Is America’s Golden Age of Jewish Life Unraveling?

For many of us, the period between 1970 and 2010 was not only the best of times for American Jewish life but also, it could be argued, the most comfortable time for Jews in the two thousand years of the Jewish diaspora.

Prior to this period, Jews in America, though clearly living in greater freedom than most Jewish communities, experienced many of the constraints on a free life that Jews had lived throughout the centuries. In many instances, Jews either still felt discrimination, as for example Harvard had unofficial quotas on the number of Jewish students, and certain neighborhoods were known to not be open to Jewish home purchases, or Jews basically learned that progress toward full acceptance in society was predicated on not being too Jewish. For so many American Jews, this tradeoff was acceptable but hardly ideal. 

All this began to change in the 1950s and 1960s, a product both of broader changes in society and with it a greater willingness of Jews to stand up for who they are. 

The civil rights movement was the centerpiece of this change which obviously focused on the historic plight of African Americans. But the impact on American Jews was significant as well. Interestingly, early on in the struggle, ADL leaders recognized that large steps toward freeing African Americans would have a positive impact on American Jewish life as well.  

Reading the transcripts of ADL’s top leaders discussing whether the organization should file an amicus brief in Brown v. Board of Education, the most famous Supreme Court case of the twentieth century, making segregation in public schools unconstitutional, the leaders indicated that it was important to do so both because it was the moral thing to do, but also because the Jewish community would benefit from this as well. 

And it turned out to be so true. It was no accident that Jews in America entered their most successful time in this country just after the civil rights revolution had reached its apotheosis. 

Antisemitism and unofficial discrimination surely did not disappear. But overall, life for American Jews became largely normalized. They could mostly go to any university, live in any neighborhood, openly show their Jewish identity, support the State of Israel openly, and not worry about Jews being violently targeted. 

And now as we are in a very different time for Jews in America, the question before us is: what we are going through today, seeing some of the largest number of antisemitic incidents ever recorded, public attitudes toward Jews and the Jewish state declining significantly, tales of Jews repressing those public expressions of their Judaism or Zionism, is it a permanent unraveling of that tremendous progress for American Jews that changed Jewish life fifty years ago or is it a temporary phenomenon and the possibility of getting back to that sense of freedom and comfort that had characterized Jewish life in America for decades. 

The truth is we don’t have a definitive answer to that critical question but we can say there is nothing inevitable about the direction it takes. Much has to do both with the specific and broader directions this country moves in over the years ahead. Most immediately, Jewish institutions have to be secured. Recent laws about creating buffer zones around synagogues are a perfect example of that. 

We need political leaders on both the right and left to stand up consistently, not only denouncing antisemitic rhetoric but making it clear that these kinds of comments are un-American and unacceptable. We must educate our young people about the Holocaust, about the implications of hateful rhetoric, and about the meaning and value of the Jewish state not only to Jews but to democratically aspiring people in this country and around the world.

And we have to address the nasty side of social media without seeking to denigrate the entire experience but educating people, particularly young users, on the dangers therein. 

In sum, if the surging return and normalization of Jew hatred leads to a serious effort in society to return to the halcyon days of the twentieth century, then we won’t have to look back on this period as the beginning of the unraveling of a good Jewish life in America. If we fail to do so, we will all pay a heavy price.