Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: antisemitism

Showing posts with label antisemitism. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 06, 2026

Mamdani's potential "antisemitism czar" has no idea what antisemitism is

Jewish Insider reports today that New York City Mayor Mamdani is expected to replace the existing head of the city's office to combat antisemitism, and the frontrunner is Phylisa Wisdom, part of Mamdani's team and the head of the progressive New York Jewish Agenda.

An incident from 2022 shows that she is profoundly unqualified for the job.

In May 2022, Waleed Shahid, then communications director for Justice Democrats, reacted to a Jewish Insider tweet about pro-Israel political donations by joking: “Wait until you hear what happened next in next week’s ‘Goy Outsider.’”

Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, publicly called the tweet antisemitic. His point was that antisemitic tropes appear across the political spectrum, including on the radical left, and that this language was inappropriate and insulting.

The response from parts of the progressive Jewish world was swift and furious. A letter signed by dozens of prominent progressive Jews accused Greenblatt of smearing Shahid and falsely equating a “lighthearted joke” with far-right violence (which he did not do.) Others insisted this was a distraction from “real antisemitism.”

That framing is precisely the problem. The offensiveness is not subtle, and it has nothing to do with intent.

The word goy is not a neutral synonym for “non-Jew.” In contemporary usage, Jews themselves often avoid it because it sounds dismissive or contemptuous, even when used casually. Many Jews, myself included, deliberately teach their children to say “non-Jewish person” instead.

When a non-Jew uses goy as a punchline, it almost always carries an implication: this is how Jews really talk about outsiders. That implication feeds directly into long-standing antisemitic tropes about Jewish insularity, insider language, and "Jewish supremacy."

Combine this with a link to an article about Jewish influence in a political campaign, and the trope becomes significantly more dangerous.

If Shahid had said “Gentile Outsider” the joke would not have landed the same way. The choice of goy was the joke. And the joke works only by invoking a stereotype about how Jews supposedly think and speak among themselves. There is a reason the far Right uses the word "goy" so often and ironically refer to themselves that way. For a leftist figure to use the word in the exact same joking way that the neo-Nazis do is not "lighthearted."

You do not need violence, threats, or slurs for something to be antisemitic. Antisemitism has always relied heavily on insinuation, mockery, and claims to secret knowledge about Jews.

Dismissing it as merely a "Dad joke" is missing the point. Humor has always been one of antisemitism’s most effective delivery systems.

Phylisa Wisdom does not seem to understand these basic facts about antisemitism.

In response to criticism of the “Goy Outsider” tweet, Wisdom wrote: “This is not antisemitism from the left.” When challenged, she doubled down with a simple question: “What’s antisemitic about it?”

That question is disqualifying.

Someone charged with combating antisemitism should not need this explained. This is not an edge case or a novel controversy. It is a textbook example of how antisemitic tropes function in modern discourse, on both the right and the left.

If you cannot see why a non-Jew publicly using “goy” to comment on Jewish political dynamics is offensive, then you do not understand antisemitism beyond its most extreme, violent forms. And if that is your threshold, you are not qualified to define the problem, let alone fight it.

There is a deeper pattern here that should make Jews uneasy.

In progressive spaces, other minority groups are granted maximal sensitivity. Language that might reinforce stereotypes is scrutinized closely, regardless of intent. Impact matters more than tone.

Jews are treated differently.

Jews are expected to laugh off jokes about insider language, power, and tribalism. When they object, they are told they are oversensitive, divisive, or distracting from “real” problems. Antisemitism is redefined so narrowly that only physical violence counts, while the cultural and rhetorical groundwork that enables that violence is dismissed.

This asymmetry is now embedded in progressive norms - and this incident proved it.

Imagine the furious response from progressive Jews if someone responded to a show on BET saying “Wait until you see next week’s ‘Cracker Entertainment Television.’” There is no difference - but the Jews are expected to laugh when they are the victims of the joke.

This is about competence. If someone cannot recognize why the “Goy Outsider” joke is antisemitic, they do not understand how antisemitism actually works. And someone who does not understand that should not be entrusted with leading the fight against it in New York City.

Antisemitism does not begin with bullets. It begins with permission structures – permission to mock, to insinuate, and to minimize. If you respond to antisemitism by minimizing it, you are not fighting it. You are enabling it.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

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)