The current state and the two-way divide |
Why demonization, delegitimization, and double standards applied to American Jews are driving the USA apart
America likes to imagine itself as a country fractured along predictable partisan lines, left versus right, red versus blue, yet still as a melting pot where toleration of differences exists. That framing misses something that’s more correct, corrosive and even more revealing about the populace. One of the clear fault lines running through American politics today is the treatment of Jews. How anti semitism is rationalized, excused or outright denied. Of course, the method depends on who is perpetrating it and who the perceived victims are. This is not a Jewish issue is a warning sign of democratic decay and a disease that is spreading across America. As the normalization of extremism on both sides increases.
Across the political spectrum, American Jews are being subjected to demonization, delegitimization and double standards, the three dynamics that create permission and acceptance for antisemitism. The left is factoring under the weight of ideological purity tests that are purposely designed to exclude Jews, while the right is failing to confront its history and the present reality of anti-semitic violence. In the meantime, Jews are told to be quieter, to be more strategic, to be palatable. The idea that another ad campaign, another fellowship, another effort to turn the tide, will somehow fix this issue. That will prohibit more public relations to fix it. Yet we all know the truth that it will not.
On the left, anti-semitism presents itself as moral clarity. Placing itself in the correct position to hold. That Jewish identity is erased, and instead of being perceived as powerful and monolithic, it is in charge, thus stripping Jews of vulnerability and denying the diversity within our culture. Jews are not treated as a minority, but as a model minority presumed to be the one inflicting discrimination rather than receiving it, and therefore, it’s not collectively worth protecting.
This happens while Jewish students are harassed on college campuses, forced to pass through hostel events, are attacked, and have slogans and chants that romanticize violence shouted at them. This is framed as deserved as moral, that it is somehow justified. Which as Jewish students, we know it’s not; however, administrators debate whether to call death threats against the Jewish people hate speech. Jewish students are told to understand “the context”, to have “sweaty palm conversations”, to lighten up.
No other minority is asked to intellectualize hatred and terror that is directed at them in real time. For example, when Jewish women reported sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7th, the disbelief was immediate. Survivors were interrogated, evidence was dismissed, and international feminist organizations went silent. People passed around videos of the abuse, dismissing it as staged, while, within the same breath, activists insist that believing survivors is non-negotiable. Suddenly demanding forensic Perfection before extending empathy is a double standard that is inflicted upon jews. The crimes against jews are not denied outright; they are delayed, relativized, and drowned out. That type of double standard does not emerge accidentally. It is a result of conditioning that teaches people to see Jews not as people but as symbols. The dehumanization of Jews into symbols of colonization or whatever abstract concept that is currently trending is horrendous and unjustifiable.
Meanwhile, the Right has its own reckoning it continues to avoid. While, many conservatives now loudly proclaim to support Israel or the Jewish community, that support often coexists with conspiracy delusions, white nationalist rhetoric, and a refusal to disavow movements that openly traffic Jew hatred. The Jewish populace is embraced when it is convenient and targeted when it is not. The largest hate crimes in the United States occur against Jews, and synagogues remain among the most attacked religious institutions in the country. The hate and horrific attacks are happening on both sides the perpetrators are overwhelmingly linked to far-right ideology. Support of a community without accountability is not solidarity; it is a public relationship stunt. These types of actions are disingenuous at the very best. Protection without introspection is not safety; it is a decline of cognitive recognition.
Together, these failures are tearing at the fabric of American society. When anti-Semitism is tolerated on the left as activism and on the right as a rhetoric, it signals that moral consistency is optional; that is, it is okay to engage in extremism and terrorism. That human rights depend on who you are and whether or not you fit the narrative of the moment.
This is where the illusion of public relations becomes dangerous, the idea that maybe we can take back the narrative. For many years, American Jewish institutions have been told to rebrand, reframe, to soften, to not call out anti-semitism but to explain it. That we must build Bridges, choose better words, and avoid alienating allies. However, hatred persists, and explaining it is not a messaging problem. A society that excuses bigotry when politically inconvenient is not suffering from poor optics or a lack of understanding. That society is suffering from a value crisis. Anti-Semitism does not flourish because Jews are misunderstood. Jews are not placed as the others because they don’t know who we are. The hatred flourishes because Jews are disbelieved, because when Jews say that they are unsafe, we are told that we are exaggerating. When we name hatred, we are accused of manipulation of changing the narrative. When we demand consistency, we are labelled as divisive.
Of course, this is how democracies fracture, not all at once but through selective outrage and conditional empathy. It only exacerbates it when one minority becomes the exception to the rules that hold the society together, leading to the rules collapsing.
The question facing America is whether the Jews can fix anti-Semitism with better accuracy or whether the country is willing to confront the uncomfortable truth that political movements have made space for Jew hatred to grow. The country has given Jew hatred a platform to fester without control. If anti-Semitism is acceptable anywhere and everywhere, then why would it continue to be contained? And if America continues to treat Jewish lives as negotiable, it should not be surprised when the rest of the moral commitments that our democracy is built upon fail and crumble.