More than four in ten American Jews say they feel less secure today than they did a year earlier, according to a new survey by the American Jewish Committee. Four in five said anti-Semitism has increased in the past five years. Nearly half said Americans take anti-Semitism less seriously than other forms of bigotry.
You can’t blame my fellow Jews for feeling fearful. Over the past year, a pistol-wielding man held four congregants hostage in a Texas synagogue; the rapper Kanye West publicly professed love for Hitler; anti-Semitic fliers were distributed in Atlanta suburbs; Donald Trump dined with two openly anti-Semitic guests at Mar-a-Lago; and as I write this, an extremist channel on the internet has called for a "National Day of Hate" against Jews on February 25. These news flashes, taken together, can be alarming when you belong to a minority group that comprises less than 2% of the U.S. population and lost two-fifths of its people in the Holocaust.
But are American Jews really threatened?
As the late Philadelphia journalist John Guinther observed: To get better answers, ask better questions.
Of course Jews are threatened. But the relevant question is: Are we uniquely threatened? To my mind, the answer is no.
Joan Didion’s reminders
I trust that my Jewish-victimization credentials are beyond question. I have personally identified more than 50 relatives who perished in the Holocaust for no offense other than their choice of ancestors. One of my forebears, the 13th-Century German rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, was kidnapped by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf I and held for ransom for the last seven years of his life. Indeed, I am here today to write columns like this one largely because, over many centuries, my ancestors followed a simple survival strategy: Whenever you hear someone talking about the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace, or the Kingdom of Heaven, drop whatever you are doing and run for your life.
To review my family’s litany of anti-Jewish persecution (not to mention the American Jewish Committee’s litany), you would think our oppressors had no problems of their own. On the contrary, just about everyone in the world (aside, apparently, from me and a half-dozen other simpletons) feels threatened to some extent.
The Emperor Rudolf I, for example, held Rabbi Meir for ransom because he desperately needed funds to bring peace to his realm after 20 years of internecine warfare. Donald Trump broke bread with anti-Semites because respectable people refused to grant him the attention and approval he so desperately craves. In their recent book The Flag and the Cross, the scholars Philip Gorski and Samuel Perry concluded that “White Christian nationalists sincerely believe that whites and Christians are the most persecuted groups in America.”
For that matter, just about everyone in the world is threatened to some extent. That’s the nature of human life, not to mention animal life. As the recently departed essayist Joan Didion never tired of reminding us: Things fall apart, the center will not hold, disaster lurks around every corner, and we’re all going to die. Even billionaires, several studies have concluded, tend to grow more paranoid rather than more secure as their wealth increases.
As a Jew, I am surely threatened by the outbreaks of anti-Semitism that erupt around the globe every few decades. But am I more threatened than, say, stateless Palestinians, or refugees at America’s Southern border, or residents of Ukraine? Am I more threatened than Black Americans who live in constant fear of being yanked out of their cars and beaten or shot by police? Am I more threatened than American white nationalists who feel themselves threatened with displacement by Jews and/or immigrants?
Constantine’s gambit
In Constantine’s Sword (2002), the former Catholic priest-turned-novelist James Carroll exhaustively traced his Church’s long history of anti-Semitism, all to reach an intriguing conclusion: It didn’t have to be this way. As Carroll points out, the Crucifixion of Jesus (and fixing blame for it) was a non-issue for the Church’s first few centuries. It became central to Catholicism only in 312 C.E., when the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great embraced the Cross as a political symbol in order to inspire his armies and unify his empire after years of civil war.
(Come to think of it, even today Catholicism remains the world’s only major religion that’s preoccupied with the manner of its founder’s death. Does anyone know or care how Abraham, Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, or Martin Luther died?)
Clarence Darrow’s formula
So what’s the best way for Jews to fight anti-Semitism? I take my lead from Clarence Darrow:
“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You cannot be free unless I am free.”
Yes, I know: Clarence Darrow wasn’t Jewish. If you must follow a Jewish philosopher, Hillel the Great’s words will serve almost as well:
“If I am not for myself, who am I? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
Too often, we tend to assume that we live at the culmination of history. Constantine’s Sword takes us back to a time when the Church seemed (to us) to be just beginning its history, even though it was then already older than the United States is today. Suppose we imagined that we live at the beginning of history, not the end? And suppose we told ourselves that the way things are is not the way things have to be?
Yes, yes, of course: Palestinians, refugees at our southern border, people in Ukraine, Blacks killed by cops live in true physical fear -- but so did Jews at Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, for just one example among more than a few anti-Jewish attacks in recent times. The ADL tracks anti-Jewish incidents and says they're steadily rising. As I see it, a big, real and crucial difference between those groups who have experienced harm, including murder, at the hands of American white nationalists, and Jews is that so far as I know, no one goes after and kills white nationalists under a Jewish or Palestinian or Black banner.
One thing that comes to my mind about this view of anti-Semitism is that for many, being Jewish in America isn't a siloed identity -- it crosses over with many other identities that are fighting their own additional battles, including POC and/or LGBTQ Jewish folks; there are Jewish disability advocacy orgs, and Jewish women can face harassment that Jewish men might not. So it really is true that until we're all free, nobody is, and it's very true that we need to ditch the idea that the present moment is a culmination of history.