Should I have lied to the antisemite who attacked me?

An intriguing thought experiment was posed to me recently about my Jewish identity – I’m glad to say I failed.

I was speaking with a regional director at the Anti-Defamation League following a terrifying assault in New York’s Central Park, during which a man came at me with fists-a-blazing and a torrent of “Jew pig” obscenities after I dared challenge him for riding a bicycle on a pedestrian path, this after he’d aggressively elbow-checked me while pedaling past.

I wrote about the attack for the Wall Street Journal, noting that one of the detectives who interviewed me afterwards delicately asked how the man, who threatened to kill me while punching and spitting “Jew! Jew! Jew!”, knew I was Jewish.

Indeed, he didn’t since there was nothing about my appearance that would have signaled I was anything other than a guy in a T-shirt and shorts walking the dog through the park on a Saturday evening looking at his phone – something an observant Jew definitely would not be doing before sundown. To this maniac intent on bodily harm, I was a presumptive Jew, given the demographics of my Upper West Side neighborhood (although the UJA Federation estimates only 30% of households there are Jewish).

“What do you think would have happened,” the ADL executive asked, “had you tried to stop the attacker by holding up your hand and saying, ‘Hey, guy, hold on! I’m not even Jewish?’ Might that have slowed or stopped him?”

The question was a stunner. It never would have occurred to me to try such a trick, especially in the panic of the moment, when the man’s full-frontal antisemitism was on me in seconds. But I also realized how ingrained my Jewishness is not to have denied it even when threatened. Secular and assimilated as I am, I was overcome with primal fear from his Jew hatred as much as his road rage – I could not have felt more Jewish had I been tagged with a yellow Star of David or looked like Woody Allen’s bearded and black-hatted Hasid upon meeting Annie Hall’s gentile family. It was as if my Jewish jig was up.

Ironically, I’ve long instinctively parsed the world into Jews and non-Jews. At business meetings, restaurants, first-time introductions, even on subways, I always do a quick radar check for fellow Jews, as if channeling my inner Jackie Mason – “Hey, Mister, You Jewish?” It’s a comfort-seeking reflex, drawn from being raised in a cozy Jewish enclave and mindful when the balance is tilted the other way. Likewise, my Jewishness has always trumped any sense of whiteness – I’ve never felt a winking kinship with other Caucasians outside the tribe.

My instincts are usually spot-on, often leading to a classic round of Jewish geography, narrowing the degrees of separation that frame our common experiences and connections, whether one grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, St. Louis Park, Minnesota, Pikesville, MD, or in my case, the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. But I’ve also been embarrassed when I missed the mark, like the time I asked an editor boss while sharing a train ride what he was doing for high holidays – after all, his name was Wiseman. “You thought I was Jewish?” he asked, with discernible edge.

My father Milton, who liked to phone other Ripps from the White Pages on family trips to suss out whether they were Jewish, wasn’t afraid to lean into his religion. When a real estate agent tried to sell him on a post-War development he and my mom were viewing in the 1960s because it excluded “Coloreds and Jews,” Milt railed at the pitchman and drove all over his lawn. Once, traveling with friends in the deep South in the 1970s, Milt turned to a townie who was staring at them. “I’ll bet your name is Goldberg,” the local lobbed at my dad, who exclaimed, “How’d you guess?” And say hello to our friends the Greenbergs!” (They were the Kesslers and Milt said the townie sheepishly shook everyone’s hands.)

My Conservative rabbi describes how a physical attack against Jews sits on a spectrum with multiple, reinforcing coordinates and triggers, which have grown exponentially since hostilities between Israel and Hamas exploded last October 7. It could be a skewed newspaper headline, an inflamed social media post, a BDS campaign or a campus protest throwing out loaded terms like genocide and apartheid. I submit there is a direct through line between the antipathy freely directed at Israel and the increasing normalization of overt antisemitism in words and actions, including what I experienced.

The ADL’s New York/New Jersey chapter says it has recorded some 70 bias incidents against Jews each week since October 7 (including vandalism and harassment as well as assault). But beneath these stats are so many unreported antisemitic run-ins that deserve their own spot on the spectrum. Consider my kippah-wearing barber, who tried to explain to a drop-in customer that he can’t discount his already cheap haircuts. “What kind of Jew barber are you?” the man shot back before storming out. Or an architect friend –  not Jewish – who was cut off at a traffic stop; the other driver hurled the J-word while flipping him off. For many haters, Jew has become the go-to slur du jour.

I’ve imagined the scenario suggested by the ADL director and believe I would have felt thoroughly ashamed and never forgiven myself had I fooled my attacker into dialing back his blitz by pulling out the non-Jew card – “Hey, no Jew, no foul.” Maybe that’s because I escaped serious injury – would I have regretted not trying the subterfuge had he busted my jaw?

I do know this with total certainty. He came after me because he thought I was Jewish. I will continue to speak out because I know I am.