Jewish life in America
Jewish Zionists are facing new challenges in America.
Public spaces in many large cities have become hostile for those of us who wish to openly display our support for Israel. I recently saw a video of the co-chair of the Democratic Majority for Israel being attacked by a group of Hamas supporters in New York, simply for walking with an Israeli flag. The police response seemed limited to separating the groups. In New York, prosecutors dropped charges against 85 out of 100 people arrested for occupying a building at Columbia University because they couldn’t be identified, effectively rewarding anti-Israel lawlessness. Pro-Israel speakers are often shouted down, as noted by a professor from San Francisco State University. Many campuses and streets no longer feel safe for Jews to be visibly Jewish. Was it safer for one of us to be visible on the streets of Berlin in 1932, even 1933?
Charitable organizations have also taken a blatant antisemitic turn. I recently received a fundraising pitch from Amnesty International, one of the worst offenders, calling Israel a pariah state due to the cell phone explosions it allegedly caused. Yet there was no mention of Hezbollah bombing civilians in the Galilee starting on October 8, in support of Hamas’ massacres the previous day, which forced tens of thousands to flee from this clear war crime. Similarly, Doctors Without Borders seems to single out Israel for criticism while ignoring famine and other crises elsewhere in the world.
The media contributes to this bias. After 50 years, I canceled my subscription to the New York Review of Books. On top of its other anti-Israel content, it recently published an article condemning Zionist militias in 1947 for allegedly driving out Arabs. It conveniently ignored the fact that these were not militias but the Israel Defense Forces, fighting against Arab nations intent on destroying Jewish cities in the UN-approved partition of Israel. There’s no mention of Jews being expelled from Jerusalem’s Old City after the Jordanians won in 1948 and gave the Jewish population only hours to leave, or the destruction of historic Jewish communities in countries like Iraq, Libya, and Egypt, which collectively expelled 850,000 Jewish citizens. This number exceeds the total of Palestinian refugees, many of whom left voluntarily. The expulsion of Jews was so extensive that Eastern (Mizrahi) Jews now outnumber Ashkenazi (European) Jews in Israel. Are they supposed to return to those countries? Likewise, there’s no mention of Hamas’ repression of its own people or its war crimes, such as using civilians as shields for its military operations, or the similar war crimes Hezbollah committed when it started bombing Israel on October 8, 2024, in sympathy with Hamas’ massacre of over 1,200 Israelis the day before.
Similarly, The New York Times is notorious for portraying Israel as the sole problem in the Middle East. It has published only one article on how Hamas maintains its power. The Times uncritically accepts Hamas’ casualty figures, despite their dubious sources and failure to distinguish between fighters, civilians aiding fighters by hiding hostages, and true innocent bystanders.
So, what can we do? Like our fellow Jews in Israel, we cannot and should not leave in the face of aggression. There are personal actions, such as financially supporting groups that promote pluralism in Israel, like the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, the Israel Religious Action Center, and Hiddush (Renewal), to ensure Israel is seen as it truly is, not as the product of Bibi, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir. Similarly, support organizations like the World Union for Progressive Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism, that address Israel nationally and internationally. We can speak out, write, cancel subscriptions to publications that have veered into antisemitism, and reduce involvement in activities, as I did by deciding not to help plan my next Harvard Law School reunion.
But how do we reclaim the streets and campuses from the antisemitic thugs who make them unsafe for us to express our Judaism and Zionism? There are no easy answers. We must stand in solidarity and advocate for adequate police responses to street and campus miscreants. Perhaps we should look to the strategies of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights groups of the 1960s, who organized for protection while shaming their attackers by refusing to resort to violence. We must discuss strategies among ourselves to strengthen our resolve.
As the Mishnah says, “It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”