There’s Always Hope’: Fighting Fear, Lies and a War We Can Still Win
Every Jewish parent in New York knows the feeling, even if we don’t have a name for it. Moshe Spern gave it one.
“We’re constantly on the fear meter of ‘Can I trust the people around me?’”
Spern has become one of the most quoted voices on antisemitism in the city – the New York Post one week, NBC the next. “It’s kind of funny at my house,” he told me. “They’re like, ‘What new story came out this week?’” We sat down to talk about why the stories keep coming, and whether anything we’re doing is actually working.
What followed was one of the most candid conversations I’ve had since October 7. I’m sharing as much of it in his own words as I can.
“It’s become glorified”
I opened with the question that drives my work: How did hating Jews become the trending thing?
Spern sees three movements fused into one. “We have the Free Palestine movement, you have the anti-Israel movement, and you have the antisemitism,” he said. “The modern antisemitism today is a combination of your old school, hundred years of swastikas and Nazi propaganda, combined now with this new age of being pro-Palestine. This is all wrapped up into one ball.”
The proof was in the picture he had posted yesterday morning: yeshiva school buses in Williamsburg sprayed with swastikas, “F–- Israel” and “Free Palestine.” Buses that carry children.
“These are the buses they have to ride… in a city in which Jews have lived for hundreds of years.”
“Why should any group, regardless of religion, feel the fear that the Jews feel right now?” he asked. “I really do believe if it was any other group, there’d be a lot more outrage.” And then the line that stuck with me most: “It’s become glorified to hate Israel. It’s become glorified to hate Jews.”
Different rules
Spern’s argument is about consistency. When politicians aimed “China virus” rhetoric at Asian Americans during COVID, people rightly pushed back. With Jews, he said, the reaction flips: “People actually make excuses for it.”
He is not asking anyone to stop criticizing Israel. “You could be critical of Netanyahu, you could be critical of policies, you could be critical of the war strategy,” he said. “But those are criticisms of an action. They’re not criticism of calling the entire country genocidal.”
On the genocide charge itself, he argues it fails the basic test: intent.
“There is no leader ever getting up and speaking to the people and saying, ‘We must kill every Palestinian.’ It’s actually the opposite.”
“Death is bad. Death of anybody is bad,” he added. “Are there mistakes that happen in war? 100%. That’s obviously not the goal.”
The mayor who ran
Spern was in the crowd at an October 7 memorial when Mayor Zohran Mamdani was booed. I watched it on TV, and his face said everything. Spern saw it up close.
“I literally saw him run out as fast as he could,” Spern said. “I actually in that moment felt more safe as an Orthodox Jew than I think he did!”
He thought it might be a wake-up call – a chance for the mayor to say the protests had gone too far. It never came. So what would he say with 15 minutes alone with him?
“I don’t need you to change your beliefs. But why don’t you ever reflect?”
“You are the mayor of the largest city with the most Jews in America,” Spern said. “You have an obligation to our people. You want to have your own personal beliefs as an individual? Great. You’re the mayor of New York City. Why are you talking about Israel all the time?”
He was just as pointed about Jewish leaders who keep meeting with City Hall without results. “It’s easy to have a 15-minute, 30-minute meeting with somebody,” he said. “It’s a lot harder then to take that meeting and make a difference.”
The enemy isn’t only outside
This is where the conversation turned, and where I think Spern’s message matters most – for Jews in New York and in Israel alike.
“This is not a war against Mamdani. This is not a war against the DSA. Those are outside factors. They could easily be defeated if we were united and as one.”
He described Jewish activists with the same goal who “literally will not walk into the same room” because of politics. “I don’t know how you combat antisemitism if the Jewish community itself is completely divided,” he said. “You can’t combat a Mamdani when you are still dealing with the ghosts of 2,000 years.”
He pointed to the uproar after Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed the Republican in her state’s Senate race – a move Senator Chuck Schumer called a “despicable betrayal.” Spern bristled at the language of disloyalty. “These are the same words that people have used against the Jews,” he said.
And he insisted on fairness in the other direction. “Islamophobia is real,” he said. “As Jews, we should go out of our way to make sure that Muslim New Yorkers are protected as well.” His line is simple: “You don’t have to abandon your people to support other people.”
His conclusion was blunt. “We got to wake up and we got to shape up,” he said. “If we don’t, we are going to lose this war.”
A new hope
Before we finished, I asked whether we’re missing something. Rallies, statements, op-eds – we’ve done them all, and the numbers keep climbing. Spern admitted that much of the daily work feels like “putting Band-Aids on the problem.” Then he asked me if I was a Star Wars fan.
“The Rebel Alliance had no shot at ever beating the Empire, ever. The Jews in Egypt had no shot at ever leaving Egypt.”
“As long as there is unity, as long as we come together, Hashem will always protect us,” he said. “In these moments where it seems like we’re losing, there’s always hope. And Star Wars: Episode IV is called A New Hope, right?”
His hope has a face. His wife’s grandmother is Marion Blumenthal Lazan, the Holocaust survivor and author of Four Perfect Pebbles, who still speaks to students. “Look what they did,” he said of her generation. “They came to America and they rebuilt themselves. The Jewish people, we’re constantly known for rebuilding our lives.”
I know that story too. My grandmother, a survivor, came to my schools to tell hers. What I took from her is what Spern said next:
“The hope is that America is not like the history books.”
“If we stop, we kind of give permission for the people to oppress us,” he said. “We have the right to live better. We have the right to live not in fear. We have the right not to have to take a double look when we’re walking down the street.”
That last line is the whole point. Our children shouldn’t have to live on the fear meter. The way we take them off it isn’t by shrinking. It’s by showing up together – louder, prouder and more united than the people who want us afraid.
