.  As difficult as it was for Ed, he came to services almost every Friday night.  He especially liked our Purim megillah reading which truth be told was only attended by our religious school students, their teachers, rabbi, cantor, principal and Ed.  He used to just sit there smiling.  Afterwards I would often apologize that our Purim celebration was so kid centered and that no other adults from the congregation came.  He would smile widely and say, “I loved it.”  I am holding on to his smile.  I am holding on to his joy in being Jewish.

I wish I could ask Ed how he summoned the courage to come out on Shabbat evenings.  I wish I could ask him how he overcame his fears. I wish I could ask my grandfather, and lifelong Democrat, to share some of his wisdom.  I wished I heeded more of Papa Bill’s advice.

On this Rosh Hashanah I am going to take comfort in George Washington’s words.  He concluded his letter to the synagogue by saying, “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”