Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP Images
A protest in Washington against Israel’s possible annexation of the West Bank, July 7, 2020
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations took out a full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times headlined “Hatred of Israel Is Endangering American Jews.” I had to read that line several times. It could more plausibly have warned that the unqualified embrace of Israel’s policy right or wrong is endangering American Jews. Or that the actions and arrogance of Prime Minister Netanyahu are endangering American Jews.
Jews have been safer in America than in any other country. Jews thrived and were safe in medieval Spain, and later in Germany and Austria, until they weren’t. For more than two centuries, America has been the Jewish haven. Abruptly, American Jews have been shaken out of their complacency.
Incidents of antisemitism were on the rise well before the Hamas massacre of October 7 and Israel’s military response to it. (Maybe you remember the chant “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville?) Though Trump’s dog-whistle support for the antisemitic right is camouflaged both by his Jewish son-in-law and by his own alliance with Netanyahu, there is no doubt that the rise of the far right, which is always antisemitic, has been spurred by Trump’s indulgence of hatred.
But the demand that American politicians in general and Jewish Americans in particular grant unwavering support for Israel regardless of Israel’s policies contributes to the new increase in antisemitism. This is compounded by the flagrant pressure on universities by billionaire Jewish donors, and the actions of the Israel lobby to spend massive amounts on campaign donations to defeat progressive members of Congress. This plays into two ancient, ugly, and antisemitic tropes: one of Jews as more loyal to their tribe than to their country, the other of Jews using their money to buy influence.
All of this upends a long period in which Jews felt secure, safe, and mostly accepted in the new promised land—America.
When I was growing up, there was country-club antisemitism, occasional personalized antisemitism, and the tail end of Jewish quotas at elite universities. At Oberlin, home of the Christian Social Gospel, we went to mandatory chapel and sang the Doxology (“Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”) at Sunday dinner, but Jewish kids were too grateful to be there to complain.
The neighborhood where I grew up was mostly lower-middle-class Irish and Italian. Once, at about age nine, I was playing at a friend’s house, and his father scowled, “What are you doing here, you kike?” But I can count such incidents on the fingers of one hand.
There are two ways to view the sudden increase of antisemitic incidents. One, favored by my Israeli friends and by the Israel lobby, is that American Jews have been naïve and arrogant. Antisemitism is always there, smoldering, waiting for a spark. Did you American Jews really think you could escape history? How easy it is to carp when your own homeland is not at risk, and agonizing policy dilemmas are not up close and personal. Point taken.
The other way is to acknowledge that Israel’s own policies and the demands of Israel’s defenders play a major role in the new antisemitism. Jews did not feel “unsafe” at elite colleges until Israel’s utter destruction of Gaza, and its grotesque violation of Palestinian personal and property rights in the occupied West Bank, stimulated in-your-face demonstrations by Palestinian Americans and their sympathizers. Prior to October, there was hardly any of this.
I say this without condoning personal confrontations of Jewish students by Palestinian sympathizers, or other excesses that go beyond peaceful protest. But let’s be honest about where this came from.
The presidents of elite universities, who were humiliated by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), were blindsided by the abrupt escalation in threats to Jews. And the right wing has demanded to know why diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have not included Jews.
The effect of AIPAC’s efforts is to push the Democratic caucus to the right, and not just on Israel.
Let’s also be honest about why not. Ever since the end of Jewish quotas in the 1960s, Jews have not been treated as a distinct ethnic or racial group for purposes of student or faculty recruitment, but just lumped together with other white people. And Jews have obviously thrived at universities and in the elite professions.
If you play a strict numbers game, Jews have been “overrepresented” at elite universities. That’s why affirmative action quotas, explicit or disguised, are a threat to Jews. More focus on ethnic diversity means fewer Jews. The New York Times reports, citing unscientific surveys, that the percentage of Jews at Harvard is down. This is not because of increasing antisemitism or because Jews no longer feel safe at Harvard, but because Harvard has been admitting more Asian Americans (largely on traditional measures of merit) and members of other ethnic groups to promote diversity.
The other aspect of DEI, the cultivation of exquisite sensitivity to the feeling of Others—Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, LGBTQ people—never included Jews because Jews did not demand it. Prior to October, Jews did not need it. If DEI programs are being revised, that’s a mitzvah.
But the effect of this entire saga has been to out Jews from their role as a safe and largely accepted successful minority into a suddenly exposed and newly vulnerable one.
This brings me to the role of AIPAC. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliated PACs have put $100 million on the table to defeat incumbent Democratic members of Congress who do not follow AIPAC’s line on Israel-Palestine. Their top targets include members of the original Squad—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)—plus Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Summer Lee (D-PA), and Cori Bush (D-MO).
All are people of color, and all are progressives. In the past, incumbents or candidates successfully defeated by AIPAC spending, such as Andy Levin in Michigan or Donna Edwards in Maryland, were more progressive generally than their AIPAC-backed rivals, who tend to be more centrist across the board. As a single-issue group, AIPAC in 2022 also endorsed 109 Republican members of the House who voted to overturn the 2020 election.
As our former Prospect colleague, Alex Sammon, has written in Slate, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) took more money from the Israel lobby in 2022 than from any other group. Jeffries “hasn’t tried to dissuade the primarying of these progressive Democratic incumbents,” Sammon writes. “He could easily publicly disavow such spending and make it clear to candidates that accepting such support is against caucus policy.”
The effect of AIPAC’s efforts is to push the Democratic caucus to the right, and not just on Israel. AIPAC widens strains between Blacks and Jews by opposing Black incumbents who are well liked in their districts, as well as between Jews and labor, which needs progressives in Congress.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal has published an extensive investigative piece on how a group of large donors to the University of Pennsylvania had been meeting regularly to plan the ouster of then-president Liz Magill, well before the events of October 7. Magill was in over her head and handled several matters clumsily. Yet one of the charges against her by the donor group, as the Prospect’s Moe Tkacik has written, was her refusal to cancel a Palestine Writes literary festival, a pure issue of legitimate free speech.
In the United States as elsewhere, Jews as a small minority are only as secure as the tolerance of their non-Jewish neighbors. AIPAC and its allies are spending down a legacy of acceptance that goes back to Jefferson. Yes, there is plenty of antisemitism that has ancient sources. But as new waves of virulent antisemitism increase, some virulent backers of Israel ought to be looking in the mirror.
Despite its slogan about hatred of Israel endangering American Jews, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and AIPAC seem to care more about the former than the latter. The slogan has the cause and effect backwards.
Newly insecure American Jews, whether or not they support Bibi and AIPAC, are paying for the sins of the Israeli government. And if Trump beats Biden in 2024, in part because Biden’s unqualified support for Israel drove away young people and voters of color, that will not exactly be good for the Jews either.
