Hi there! In case you missed it, I recently enabled paid subscriptions to this newsletter. Paid subscribers get the same content as free subscribers—I prefer not to gatekeep as I know not everyone can afford to subscribe—but they support my work financially. If you have the means and appreciate my work, I’d be so grateful if you’d consider a paid subscription. This helps me continue to write on this forum. Thank you!
I am incredibly disappointed by the social justice, anti-racism, and liberation movements’ lack of interest in understanding antisemitism (Jew hatred), and denial of Jewish people’s right to decide what is and is not antisemitic.
I know what’s antisemitic because I’ve learned about it my whole life. I’ve learned about it through my family, I’ve learned about it in Hebrew School. I’ve learned about it by being a Jewish person existing on this planet. I know antisemitism because its manifestation lives deep in my DNA—a remembrance of the thousands of years of persecution, enslavement, expulsion, murder, torture, discrimination. I know antisemitism because the memory of those experiences lives deeply in every inch of my Jewish body. My ancestors passed down knowledge of antisemitism and how it manifested throughout time. I get it, I can spot the patterns.
No one gets to deny that.
I’ve spent years studying liberation and while I am by no means an expert, I understand the most fundamental elements of what it takes to dismantle systems of oppression. And the first step is understanding them. Understanding how the “isms” work so that we don’t unknowingly and unwillingly perpetuate and contribute to them.
I understand that I will never understand what it’s like to be a Black person in America, or a trans person in America, for example. I know that to dismantle anti-Blackness and transphobia, I have to listen. I need to be quiet and understand what that lived experience is like. In doing so, I acknowledge I will never truly understand. But from my outside perspective, I can do my best to understand what I can so that I can fight against the injustices in our society. I know I will always miss things because I am not as attuned to other’s experiences of discrimination, oppression, and bigotry as that group is. It’s impossible to impart that knowledge fully to someone else. But I do my best to listen, learn, and be open to correction from those who are impacted.
Why aren’t Jews afforded that too?
Instead, over the past 2.5 months (and many years before that), I’ve watched the social justice community tokenize anti-Zionist Jews as the “good” Jews. The only ones worthy of listening to. Do you know that 80-90%+ Jews are Zionist? Is there a reason you are so easily willing to write the rest of us off?
Maybe there’s a reason that 9(ish) out of every 10 Jews is a Zionist. It’s deeply embedded in our culture. Our longing to return to Zion, our homeland. An understanding that everywhere we’ve ever existed outside of our homeland has led to expulsion, scapegoating, forced assimilation, and an inability to truly be who we are. To me, and to most people I know, being a Zionist simply means we have a belief that Israel has the right to exist. That Jews, like all ethnic groups, have the right to self-determination. It is not an endorsement of the current Israeli government and it is not at the expense of the Palestinians, despite the many narratives being pushed around. Zionism pre-dates any of that—it’s thousands of years old. Before Palestinians even existed, before the Arabs colonized our lands and built one of their holiest sites on top of ours. We’ve always yearned to return home, it’s in every prayer service and holiday. It’s not simply out of fear as many people have said to me in the past few months—it’s inherent to who we are. It predates the Holocaust.
If you only are willing to listen to anti-Zionist Jews (who are entitled to their opinion but are a tiny minority of Jews worldwide) you’re dismissing the vast majority of Jews.
One of the most-followed Black anti-racism educators, with 1.5 million Instagram followers, reposted a tweet that included not to trust the lies of Zionists, and not to let them bully you into saying something is antisemitic.
Do you see how harmful this is?
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The thing is—antisemitism operates differently than many other “isms.” It’s not the same as racism. Not better, not worse, just a different manifestation of hate and bigotry. Much of antisemitism comes in the form of conspiracy theories—that the Jews cannot be trusted, that Jews are nefarious, that they are bloodthirsty, power-hungry, etc. Much of how this war is being described, as well as the way Israel operates, fits squarely within these age-old tropes. And much of it is being denied by people of oppressed identities because it doesn’t fit into their understanding of bigotry and oppression. The fact that any non-Jewish social justice person starts a sentence to me, a Jew, with “it’s not antisemitic to say…” is proof that this issue is deep. And I’ve had many. Plus tokenization of their anti-Zionist Jewish friends for validation that their antisemitic rhetoric is okay.
Believe Jews when we say something is antisemitic.
In the 20th century, we saw the world start to swap out “Zionists” for Jews for these antisemitic tropes because it was more palatable. The Soviets did so, passing through a resolution that allowed them to discriminate against Zionists, not Jews. So did many other countries. They did so knowing very well that nearly every Jew in their country was a Zionist. They were able to hide under the shield of this term. “We’re not antisemitic, just anti-Zionist,” they said, as they persecuted nearly every Jew under the guise of being a Zionist. Sound familiar?
And now, dear social justice community, you’re doing so too.
If you’re only willing to trust the anti-Zionist Jews, as that tweet said, you’re only willing to trust 10-20% of Jews. You’re saying 9 out of 10 Jews cannot be trusted. Do you see how harmful this is?
I do, and so do the Jews I know. We’re terrified and our life depends on your willingness to learn what antisemitism and antisemitic tropes look like and fight against them. Right now, Jews are acutely aware that the rhetoric we see is eerily similar to Europe in the 1930s. Do you believe only the Zionist Jews deserve to be exterminated, only 90% of us?
All of this is in the wake of the largest and most heinous massacre of Jews in most of our lifetimes. We are grieving, praying, advocating for the release of the hostages, bearing witness to the stories that will haunt us for generations to come, and learning each day about another atrocity, and we do so while the world, including the social justice community, openly spews the most blatant antisemitism of our lives.
Yet it’s all denied.
It’s humiliating and exhausting having to beg you to believe us. And we know the irony—that antisemitic tropes say we are liars that cannot be trusted, and therefore you don’t trust us because you’re bought into that trope. Because you aren’t willing to listen and learn. Even writing this I can anticipate the response—“stop playing the victim.” We’re not. But you won’t believe me.
If you want to be antisemitic, that’s your prerogative. But be honest about it. Don’t hide behind terms like Zionism—terms you do not get to define and redefine about someone else’s culture. Don’t pretend you understand antisemitism and you’re not perpetuating it when you are. Don’t deny Jews’ right, like every other group, to determine what is and is not bigotry against us. And if that makes you uncomfortable or defensive, it’s clear that you need to learn more about Jew hatred and how it manifests.
I wasn’t a “Zionist liar” when I stood up for Black Lives Matter. My whiteness as an ally was convenient to you then. My need to atone and repent for the wrongdoings of my ancestors. I don’t regret a moment of it, and I know it was the right thing to do because I don’t want to live in a society so deeply rooted in inequity where I benefit from the color of my skin. I will continue to fight for equity and liberation for all. I knew it was important to shut up and listen, to center people with lived experience, and to turn inward when something was confusing or upsetting or made me confront my internal reality. I knew that wasn’t on you to fix. That was on me to examine why I felt that way. But now when I speak of my lived experience, you say I can’t be trusted. I am a liar. A Zionist liar spreading propaganda who has been brainwashed. A genocidal brainwashed Jew who celebrates killing children (these are all things I’ve been called in the past 2.5 months). My lived experience, my lifetime of studying my ancestry, my culture, and the history of my people is not only irrelevant to you, it’s all lies. I certainly couldn’t have anything to say about this conversation. My “whiteness” blinds me, even when I speak as a Jew—a Jew whose ancestors were slaughtered for not being white enough.
In the context of anti-Blackness, I am white. I have a lot to learn from Black folks and unravel the internal anti-Black biases that have been indoctrinated in me from birth as a white person living in America. In the context of Judaism and Israel, I am Jewish, someone who has spent a lot of time in Israel, someone who has taken my advocacy work to Israel on social justice trips, and someone who has immediate family there. This is where I have my own identity and lived experience. Something perhaps you could learn from.
When I studied racism, anti-Blackness, and how white supremacy operates, I understood that many of us never necessarily “opted in.” Instead, it was by nature of how our nation works, the news we were fed, the stories we were told, our laws, and the biases that are deeply rooted in every notch of our society. Antisemitism is the same. You don’t necessarily perpetuate antisemitism knowingly, and you may not know you’ve internalized it. You may never have “opted in,” yet you are fed these messages of the oldest hatred in the world by nature of the media, the stereotypes against us, movies, and so much more. Yet you still must listen, learn, and try to understand so you can actively opt-out.
Your unwillingness to do so is gravely putting Jews in harm’s way. I beg you to reconsider. My life, my family, my friends, and my culture relies on it.
P.S. I have an essay brewing about the ways that the social justice movement has failed the Jews and the blatant hypocrisy and double standards—this isn’t it (there is SO much more to be said on that topic). If you have thoughts, observations, or personal anecdotes, feel free to leave a comment or reply if you received this via email.