Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: antisemitism

Showing posts with label antisemitism. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 09, 2025

Teshuva and "Thou Art The Man" - a critique of Hussein Aboubakr Mansour's thoughtful analysis of antisemitism

I've mentioned Hussein Aboubakr Mansour before - a brilliant thinker who shows more knowledge of theology and philosophy in a single article than I can ever hope to learn in my lifetime.

I was most interested in his latest essay where he attempts to analyze antisemitism, which is of course a topic I have thought deeply about over the years.

Mansour's Substack article "Thou Art The Man," explores the theological roots of antisemitism by analyzing Jewish and Christian scriptural approaches to Jewish self-criticism. He correctly realizes that the sheer amount of criticism of Jews in the Hebrew Scriptures is unparalleled in any other culture, and correctly notes how other Abrahamic religions use those very criticisms as the launching pads for their own criticism of Jews. Yet, Mansour shows, the Hebrew Scripture self-criticism is not coming from the outside but from within, in his language it is not horizontal from outsiders but vertical from God. He then quotes the story of the prophet Nathan rebuking King David for his sin by giving him a parable, and David's realization that he is the guilty party when Nathan tells him "Thou art the Man" whom you just said should be put to death. This caused David to accept the criticism and admit his sin.

Mansour says that the New Testament, written by Jews, continues in this prophetic tradition and criticizes Jews from within, the vertical criticism. He claims that this was the original context of the New Testament's stories criticizing the Jews and their leaders at the time. Mansour references Martin Luther to argue that Christianity ultimately declared the “Thou art the man” moment impossible for mortal man without grace - it is a standard too high for fallen humanity. At this point, the inward-turning blade of prophetic critique is turned outward. The Jew, who had once stood as the moral subject of the Bible, becomes its object, and eventually, its scapegoat.

Thus, for Mansour, the descent into antisemitism is not a Christian betrayal of Jewish tradition, but a failure to sustain its deepest moral requirement: the willingness to judge oneself by one’s own sacred texts.

Here is where I disagree, and the disagreement has far reaching implications.

I do not see the New Testament criticism of Jews and Judaism to be an internal self-criticism. There were many Jewish sects at the time and they all disagreed with each other about fundamental principles. This was not inward facing criticism but criticism of the Other, no matter that everyone was Jewish. As far as I know, nothing in the New Testament positions the sinning Jews as "us." There is always an intermediary, an outsider as a foil or critic. And this is key.

The entire point of the withering self-criticism in the Hebrew Scriptures is to elicit repentance, teshuva. David's realization that he was "the man" was a paradigm of teshuva - the shattering realization of one's own shortcomings and the promise to change oneself into a better person. This teshuva ontology is the key to understanding the entire Prophets. Even the idol worshippers of Tarshish can engage in teshuva, much to the consternation of Jonah who fears the Jews will look bad by comparison.

This is the major split between the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures. In Christianity, teshuva is too hard - or impossible - to achieve. One needs help from God, grace, to get closer to Him. Man is too weak. This idea is anathema to Judaism, which admits it is difficult but achievable for all; it is the work of a lifetime.

Christianity's antisemitism doesn't come from Biblical criticism of Jews. It comes from the realization that Jews continued to exist and perform what was supposed to be impossible according to Christian philosophy. And, as my thesis throughout my journey researching antisemitism says, antisemitism is the eliminationist impulse that comes when philosophies - religious or secular - cannot accommodate the existence of Jews.

Luther said Jewish style repentance is impossible. Yet Jews exist and refuse to convert to a system that is supposed to replace teshuva with grace. Therefore, their very existence is a refutation of his very philosophy - and as a result, they must be eliminated as a religious group. Luther cannot admit he is wrong - that would be, to him, the literally impossible teshuva.

Mansour identifies that the Christian tradition saw “Thou art the man” as unsustainable. But he doesn’t ask why. The answer is that Christianity rejected the concept that human beings could take full moral responsibility. They didn’t want that responsibility.

The rejection of teshuva is not just theological. It’s psychological. It’s existential. Grace was not just a gift - it was a release from obligation. Everyone understands that real teshuva, real repentance, is hard. Admitting it is possible makes it obviously preferable, which collapses the philosophy that replaces it.

This rupture is compounded by another move: Christianity’s universalization of the covenant. What was once a sacred path for a small, specific people becomes a message for the entire world. And that universalization requires the Jews to step aside.

But Judaism never claimed to be for everyone. The Torah’s demands are absurdly high, and intentionally so. They were meant for a particular people, bound in covenantal responsibility. Christianity flattens this into a one-size-fits-all framework, and then offers grace as the mechanism by which the burden is lifted.

But in doing so, it severs the relationship between effort and meaning. It transforms responsibility into guilt, and guilt into helplessness.

And the Jews? They remain, because they refuse to outsource moral responsibility.

And this is not limited to Christianity. Every system that promises moral closure, whether religious, secular, Marxist, or nationalist, will eventually find the Jew unbearable. Because Jewish thinking is not a moral conclusion. Jewish thinking is a moral process that does not let people off the hook.

Mansour’s insight - that antisemitism emerges from the breakdown of inward critique - is powerful, but it is incomplete. Teshuva is the missing piece, the glue that holds the Jewish texts together, the layer of responsibility that so many want to run away from. Without teshuva, prophetic critique is nonsensical, or an excuse for projection against Jews.

Modern antisemitism isn't a secularization of Christianity's misreading of the New Testament - it is a secularization of Christianity's rejection of Jews because they simply do not fit their philosophy.

UPDATE: Mansour gave a thoughtful response to me on Substack.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Philosophical Core of Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism

We’re told over and over again that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. It’s just politics, we’re told; it is opposition to one state’s policies, not a judgment about Jews as Jews. In fact, calling it antisemitism is a form of censorship, a way to silence a legitimate political opinion.

On the surface, this claim seems plausible. People criticize countries all the time. Saying “I oppose China’s treatment of Uighurs” doesn’t mean you hate Chinese people. So why should opposing Israel mean you hate Jews?

The strongest rebuttal so far has been that anti-Zionism denies the Jewish right to self-determination. But the anti-Zionists answer that by saying that most Jews don’t live in Israel and are happy citizens of other countries. They don’t need national self-determination. That’s just a Zionist ideology, not a universal Jewish claim, and opposing Israel's existence as a Jewish state is therefore a moral political opinion and Zionism is an illegitimate form of Jewish supremacy.

And there the argument usually ends. One side says Jews deserve a state; the other says Jews have no such right and in fact their desire for a state in the Levant is colonialist. It sounds like a disagreement about values, with two legitimate opinions. And if they are both legitimate opinions, then the anti-Zionist side wins by default, because antisemitism is illegitimate but political opinion isn't. Being anti-Zionist cannot be considered truly antisemitic - perhaps some extremists are, maybe Hamas is, but opposing Israel has nothing to do with Jews as Jews and therefore is fine.

Until you dig deeper.

I’ve been developing a new method of analysis called Derechology. It begins with a basic principle: everyone has a derech — a consistent moral path. Even when someone’s statements or actions seem contradictory, their derech is usually more coherent than it appears. Contradictions only appear that way because we haven’t yet uncovered the deeper assumption that holds their worldview together.

Which brings us to Professor Ramsi Woodcock.

Woodcock is a law professor at the University of Kentucky. In late 2025, he was suspended after publicly calling for every country in the world to make war on Israel — not metaphorically, but literally — until Israel surrendered unconditionally to Palestinian rule over the entire land from the river to the sea.

He defended this position:

He said his calls for military intervention against Israel, and his views that the future of Palestine should be determined by Palestinians alone – including Jews who lived in Palestine before large-scale Jewish immigration began in the late 19th century – are consistent with recognizing Israel as a colonial project. Woodcock, who is part Algerian, often refers to that country’s experience of ending French colonial rule as a basis for his argument.

He supports Palestinian nationalism while condemning Jewish nationalism as illegitimate. In his view, Jews who lived in the land before Zionism could be considered Palestinians and equal citizens, but everyone else - including Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab countries and their descendants - are foreign colonizers.

At first glance, this seems like hypocrisy. Why is Palestinian nationalism considered noble, but Jewish nationalism a crime? Why does he support decolonization in one case and not the other? Why does he say that Jews whose families arrived 140 years ago should be subject to a referendum by Arabs but Arabs whose ancestors immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century are fully Palestinian and have the right to stay?

If we assume his derech is internally consistent, there must be a hidden assumption that resolves the contradiction.

That assumption is this: Jews are not a people.

Jews are merely a religious group. They are not a nation, not an indigenous group. Just a religion. They are merely a group of individuals who have no collective claim to history, land, memory, or destiny.

If you believe that, then Zionism isn’t a form of national liberation. It’s a fraud - a manipulation of categories. There is no “Jewish people” in the national sense, so any attempt to behave like one is inherently illegitimate.

That is Ramsi Woodcock's philosophy. If you ask him if there is a Jewish people, he will have to claim there isn't - because he is a professor who has thought deeply about this and has made anti-Zionism the centerpiece of his identity. The very first word on his personal webpage is "Antizionist."

But if you think about it, this is the underlying philosophy behind all of today's anti-Zionism. Arab media denies Jewish peoplehood explicitly, claiming that Jews are really Khazars with no history in the land to begin with; Palestinians routinely claim that all archaeological evidence of a Jewish people in the land is fake and that every Jewish shrine is really Muslim.

The idea that Jews aren't a people is a fundamental, load bearing premise behind anti-Zionist philosophy. The only way people can believe that Jews have no national rights is if they believe there is no Jewish nation to begin with.

Once you accept the anti-Zionist premise that Jews are not a people, a whole new moral framework emerges. Any Jewish effort to act collectively as a people - even outside Israel - becomes suspect. Jewish summer camp becomes indoctrination. Singing “Am Yisrael Chai” becomes a supremacist chant. Prayers that speak of “Your people Israel” become racist. Chanting "Next Year in Jerusalem" at the Passover Seder is colonialist aggression.

This isn’t an accidental side effect of anti-Zionism. It is the logical structure beneath it, and it is the logical result of following its philosophy. You can’t consistently oppose Jewish nationalism while affirming other forms of nationalism - unless you believe Jews are not a people.

Which means that all consistent anti-Zionism is built on the denial of Jewish peoplehood. Woodcock is not an outlier. He is just saying explicitly what anti-Zionists must believe if they are consistent.

And that’s antisemitism.

It isn't mere criticism of a government. Anti-Zionism erases the Jewish right to exist as a collective - as a “we” - not just in Israel but anywhere.

And when that erasure is dressed up as progressive, anti-colonial, or humanitarian, it becomes even harder to detect - and even more important to expose.

Denying Jewish peoplehood is at the very core of anti-Zionism. If Jews are a people, the entire argument against Israel falls apart. And until anti-Zionism emerged, no one in the world denied that Jews are a people. That denial is a recent invention - a retrofitted premise created to justify a political conclusion.

It is easily possible to criticize Israel and not be antisemitic. But it is structurally impossible to be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic.

Once you realize this, the landscape changes. Anti-Zionism isn’t merely entangled with antisemitism. It doesn’t simply echo older tropes.

Anti-Zionism is antisemitic by definition.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Jeremy Corbyn: Jews took advantage of 19th century antisemitism for their naked ambition

The Jewish News reports, "Jeremy Corbyn has declared his new political party’s commitment to 'absolute opposition to Zionism,' signalling a shift toward the hardline anti-Israel stance backed by Zarah Sultana."

This is hardly earthshaking news, except it is still noteworthy that a British political party can make anti-Zionism a main part of its platform - and many will vote for it for exactly that reason. Antisemitism is no longer a political liability, especially in a parliamentary style democracy where you can always count on a percentage of the population prioritizing hating Jews over anything else. A party with 5% of the vote can have a large impact in coalition politics.

Something else Corbyn said was telling:

Zionism was a creation. I was reading about imperial history of Zionism. Actually, it first reared its head even before the late 19th century, US Zionism in 1840 by British policy towards the Middle East. The whole Zionist project was about expanding Israel forever more and that is exactly what Netanyahu is doing the greater Israel project. So absolutely opposition of course to Zionism and absolute solidarity with the people of Palestine.

What happened in 1840? That was the year of the Damascus blood libel, where Jews were accused of killing a monk. The international community was outraged and put political pressure on the Ottoman Empire to release those falsely accused.

Some historians, whom I believe have more than a little bias, have re-interpreted what happened after the Damascus Affair. It unified Jews as a political force as never before. Pre-dating the incident, the British Protestants were talking about restoring Jews to Palestine mostly as a way to help usher in the Second Coming. Some thought about making Palestine a type of protectorate to help this happen. But after 1840, their thinking went more towards encouraging a Jewish-controlled government that would be friendly to Britain - not an imperialist outpost.

The point of Zionism, of course, is entirely to protect Jews from antisemitic incidents - pogroms and blood libels like the Damascus Affair. For Corbyn to position a major antisemitic incident as an excuse Jews used for Jewish "imperialism" is nothing less than naked antisemitism. It is one small step from accusing Jews of actually killing the monk and then framing it as a false flag operation for their Zionist ambitions, which is the exact type of logic that is seen daily in Arabic media.

The idea that "The whole Zionist project was about expanding Israel forever" as well as calling it colonialist or, more recently, "settler colonialist" are attempts to rewrite history to fit today's anti-Israel bias. None of it is true, barely any Zionist is interested in anything past the borders of the original British Mandate that was promised to the Jews.

Yes, it is politically incorrect nowadays to mention that Judea and Samaria was never part of any Palestinian Arab state, real or imagined, but it was included in the Jewish homeland planned under the League of Nations mandate system. It is not a land grab - it is an insistence on international law. People may argue about the law, but to position the Jewish desire to hold onto lands promised to them by the League of Nations as "expanding Israel forever" is simply a lie.

And right on cue, Corbyn follows up: "And so we as Your Party UK are absolutely in solidarity with the people of Palestine and be guided by them on the policies we develop, guided by them on the way we go forward." Funny how the crowd screeching about "Israel controlling US policy" stays stone-silent when a British pol hands the reins to Ramallah. If AIPAC's a "lobby menace," what's this - outsourced diplomacy? It's the mirror they won't look in, where "anti-Zionism" means cheering foreign veto power over what's best for your own country.

Corbyn is not ignorant. He knows the history and chooses to frame it in the most antisemitic way possible. Which indicates whether he is "anti-Zionist" or really something else.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The @Heritage Foundation NEVER cared about right-wing antisemitism

Jewish Insider reports:

An antisemitism task force affiliated with the Heritage Foundation announced on Thursday that it would cut ties with the conservative institution, as the prominent think tank has come under fire for its defense of Tucker Carlson after the firebrand podcaster hosted neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes for a friendly interview.

The task force was formed following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and was instrumental in the drafting of Project Esther, Heritage’s signature counter-antisemitism framework released last year in response to the Biden administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism.

The Project Esther report made no mention of antisemitism on the political right. In their Thursday email, the co-chairs of the task force said they can no longer ignore it.

“The NTFCA will also now expand our work to fight the rising scourge of antisemitism on the Right, beyond our previous work combating the pro-Hamas movement on the Left,” wrote the co-chairs, announcing that they will co-host a conference on “Exposing & Countering Extremism and Antisemitism on the Right” on Nov. 18 in Washington, in partnership with the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel.

I had never looked at Project Esther before, and sure enough, it doesn't say a word about right-wing antisemitism.

That is insane.

Highlighting left-wing antisemitism is important. But ignoring antisemitism from the Right means that the Heritage Foundation never really cared about antisemitism at all, and only used it as an excuse to attack the Left.

I have been highly critical of the left-wing politicization of antisemitism, pretending to be against it while enabling it and using antisemitism as an excuse to attack their political enemies.

Yet that is exactly what the Heritage Foundation and their National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism were doing.

Which means that on this topic at least, the Heritage Foundation has been just as immoral in weaponizing antisemitism as Jewish Voice for Peace has been.

This is outrageous no matter which side does it.

In both cases, their faux "fight against antisemitism" also ignores antisemitism from Arabs, Muslims, Black entertainers, Nation of Islam and others who spread the virus. And, equally bad, neither side even defines antisemitism in a coherent way.

At this point, I sometimes think that I am the leading US expert on antisemitism. I came up with a definition that is clearer and better than any other. This article I wrote in April holistically explains eliminationist antisemitism of all kinds better than any analysis I've ever seen, by far.

It is bad enough that major organizations and government-backed committees cannot even figure out what different antisemites have in common to begin with. If you don't understand the problem, you cannot fix it.

I have a fix. It might take a generation to work but no one else has anything that isn't a Band-Aid. If the newly independent National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism wants to understand the problem, I'm here.

But any group that is partisan, even with the best of intentions, will continue to be blind, and use antisemitism for their own purposes.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Vanishing Middle: How Jews Are Being Squeezed from Left, Right, and Center

For most of modern history, Jews could find shelter in at least one ideological home. When the Right turned against them, the liberal Left offered refuge. When the Left radicalized, conservatives defended Israel as a moral cause. Even amid hostility, there was usually a countercurrent of empathy somewhere—a political camp that saw antisemitism as civilizational decay.

That equilibrium has broken.

Antisemitism now thrives simultaneously on the Left, the Right, and, most disturbingly, in the exhausted center. It no longer needs ideology; it functions as a universal solvent, binding otherwise incompatible movements and manipulating moderates through fear and shame. Each faction rationalizes its version differently, yet all converge on the same outcome: Jews are once again isolated, and defending them has become a thankless act across the political spectrum.

The modern Left built its moral identity on solidarity with the oppressed. But in a political culture obsessed with oppressor–oppressed binaries, complexity is betrayal. Israel’s success as a democratic, self-defending Jewish state violates the purity test.

For the activist Left, the answer is to recast Jews as oppressors. For the moderate Left, the temptation is to avoid conflict in the name of unity. “Yes, globalizing the Intifada sounds extreme,” they say, “but they come from righteous anger.” Confronting antisemitism would fracture the coalition, so it is rationalized away.

This dynamic gives the extremists power far beyond their numbers. They set the moral tone; the moderates absorb it. In the name of keeping the Big Tent intact, progressives surrender control of the conversation to their most radical members. The antisemites set the agenda for the entire movement. And every time they do, the boundaries shift further leftward.

Opposing antisemitism becomes a mark of disloyalty—a signal that one is “not truly progressive.” The result is ideological capture: a movement once grounded in empathy now treats Jewish self-defense as heresy.

On the populist or nationalist far-Right, antisemitism satisfies a different need. Conspiracy offers coherence amid cultural upheaval. Jews become symbols of global manipulation, moral decay, or elite cosmopolitanism—everything that threatens the imagined purity of the nation.

Here too, the extremists drive the conversation. Their numbers are small, but their passion—and their willingness to police purity—give them disproportionate influence. Many moderate conservatives, fearful of dividing their base, learn the same survival instinct as the Left: don’t challenge your own radicals. We saw this only this week with the Heritage Foundation defending platforming neo-Nazi antisemites with the excuse that the Left is a worse enemy.

Thus antisemitism becomes not just tolerated, but useful. It serves as an identity signal: who is “with us” and who is “with them.” To denounce it is to side with the media, academia, or “global elites”—all enemies in the populist imagination.

Like their counterparts on the Left, the moderate Right has been captured by the logic of fear. They justify silence as pragmatism, but every silence moves the Overton window closer to the abyss.

What we haven't been discussing is the Center.

If the Left moralizes antisemitism and the Right mythologizes it, the center normalizes it through paralysis. Centrist antisemitism isn’t driven by hate, but by terror of being seen as partisan.

In a polarized world, defending Jews has been redefined as taking sides. Condemn Leftist antisemitism and you’re branded a right-wing Zionist. Condemn far-Right antisemitism and you’re demonized as an enemy power-hungry globalist.

Both poles exploit this dynamic deliberately. Antisemitism becomes a bipartisan trap—a loyalty test that drags the center toward silence. Each side accuses defenders of Jews of being agents of the other. And so the most ethical act—standing up for truth and decency—becomes politically suicidal in each camp.

But it is worse than that. Otherwise principled centrists are exhausted by the battles that they want to fight. The battle against antisemitism is not considered as important as the others, and they don't want to waste political capital on it. And, latent antisemitism prompts them to think that the Jews are powerful and can defend themselves - they don't need the Centrists to defend them, better to use limited outrage at things that they think are truly outrageous.

The result is a moral vacuum filled by noise. The extremists dominate the conversation, moderates retreat, and the algorithms reward the screamers. It isn’t a steady process - it is logarithmic. Each cycle of cowardice makes the next outburst of hatred louder and more normalized.

Across the spectrum, antisemitism now functions as a moral tollbooth: you can oppose it only by paying a reputational price. To speak out is to invite accusations of betrayal—from your allies, not your enemies.

This inversion is new. In earlier eras, antisemitism discredited the extremist; today, it defending Jews discredits the moderate. The reward structure has reversed: the less you say, the safer you are.

That is why the worst may not be behind us but ahead. As extremists continue to set the agenda, polarization deepens, institutions bend to intimidation, and moral fatigue becomes apathy. The slope steepens with every news cycle.

We are no longer watching a slow march of antisemitism. We are living through its acceleration phase. The catastrophe is much closer than we realize.

Antisemitism was once the measure of a society’s sanity. Now it is the glue of its madness, and in fact has become a political force on its own that transcends the slogans and pseudo-principles that each side spouts. It is a useful tool not only against Jews but a weapon against anyone who opposes antisemitism.

The Left wields it to prove anti-imperialist authenticity. The Right brandishes it to prove nationalist loyalty. The Center treats it as something to be strategically ignored, not a danger to be confronted.

The Jews, as ever, are the first to feel the tremors—but not the last to be buried by the coming earthquake.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

No Mercy for Jewish Children. Because They’re Jewish. (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Imagine you’re a 14-year-old girl, still floating from the final night of Jewish sleepaway camp. You barely slept—you were too busy singing camp songs, exchanging weepy hugs, and saying heartfelt goodbyes. Still, you managed to pack your duffel bag, lug it through security, and board the flight home from Valencia to Paris with your fellow campers.

You’re tired, but your heart is full. Someone calls out “Lilmod!”—the beginning of a silly chant your bunk invented—and without even thinking, you shout back: “Mashiach!”

And that’s when everything changes.

Because two Hebrew words were spoken, airline staff suddenly see you and your friends not as teenagers but as Jews and as it turns out, they really, really hate Jews. Things get ugly. Flight attendants are yelling. Spanish police are called. And you and your friends are forced off the plane, grabbed by the arms, manhandled. Your phone is confiscated. All your camp videos—all your selfies—deleted.” Your camp director, a young woman trying to protect her campers, is beaten, handcuffed, and bloodied in front of your eyes.

All because two Hebrew words were spoken aloud on a plane.

“She still had bloody marks, red, bright red, on her wrists, because of the handcuffs. It was horrible… It’s the worst experience of my whole life.”
— one of the campers, in a viral video explaining the incident.

Jewish Childhood Interrupted

The 44 children from Camp Kineret, ages 10 to 15, had done nothing wrong. Vueling Airlines claimed they were “disruptive” and tampered with emergency equipment—but provided no proof. Meanwhile, a passenger on the flight who had no connection to the camp said the kids were “calm.” The real crime? Hebrew words. Kippahs. A visible Jewish identity.

In the aftermath, Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli reported that airline staff shouted, “Israel is a terrorist state!” Spain’s Transport Minister referred to the children as “Israeli brats.”

They were not Israeli. They were French. And they were Children.

"Hide Who You Are"

Another video—less viral but just as haunting—shows a young male counselor on a bus speaking to Jewish campers before they reach the airport. He speaks with authority, but you can tell he’s scared too: “Take off your kippahs. Hide your tzitzit. Pack away your Stars of David and anything else Jewish.”

“Don’t give these antisemites a reason to kick us off the plane,” he pleads.

One small voice responds: “I have a kippah in my bag… What do I do?”

That shouldn’t sit right with anyone. But it did—and it will again. Because it always does.

What Does Antisemitism Do to a Child?

We know what antisemitism looks like: smashed windows, spray-painted swastikas, or the battered body of a handcuffed Jewish camp director left bleeding on the enclosed walkway leading from the plane to the terminal.

But what about the damage you can’t see?

According to a 2024 Stanford University study, nearly half of Jewish teens in the U.S. reported high stress or fear linked to antisemitism in the wake of October 7. Many said they’d stopped wearing Jewish symbols in public. Some avoided speaking Hebrew. A few even considered changing their last names—just to feel safe.

In the UK, a national survey found that 23% of Jewish schoolchildren had experienced antisemitism either at school or on their commute. These weren’t one-off slurs—they included physical threats, vandalism, and group harassment.

In Australia, researchers interviewed Jewish children who said they’d been called “dirty Jews,” been excluded from class projects, or watched teachers ignore antisemitic jokes. Nearly every single child interviewed had a story.

The research is clear: antisemitism doesn’t just affect Jewish children emotionally—it shapes how they see themselves, how safely they move through the world, and how much of their identity they’re willing to show.

Imagine being that young and afraid that your last name is “too Jewish.”

It’s Not Only France

The French campers aren’t alone.

In Staten Island, a seventh-grade Jewish boy walked into school just two weeks after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. A group of students surrounded him. They pushed him to the ground, kicked him in the leg and the face, and shouted, “F*** Israel.” No teachers intervened. No one asked what happened. He never went back to that school.

In London, a bus full of Jewish schoolchildren from the Jewish Free School was ambushed by a gang of ten teens. The attackers hurled large rocks at the vehicle while screaming “F*** Israel.” The younger kids screamed in terror. No one came to help. No arrests were made.

In Rome, an eight-year-old Jewish boy wearing a yarmulke went shopping with his mother. An Egyptian asylum seeker spotted his kippah and attacked him. When the shopkeeper tried to intervene, the man stabbed him in the face with a shard of broken glass. The boy survived. The storekeeper was left disfigured.

In Milan, a six-year-old French Jewish boy, his twelve-year-old brother, and their father were surrounded at a rest stop by twenty men. The mob targeted them for wearing kippahs. They stomped on the father, kicked him in the stomach and legs, and screamed “Free Palestine.” When police finally arrived, they didn’t arrest the attackers. Instead, they told the injured father to “tell Netanyahu to stop bombing Gaza.”

Physically assaulting Jews in Italy!
A father and his six year old son, both wearing yarmulkes, were shouted at "free Palestine" and "murderers, go home!" in a restaurant in the Milan area. pic.twitter.com/dQ1hJY2HCj
— Hamas Atrocities (@HamasAtrocities) July 28, 2025

No child walks away from such moments unchanged.

A Soul Marked Forever

These are not isolated events. This is a wave. A sickness. A shadow falling on Jewish childhood.

One moment, you’re proud of who you are—your Hebrew, your songs, your symbols. The next, an adult tells you to hide that Jewish star necklace under your shirt, to tuck away your tzitzit, and pray no one sees you.

And the worst part?

They do notice.

You’re a child. But to them, the religion you were born into is reason enough to hate you.

Because They Were Jewish

This was no misunderstanding. It was not a noisy group of children on a plane. It wasn’t even a schoolyard squabble.

It was plain old antisemitism—ugly, familiar, and completely unbothered by the fact that it was aimed at children.

But the kids will remember. They’ll remember the bruises, the shouting, the violence—
and the silence of the bystanders who watched it happen.

And they’ll remember that the reason no one seemed to care…
was because they were Jewish.

The Children Remember

One of the French campers ended her now-famous video by saying it was “the worst experience of my whole life.”

But she’s wrong.

The worst part will come later—when she realizes that even after being humiliated, even after her director bled on the airport floor, even after she hid her identity and was still thrown off the plane…

The world looked away. Because once you see Jews as less than human—and more like vermin, as Hitler did—their age doesn’t matter. Even a baby cockroach, after all, is still a cockroach. And cockroaches grow up.

And if that’s how you see them—what difference does it make if they’re six, or sixteen, or sixty?

They can’t see Jewish children as children. Only as the next wave of Jews.
And once you see them that way, you don’t have to feel bad when they bleed.

So they’ll remember.
And they’ll grow up knowing what it means to be hated for simply being Jewish.
But they’ll also grow up knowing what it means to belong—to one another, to something older than hate, and stronger.
Not all of them will hold on to it. Many will walk away.
But some won’t.
And that will be enough to keep us going.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Pierre Rehov’s Pogrom(s): A Cinematic Response to the October 7 Massacre (Judean Rose)

Film review and interview with filmmaker Pierre Rehov

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Pierre Rehov has one clear goal with his latest documentary, Pogrom(s): to defend his people, the Jews. The film shows us what happened on October 7^th in a brutally honest fashion. It’s difficult to watch. There are images and footage from which the viewing public has been largely shielded. It’s what Jew-haters have been demanding all along, proof. Not that it will satisfy them—nothing would, except perhaps for the demise of the Jews.

Nevertheless, Pogrom(s) represents a valiant attempt to document the events of October 7, delving into its root causes and aftermath. The film clearly illustrates how antisemitic violence begets further antisemitic violence, creating an insidious cycle. Given the extreme nature of violence on October 7, the resulting acts of aggression—whether on college campuses or in the streets of Amsterdam—have proven particularly severe. With the help of expert testimony, the filmmaker effectively connects the horrific events of that day to a complex interplay of Islamic fundamentalism, Nazi ideology, and 20th-century “Palestinian” nationalism.

Filmmaker Pierre Rehov

If the title of the documentary is any indication, Rehov views October 7 as yet another pogrom in a long and storied history of such events. But was October 7 indeed a pogrom according to the strictest definition of the term? Was it comparable to the anti-Jewish riots that swept through Russia following the assassination of Czar Alexander II?

Arguably, October 7 transcends the boundaries of a pogrom by intent. October 7 was not a mob riot, but a targeted attempt at genocide, with atrocities of unprecedented cruelty, all publicly broadcast on social media for the world to see and hear. But however you land on the question of how to define October 7, it is certain that Pogrom(s) will give you much to think about.

Varda Epstein: You’ve been making films about Muslim terror and the “Arab war against the Jews” as Ruth Wisse calls it, for more than two decades. Why this particular subject? Do you feel called upon to do this work? What do you give viewers that they won’t get anywhere else?

Pierre Rehov: After graduating from law school in Paris in the 70s, I began a career as a journalist and quickly specialized in cinema. This vocation led me to become a film distributor and then producer. But I didn't get politically involved in any cause until September 30, 2000.

Returning from vacation, I stumbled across the France 2 report covering the death of little Mohammed Al Dura. This “filmed death” was the starting point for the intifada that bloodied Israel for almost six years, and gave rise to a propaganda campaign whose results we are sadly witnessing on the international stage today. My experience as a journalist and film-maker made me realize that this death, attributed to Israeli soldiers, was nothing more than a staged event, and I decided to find out for myself. So, with my head held high, I set off to Israel and Gaza to uncover the deception.

In the process, I made my first documentary, and as no one wanted it in France, I created a magazine distributed in newsagents, the sole aim of which was to give away a VHS cassette of the report. The success of this initiative exceeded all my expectations, and so began my new career, which has outstripped all others, and I have since made more than 20 documentaries on the conflicts of the Middle East.

I believe that my experience in many different fields allows me to bring into films materials that few others can. Especially since I was born in an Arab country, I have travelled to many Arab countries and I spent time in Gaza and Judea Samaria to be in contact with Arabs who call themselves “palestinians”.

Where children once played. The aftermath of October 7

Varda Epstein: Can you tell us a bit about your background? I understand you experienced terror first hand. Can you tell us about that? Is that early experience part of what drives you in your work?

Pierre Rehov: I don't really like to talk about this experience. To make a long story short, I was 7 years old, we lived in Algiers, and my school was targeted by the terrorist “Liberation of Algeria” organization, the FLN. Several children died or were injured. In Algeria, as elsewhere, when Arabs fight, they often target civilians, women and children first, to instill terror. But it wasn't this experience that led to my commitment to Israel. Rather, it's the sense of injustice felt by any Jew who has been driven out of an Arab country, whose family has lost everything, and who has been content to rebuild his life without asking anyone for anything, while the Arabs of the Palestine region, many of whom were recent immigrants, have received all the help they can get from the Western world and the UN.

A burned out shell of a home, post October 7

Varda Epstein: Your latest film is Pogrom(s). The movie is about the October 7 massacres, but not solely, because Pogrom(s) actually covers a lot of ground. If you were to offer us a synopsis of the film, what would it say?

Pierre Rehov: It would say that on October 7 Jews suffered the worst massacre since the Holocaust solely because they were Jews, but the very next day much of the world's media and governments, rather than taking sides with the victims, condemned Israel for its willingness to defend itself, a right that seems not to be granted to Israelis. Pogrom(s) tries to explain why, and to do so revisits the history of the region. It also says, to quote Guterres, that this massacre did not occur in a “vacuum” but in the continuity of an anti-Jewish hatred inscribed in the ethos of Islam.

A sea of the burned out empty shells of what were once cars, set on fire with people still inside them on October 7.

Varda Epstein: What was your chief objective in making Pogrom(s)? What do you want people to get out of seeing your film?

Pierre Rehov: Pogrom(s) is a cry of revolt against a culture of hatred and the revision of history. Pogrom(s) says to the world, “We said never again, but here we go again, and you're behaving as you did in the last century.”

Hostages, whether dead or alive, were paraded through the streets of Gaza on October 7, jeered at, spat upon, and violently abused by the crowds.

Varda Epstein: How did you decide what images and footage to include? A lot of it was difficult to watch and see; it must be difficult to get the balance right. How did you decide what to include? What are some of the factors you thought about as you made choices about what you would and wouldn’t show the world? Do you have any regrets in this regard—were there photos or footage you wish you had included but that ended up on the cutting floor?

Pierre Rehov: The choice of images was based on a criterion set from the outset. They had to be revolting without showing too much. I had access to a lot of material during the making of the film, and the choices were extremely difficult because it's impossible to evoke such a tragedy, when propaganda has already done its job to mitigate the ignominy of the human waste who indulged in such an orgy of murder, rape and torture, without showing a little. But at the same time, we had to protect the families of the victims, respect the dead, and not encourage voyeurism. I don’t have any regrets.

Terrorists paragliding into Israel on October 7.

Varda Epstein: Who is your movie for? Will Pogrom(s) change the mind of ardent antisemites? Educate the ignorant? Will the film offer validation to those in anguish over the events of October 7?

Pierre Rehov: The film is aimed neither at pro-Israelis, who know the truth and might just discover a few historical facts that would reinforce their conviction, nor at pro-Palestinians who wallow in lies and scoff at the truth. Antisemitism is a collective neurosis which, at certain times, becomes a psychosis. The cure lies in psychiatry, not in the presentation of facts. Some Israelis and Jews abroad thanked me after seeing Pogrom(s). I simply hope that I have made my tiny contribution to what I consider to be one of humanity's greatest causes: The defense of Israel and the Jewish people.

Antisemitic protests in the United States in the wake of October 7.

Varda Epstein: Pogrom(s) includes footage of University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer stating that “a good number” of Oct 7 victims were killed by IDF. What struck me was the glee on his face as he leaned in and said that. Is there a way to combat these attitudes? Do you think your film is something we can show the deniers to change their minds?

Pierre Rehov: This “professor” is an antisemitic scumbag. He interprets the facts to suit his ideology. There's nothing to be done with this kind of individual. Just let them get stuck in their certainty until the day they let themselves go too far and find themselves caught by the law. It's not my job to educate them. The work should have been done during their childhood, by parents who, no doubt, were no better than them in human terms. A negationist never changes his mind, because his intellectual construction is based on non-existent facts that he has decided to accept as established truth. A negationist can look at a photo of the Holocaust and say it's a fake, or a photo of a charred baby and claim (as Al Jazeera dared to do) that it's a creation of Artificial Intelligence. I don't waste my time trying to convince these people.

The more hate, the more hateful displays of anti-Jewish hate, everywhere.

Varda Epstein: What's next for Pierre Rehov? Do you have another film in the pipeline?

Pierre Rehov: I'm currently preparing two films, which it's too early to talk about, but which belong to the same field. I'm also co-writing a book on the post-October 7 period in Israel and the Middle East, which will be published in April by a major French publishing house.

***

To watch Pogrom(s) and learn more, visit: https://pogroms.info/

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)