When Our Children Hide Their Stars, It’s Gone Too Far

Across the political spectrum, antisemitism is spreading, and when our children start to hide their Judaism, it’s time to speak out. In my eighth-grade Israel class, something has changed. Students who once wore their Jewish stars or kippot proudly now tell me they either hide or think about hiding them when they go into the city. They ask questions no Jewish child should ever have to ask: “Is it safe to wear my Jewish star in the city?” “Should I cover my sweatshirt with our school logo or a Jewish symbol on it?” These are thirteen-year-olds sadly learning that it can be risky to look Jewish. It breaks my heart to hear this, yet it’s their reality. And what’s most alarming is how much of the world, especially the West, refuses to acknowledge it.

While much of the West regresses, parts of the Arab world are moving on. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, nations that once defined themselves by hostility to Israel, have accepted that the Jewish state is here to stay. The 2020 Abraham Accords affirmed that reality. Even Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said clearly that Israelis “have the right to their own land.” These Arab leaders are choosing to build a future, while the West, which claims to pride itself on enlightenment, clings to moral posturing that disguises antisemitism as justice.

Across Europe, the echoes of history are unmistakable. In Milan this past spring, a shop hung a sign in Hebrew reading “Israeli Zionists are not welcome here,” an unmistakable update of the 1938 signs that said, “No Jews or dogs allowed.” In Naples, activists handed out stickers with the same message for shop windows. They insist it’s about Israel, not Jews. But we know better.

This past week in Paris, a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was disrupted when protesters set off a flare in the theater, shouting “Free Palestine” and sending panic through the crowd, even though a ceasefire had already been in place. French officials called it what it was, an antisemitic act pretending to be a political protest.

Here in America, antisemitism is exploding, and it’s not coming from one side. In 2024, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the United States, the most ever, with nearly 60 percent tied directly to anti-Israel rhetoric and protests. Germany reported 8,627 incidents, nearly double the year before. In the UK, 73 percent of Jews now say they no longer feel safe showing visible Jewish identity. Synagogues have been attacked in Manchester and Melbourne.

And then there’s New York, home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel, where many Jews now say they feel unwelcome in their own city. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a supporter of the BDS movement, has called Israel a “settler-colonial state,” accused it of “genocide,” and even claimed the NYPD’s racism was “laced by the IDF.” Those aren’t about city policy, they’re conspiracies that turn Jews into villains.

Meanwhile, on the far right, Tucker Carlson, a much-watched media figure, recently hosted Nick Fuentes, a neo-Nazi who praises Hitler and calls for a “Christian government” that would exclude Jews. Carlson let him speak for an hour without once challenging his hatred. And to add insult to injury, the President of the Heritage Foundation, a leading conservative think tank, couldn’t bring himself to condemn it.

So let’s stop pretending this is partisan. Antisemitism is being fueled from both extremes, one wrapped in so-called progressive virtue, the other in nationalist anger, and both agree on the same point: the Jews are to blame.

When people chant “From the river to the sea,” they are not calling for peace. They are calling for Israel’s destruction. When protesters tore down posters of kidnapped Israelis, they were not making a political statement, they were erasing Jewish pain. And when commentators insist this is “anti-Zionism, not antisemitism,” they are excusing the oldest hatred on earth.

This is not about borders or policy. It’s about Jews, in Naples, London, Melbourne, and New York, being told in a hundred different ways that we don’t belong. The slogans and accusations change, but the message doesn’t.

And it’s not just our day school students who feel it. Reports from public schools across the country describe Jewish students being taunted, excluded from clubs, and pressured to condemn Israel just to be accepted.  Many college students feel unsafe wearing a Star of David on campus. When our children’s sense of security in their own country is shaken, we’ve crossed a line.

I tell my students that being Jewish means standing for the truth even when it’s unpopular. The truth is that the Arab world, once Israel’s fiercest enemy, is beginning to face reality, while the West, which claims to be enlightened, has lost its moral bearings. Our students deserve better than to grow up in a society that calls Jew-hatred justice. They deserve to walk through any city wearing their Jewish star or kippah with pride, not fear.

When our children begin to question whether it’s safe to look Jewish in public, we are watching history repeat itself in real time. And silence, intellectual, or political, is no longer an option.

If we stay quiet now, we teach our children that fear is reasonable and pride is risky. But if we speak out, as Jews, as educators, as parents, and as human beings, we teach them something far more powerful, that truth, courage, and Jewish identity are never to be hidden.

This isn’t just about Israel. It’s about all of us. And the time to be silent has long passed. I, for one, will continue to wear my kippah in the city.