“How are you doing?” The toll antisemitism takes on us

Once upon a time, asking Jewish friends or family members how they feel would for the most part elicit responses of “Fine,” or “Doing well, thank you.”

Those days seem a world away.

Nowadays, most Jews I know no longer have simple answers. Chalk it up to a year and a half of global indifference to Hamas’s brutal massacre of Israelis, of Hamas holding of hostages in captivity, of a horrific rise in antisemitism for which we see no end in sight.

Last May, when I had friends over for an Israel- and craft-centered event, conversation turned to our feelings – anxiety and fear. One friend was considering taking her mezuzah down from her front door. Another was nervous about finding a jeweler to repair her Chai necklace.

The truth is Jews don’t have to be on a college campus to have fears shape our behaviors.

Through my work at Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., where I am the director of education and advocacy resources, I learned that what my friends were sharing was not uncommon. Hadassah conducted a survey dubbed Everyday Antisemitism: Women’s Stories, and the results shocked me: Almost two-thirds said antisemitism impacted their life, work or relationships. Over 60% felt physically or psychologically unsafe. A third experienced hate speech and over a fifth were excluded from groups or events because of their Jewish or Zionist identity. Because of who they are.

And then there were the stories, quoted in Hadassah’s survey report, “From Fear to Resilience: Women Facing Antisemitism.”

“People I interacted with online found out I was Jewish and blamed me for deaths in Gaza.” “Feelings of sadness, fear and sometimes anger come over me, and some nights I have trouble sleeping because of it.” “In my work as a psychotherapist, my Jewish clients and I all have increased levels of anxiety, headaches and appetite disturbance.” “Antisemitic actions from within LGBTQ communities made me afraid to attend Pride events and fearful of showing my identity as a Jew in Queer spaces.” And so much more.

How we feel impacts how we function. Perpetual anxiety is not a normal state of being.

We are not the only ones looking at the emotional toll of daily antisemitism. Last summer after the two-week Annual ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute for Curriculum Development in Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, I wrote about the amazing network of people I met, got to know and am still in touch with.

One of them, Dr. Maor Shani, teaches developmental psychology at Osnabrück University in Germany. He shared with our ISGAP cohort the publication of his findings regarding the impact of post-October 7, 2023 antisemitism on Jews. Subjects who were interviewed revealed profound emotional disruption and trauma, changes in social relationships (both withdrawing from non-Jewish relationships and strengthening Jewish communal connections) and a pervasive sense of insecurity and vigilance – similar to Hadassah’s findings and the conversations I witnessed in my home.

He published a second larger study which demonstrated how everyday antisemitism is significantly linked to poor mental health and decreased social participation. We discussed these findings, and he elaborated, “Even when we are not the direct victims of violent hate or blatant discrimination, merely witnessing, hearing about, or reading antisemitic remarks can trigger significant distress.”

It gets worse. He found that when Jews are subjected to a constant drip of negative remarks about our identity, it “sets off a long-term stress response.” He further explains how “scrolling through social media and encountering hateful comments or conspiracy theories—aimed at Jews or Israel—can rattle our sense of safety just as direct insults might.” Over time, these firsthand and secondhand experiences can result not just in chronic stress, but can lead us to change our behaviors, eroding “not only our general sense of wellbeing but also the bonds that hold our social world together.”

So…the answer to “How are we doing?” is not well.

Hadassah’s report and Dr. Shani’s research bear witness to the impact of antisemitism on Jews’ daily lives, from people they encounter at work, at school, in their community. This sense of pervasiveness, of inescapable bias, shapes how we react to our environment. Is it safe to wear a Jewish star when we leave the house? Can we mention our family living in Israel without risk?

When we think twice about being our authentic selves, our mental health no doubt suffers.

PhD candidate in Social-Organizational Psychology Yael Silverstein, another ISGAP attendee, recently presented an Antisemitism Experiences Scale she is developing and validating with Dr. Caryn Block at Columbia University. A validated scale will allow researchers to study the full range of antisemitic experiences more methodically, from the overt to the subtle. The items on the scale assess the variety and frequency of prejudiced and hostile experiences related to Jewish identity, such as “I have heard justification for violence against Jews,” “I have experienced a double standard in the enforcement of policies that protect against harassment when it involved Jewish people,” “because of my Jewish identity, I have been treated as untrustworthy,” or the punch-in-the-gut of “I have experienced dismissal of antisemitism by others.”

It isn’t only that Jews are individually experiencing similar things. It is also that collectively we are feeling the same things for similar reasons.

For Jews, getting help with stress and trauma resulting from daily bias is easier said than done. It is no secret that finding a suitable counselor may not be easy, a la Tablet Magazine’s “When Your Therapist Hates Israel.” It is more jarring to learn that the field’s professional associations are no better.

One recent study examined the American Psychological Association’s antisemitism – or perhaps even more worrying – its indifference to its own antisemitism.

Jewish mental health organizations are responding to the current atmosphere. While The Jewish Therapist Collective recognizes “that there’s not space for Jewish identity or solidarity against antisemitism in the general psychotherapy community,” the group Psychologists Against Antisemitism sees antisemitism in the fields and wants to promote “training and education that increases sensitivity and responsiveness to antisemitism and its effects on individuals, families, and communities.” The Association of Jewish Psychologists is a third Jewish professional group supporting “psychological approaches to enhancing Jewish identity and defeating antisemitism.”

Whether or not one seeks professional help in a world where mental health practitioners are falling short, we still have to figure out what to do with these feelings storming inside of us.

I know women who’ve begun lighting Shabbat candles every Friday night. And others who won’t leave home without their yellow ribbon pin. Myself? Besides putting an Am Yisrael Chai magnet on my car, I have resumed what Covid disrupted – regularly attending Shabbat services. I have to admit, when I placed small Israel flags in two windows of my home, I realized that my decision was made easier by knowing I live in a low traffic cul-de-sac.

It is not a simple thing to convert the feelings that are eating away at us into something else. Let’s face it, this is not the world we thought we knew.

So, how are we doing?

We are hurting – from antisemitism that we and our loved ones experience and from the pain of knowing there are mental health professionals compounding the problem.

But when I think about my ancestors who survived for me to be here today, I can’t help but embrace Bret Stephens, the New York Times columnist and editor-in-chief of the Jewish quarterly journal Sapir, who called for folks to “get 10% Jewier.”

As a Jew and as a Zionist, his words resonate. “Whatever you are, add 10%…doesn’t have to be in religious observance. It can be in knowledgeability. It can be in the choice of vacation you are taking. It can be in what interests you on your bookshelf and where you want to deepen your commitments and your knowledge. It can be in your philanthropy. You name it.”

If we “Choose your own Jewish adventure. But make it 10% more” we can take back some control over our feelings, over how we are doing. And that makes me at least feel a bit better.