Antisemitism
What's happening?
Antisemitism is on the rise. As described by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “Since the Hamas massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, U.S. antisemitic incidents reached the highest number of incidents during any two-month period since ADL began tracking in 1979.” Anti-Israel bias is widely prevalent in K-12 education, particularly in “Ethnic Studies” curricula as well as on college campuses —where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has exacerbated the problem.
It has become clear that DEI is bad for everyone as it divides people into groups — schools are teaching the “oppressed versus oppressor” and “colonizer versus colonized” narrative.
This is especially bad for Jews because this ideology identifies Jews as white and privileged oppressors, therefore unable ever to be victims. Until DEI goes away, antisemitism will remain.
Parents, students, and even educators are waking up to the fact that DEI is more about commandeering power than creating solutions. This has been made clear by how many schools responded to the October 7th attack on Israel.
Part of the challenge is that people cannot seem to agree on a good definition of antisemitism. If you can't define the problem, how can it be solved? Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, defines Zionism as the right of Jews to self-determination in their ancestral home: “It's a simple, straightforward idea that Jews have the right to live in the place where they've continually had a presence for thousands and thousands of years,” he said. Anti-Zionism is also simple to define, he asserted — it means that Jews don't have the right to self-determination in their ancestral home.
In a February 22, 2024 speech at Brown University, Greenblatt asserted, “Anti-Zionism is antisemitism…The anti-Zionist is committed to denying rights to Jews that they afford to everyone else… The argument that Jews don't deserve the rights that everyone else should have — that is the essence of discrimination.”
Why should you care?
Schools have been teaching a very one-sided view of the Middle East and Israel. Students are being told what to think rather than how to think about this situation. Beyond being a disservice to students, it has contributed to the larger culture in which Jewish students have been targeted. The crises on college campuses and in the culture at large have exposed the pervasiveness of antisemitism. It has also highlighted the propagation of anti-western values more broadly.
This should be cause for concern and attention because, as described by Leonard Saxe, “Historically, Jews have been the ‘canary in the coal mine’ and anti-Jewish discrimination has often served as an early warning of broader societal turmoil, including discrimination against other groups. Confronting antisemitism on campuses is therefore not only important for members of the Jewish community but also for higher education and the aims of civil society. That’s one part of the context that has not yet been sufficiently appreciated by campus leaders.”