Why American Jews Must Learn to Argue as Americans Again

Jewish people are being stabbed in Brooklyn. The incoming New York City mayor openly questions Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish homeland while surrounding himself with transition advisers who have trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric. Prominent cultural figures use their platforms to denigrate Jews, and long-dormant conspiracy theories are once again treated as acceptable public discourse. American Jews have every reason to feel unsettled. Antisemitism is no longer a fringe phenomenon; Israel is increasingly cast as a moral outlier; and institutions on all sides of the political spectrum, many that once projected stability, now appear ambivalent or openly hostile. Jewish advocacy has responded with urgency, volume, and exhaustive documentation of the threat. It has not consistently done what is most needed: persuade the country.

The problem is not that American Jews are wrong. The problem is that we are too often arguing inside a framework that resonates primarily with ourselves.

Antisemitism matters. It should alarm every decent person. Still, most Americans do not organize their political or moral lives around Jewish vulnerability. They organize them around America itself: its values, security, moral confidence, and future. Advocacy that fails to meet Americans where they actually live will continue to sound narrow, even when it is correct.

The crisis unfolding on American campuses illustrates this failure clearly. The explosion of anti-Israel activism is frequently described as a Jewish emergency, because it so often sounds targeted at Jews and at Israel. Surprisingly, that description understates both the scale and the danger of what is happening. This is not merely a problem of antisemitism. It is a crisis of American institutions.

Foreign money has poured into American universities for years, most notably from Qatar, a state whose interests are openly hostile to Western liberal democracy. This funding has not simply endowed buildings or sponsored cultural exchange. It has reshaped intellectual norms. Entire academic ecosystems now train students to view Israel as uniquely illegitimate, the United States as a source of global injustice, and Islamist movements as authentic expressions of resistance or even as blueprints for a more just society. What emerges from this environment is not critical thinking but moral inversion.

Jews often experience the sharpest edge of this worldview first, though they are not its ultimate target. Antisemitism has long served as a sentinel for broader societal trouble. The more profound transformation is the delegitimization of Western self-confidence itself. When democratic nations are portrayed as inherently oppressive and violent movements are excused as culturally authentic, the moral architecture that sustains pluralism collapses. That collapse threatens far more than Jewish safety.

Israel’s role in this dynamic is revealing. The country has become the test case for whether Western moral standards still apply. A democratic state defending its citizens against terror is cast as a villain, while groups committed to religious authoritarianism and civilian slaughter are sanitized and romanticized. This transposition has less to do with Israel’s policies than it does with the broader rejection of Western legitimacy. Once Israel can be condemned as uniquely immoral for defending itself, no democratic nation should expect fair judgment.

American Jews weaken their position when they insist on framing this solely or primarily as a Jewish grievance. The more compelling argument is that Israel’s treatment signals something ominous about how America now understands power, morality, and self-defense. That argument resonates beyond the Jewish community because it implicates the country’s future.

The same falling occurs when Jewish advocacy distances itself from America’s moral vocabulary. The United States is not a theocracy, though it was never intended to be a morally neutral society. Its civic culture is rooted in ideas drawn from Judeo-Christian tradition: the dignity of the individual, moral responsibility, the distinction between good and evil, and the legitimacy of national sovereignty. When Jewish voices treat those concepts as embarrassing or politically inconvenient, they abandon ground that was never hostile to Jews.

Moral vacuums do not remain empty. When a society loses confidence in its ethical foundations, it does not become more tolerant or enlightened. It becomes susceptible to ideologies that promise certainty without liberty and justice without accountability. History offers Jews no comfort in such environments.

Credibility also erodes when serious national questions are reduced to a factional spectacle. Public debate framed as Ben Shapiro versus Tucker Carlson, left versus right, red camp versus blue camp may energize partisan audiences and expand influencer followings, yet it obscures more than it clarifies. Contrary to what we hear on our podcasts, most Americans are not invested in media feuds. They are trying to determine which arguments align with their and their country’s interests and values. When Jewish advocacy becomes entangled in personality-driven conflict, it stops sounding like a national argument and begins to resemble internal noise.

Israel will endure. Jewish history assures resilience. The more uncertain variable is whether American Jewish advocacy will adapt to a moment that requires clarity rather than sheer volume, and thoughtful argument rather than reflexive outrage. American Jews need to take stock of our country, pay attention to issues that matter to the broader population, and participate in elections consistently, not only when Israel or specifically Jewish concerns appear on the ballot.

Persuasion requires speaking as Americans who understand what is at stake for the country as a whole. Israel must be defended as a moral and strategic ally of the United States, not as a communal obligation. Foreign ideological influence must be exposed as a threat to American sovereignty and institutional integrity, not merely as a source of Jewish discomfort. American values should be articulated confidently, without apology or defensiveness.

American Jews do not need to withdraw from public life or soften their convictions. They need to remember that credibility is earned by standing firmly within the American story, not at its margins.

If America loses confidence in its own values, Israel will not be the first casualty. It will not be spared either.