When Fighting Antisemitism, The Enemy is Us

It is clear there are serious cracks in the relations between American Jews and Israel, and among the American Jewish community.

This is creating new factions—anti-Israel Jews, anti-Zionist Jews, questions about how to fight antisemitism, settle the Palestinian issue, and Jewish-American political affiliations—that are all fueled by extremists pushing their own agendas in Israel and the US.

Historians can debate this, but to the average American Jew following these developments, it is clear that the established national Jewish institutions focused on fighting antisemitism are following an outmoded way of “solving” this problem that is financially wasteful and has failed to reduce the incidents of antisemitic attacks despite decades of programs costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

Since October 7, the spike in antisemitic attacks in the US has been a direct result of Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war. While these military tactics are necessary, social media forms public opinion instantly, just as TV cameras did during the Vietnam War. In a difficult urban guerrilla war involving high explosives, civilian casualties are inevitable, yet they create a bigger long-term threat to global public opinion than the military objective of killing terrorists. Social media can make a military victory a PR nightmare. This is inevitable in modern warfare.

One result is that the protracted Gaza war has created divisions among American Jews that are wider than ever. These have separated Democrats from Republicans, Orthodox from Conservatives, the wealthy from the middle-class, and pro-Israel from anti-Zionists. The US saw a nationalist‐Jewish right‐wing movement during the 1960s and early 1970s with the Jewish Defense League, but it was neither Republican nor Democrat. Today’s situation is very different.

Consider a recent ad campaign by AIPAC, a well-funded, wild-eyed pro-Israel provocateur group, which attacked a Democrat for his criticism of Israel by saying he is aligned with Donald Trump’s racist immigration policies without mentioning Trump in the ads.

This is irrational, but it makes sense to AIPAC since its goal is to eliminate any Israel criticism made by anyone at any time in any place. AIPAC has become the Orwellian version of Israel’s thought police. It’s well-funded by Jewish billionaires, and along with the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and Miriam Adelson, has done more to divide American Jews than any outside group in US history.

Other factors also divide American Jews. Here are a few:

Republican Jews Who Attack Jewish Democrats

American Jews have overwhelmingly been Democrats since World War I because liberal regimes gave Jews the opportunity to determine social and economic mobility without legal discrimination. Democrats support social justice, public benefit programs, religious and racial tolerance, progressive tax policies, and foreign intervention to protect sovereign nations. All these are antithetical to Republican policies.

Until the mid-1960s, Republicans had a stable of antisemitic policies and political leaders. AIPAC ignored this history when it became a pro-Trump front at the same time big money flowed into Trump’s campaign from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, the RJC, and other wealthy Jews who pushed an expansionist agenda for Israel to take over Gaza, bomb Iran, and deliver tax breaks to the wealthy.

This was accompanied by the anti-historical fable that Republicans would be “better” for American Jews, with Trump saying Jews could not be Jewish if they were not Republicans. A Christian minister even called Trump “the king of the Jews.”

The Limits of Established Jewish Organizations

None of this alleviated or addressed these sources of antisemitism, but the major Jewish organizations never adjusted their strategic institutional thinking for this new reality.

Netanyahu and Trump divide American and Israeli Jews. Both seek to control their respective judiciaries to delay justice for personal gain, and in Trump’s case, to launder billions in illegal money.

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens called for dismantling the ADL, RJC, and AJC, and reallocating their multi-million dollar budgets towards building positive Jewish awareness among young people.

Stephens told an audience at the 92^nd Street Y in Manhattan that this money is not helping raise a generation of young Jews who are conscious of “their Jewishness as something other than the fact that they saw Schindler’s List and they visited the Holocaust Museum.”

While fundraising campaigns based on antisemitism or the Holocaust have proven to be great hooks, the money they raise does little in today’s social media and dark web conspiracy world. Antisemitism predates Jesus, and it will never go away. Israel’s Gaza war conduct, Jewish Republicans, the Shanda list, and the Netanyahu-Trump bond will not be settled with money. This collective damage brought on by Jews will take a generation or more to even reach Israel’s pre-October 7 reputational level.

The Never Discussed Shanda Factor

Major Jewish organizations also ignore the Shanda factor, a major unspoken cause of antisemitism and Jewish embarrassment. Jews committing detestable crimes, such as those of Jeffrey Epstein, or pushing Trump’s hateful policies, such as Steven Miller, Laura Loomer, Mark Levin, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, cast a dark shadow on American Jewry. These people fuel division; yet, as a matter of tradition, the Shanda cannot be publicly discussed, even though it is the elephant in the room that cannot be ignored.

This list gets longer if we add the billionaire Jews who endorse Trump (Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Sergei Brin, Jan Koum, Bill Ackman, and Ronald Lauder), who advance his anti-democratic agenda for personal and corporate advantage.

Unpopular Leaders Beget More Problems

There have been civil wars among the Jews since biblical times, between tribes, sects, and religious factions over their beliefs, devoutness, and practices. However, 2000 years ago, popular kings won battles, David, Saul, Hezekiah, and Asa. Today, Netanyahu and Trump are the most unpopular leaders in their respective nations in recent memory. Unpopular leaders create factions and friction, which will only get worse.

Today, we have divisions fueled by different beliefs of the Orthodox versus Conservative and Reform, complicated by divisions between Trump supporters versus Democrats, the wealthy versus average citizens, and a disgraceful Shanda reality. If it is even possible, American Jewry needs a serious reformation to even address these divisions. A solution could easily be a generation away.