The Einbinder effect: A growing Jewish crisis

Last night, Hannah Einbinder stood on the Emmy Awards stage, a Jewish woman with a microphone, and delivered a line that felt like a microcosm of a much larger, more tragic story for American Judaism. Her words laid bare a profound crisis of identity, exposing the deep chasm that has been created between faith and peoplehood.

Having received her Emmy, at the end of her speech, she declared: “Go Birds, f— ICE, and free Palestine.” This statement, which included a reference to her favorite football team (the Philadelphia Eagles), came across as a jarring and deeply immature mix of cheerleading, political rage, and a slap at the State of Israel. In one breath, she celebrated a sports team, cursed a US government agency, and spurned a nation in a way that reduced a complex, centuries-old conflict to a flippant slogan.

This isn’t just about the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it’s about the tragedy of a performer using their most celebrated moment to publicly disassociate from their own people. For many, this isn’t just a political statement – it’s a desperate and public attempt to escape the antisemitism she likely fears is just around the corner. By condemning Israel, the implicit plea is: “Look, I’m one of the ‘good Jews,’ so don’t hate me.”

The #Blockout movement has created an environment where this kind of act is seen as not only acceptable but necessary. This social media crusade, which aims to financially punish celebrities who remain silent on the conflict, forces them into a binary choice. Either they conform to the movement’s radical narrative and risk alienating millions, or they stay silent and face an online mob. For the in-crowd, a celebrity’s support for the cause costs them nothing; it’s a cheap form of virtue signaling that makes them part of the group.

As writers like Adil Faouzi have noted, this is performative activism at its core. It reduces a complex geopolitical tragedy to a simplistic slogan, turning a genuine human struggle into what Faouzi calls a “theatre of performance.” For Jewish public figures, this performance carries a heavier weight. By echoing anti-Israel rhetoric, they not only throw their own people under the bus but also, ironically, validate the very antisemitic tropes they may be trying to escape. This action, born out of fear, only serves to embolden those who see all Jews as responsible for the actions of Israel. It represents the ultimate abandonment of klal Yisrael – the Jewish people as a collective – in favor of fleeting popularity.

The tragic reality is that this moment is a symptom of a larger illness in the American Jewish community. The emphasis on success and integration has caused the idea that Jews are a family, with a shared history and collective destiny, to wither. The result is a new generation of Jews who see their identity as a mere religion or culture, something they can easily separate from the state of Israel. This leaves them vulnerable to pressures to dissociate themselves from the State of Israel as if it is not an implicit part of their Jewish national identity.