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Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: The best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term
(JTA) — My synagogue sent out a cautiously anxious email yesterday about an event coming this Shabbat, a neo-Nazi “Day of Hate.” The email triggered fuzzy memories of one of the strangest episodes that I can remember from my childhood.
Sometime around 1990, in response to local neo-Nazi activity, some Jews from my community decided to “fight back.” I don’t know whether they were members of the militant Jewish Defense League, or perhaps just sympathetic to a JDL-style approach. When our local Jewish newspaper covered the story, it ran on its front cover a full-page photo of a kid from my Orthodox Jewish high school. The photo showed a teenage boy from behind, wearing a kippah and carrying a baseball bat that was leaning threateningly on his shoulder.
As it happens, “Danny” was not a member of the JDL, he was a kid on his way to play baseball. Sometimes, a baseball bat is just a baseball bat. But not for us anxious Jews in America: We want to see ourselves as protagonists taking control of our destiny, responding to antisemites with agency, with power, with a plan. I’m sorry to say that as I look around our community today, it seems to me that we have agency, and we have power — but we certainly don’t seem to have a plan.
The tactics that the American Jewish community uses to fight back against antisemitism are often ineffective on their own and do not constitute a meaningful strategy in the composite. One is that American Jews join in a partisan chorus that erodes our politics and fixates on the antisemitism in the party they don’t vote for. This exacerbates the partisan divide, which weakens democratic culture, and turns the weaponizing of antisemitism into merely a partisan electoral tactic for both sides.
Another tactic comes from a wide set of organizations who have declared themselves the referees on the subject and take to Twitter to name and shame antisemites. This seems to amplify and popularize antisemitism more than it does to suppress it.
A third common tactic is to pour more and more dollars into protecting our institutions with robust security measures, which no one thinks will defeat antisemitism, but at least seeks to protect those inside those institutions from violence, though it does little to protect Jews down the street. Richer Jewish institutions will be safer than poorer ones, but Jews will continue to suffer either way.
A fourth tactic our communal organizations use to fight antisemitism is to try to exact apologies or even fines from antisemites to get them to retract their beliefs and get in line, as the Anti-Defamation League did with Kyrie Irving, an approach that Yair Rosenberg has wisely argued is a no-win proposition. Yet another tactic is the insistence by some that the best way to fight antisemitism is to be proud Jews, which has the perverse effect of making our commitment to Jewishness dependent on antisemitism as a motivator.
And finally, the most perverse tactic is that some on both the right and the left fight antisemitism by attacking the ADL itself. Since it is so hard to defeat our opponents, we have started beating up on those that are trying to protect us. What could go wrong?
Steadily, like a drumbeat, these tactics fail, demonstrating themselves to be not a strategy at all, and the statistics continue to show a rise in antisemitism.
Perhaps we are too fixated on the idea that antisemitism is continuous throughout Jewish history, proving only that there is no effective strategy for combating this most persistent of hatreds.
Instead, we would do well to recall how we responded to a critical moment in American Jewish history in the early 20th century. In the aftermath of the Leo Frank lynching in 1915 – the murder of a Jewish man amid an atmosphere of intense antisemitism — Jewish leaders formed what would become the ADL by building a relationship with law enforcement and the American legal and political establishment. The ADL recognized that the best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term, in ways that would transcend and withstand the political winds of change, was to embed in the police and criminal justice system the idea that antisemitism was their problem to defeat. These Jewish leaders flipped the script of previous diasporic experiences; not only did they become “insiders,” they made antisemitism anathema to America itself. (And yes, it was the Leo Frank incident that inspired “Parade,” the forthcoming Broadway musical that this week attracted white supremacist protesters.)
For Jews, the high-water mark of this strategy came in the aftermath of the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh. It was the low point in many ways of the American Jewish experience, the most violent act against Jews on American soil, but it was followed by a mourning process that was shared across the greater Pittsburgh community. The words of the Kaddish appeared above the fold of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. That is inconceivable at most other times of Jewish oppression and persecution. It tells the story of when we are successful – when antisemitism is repudiated by the general public. It is the most likely indicator that we will be collectively safe in the long run.
We were lucky that this move to partner with the establishment was successful. I felt this deeply on a recent trip to Montgomery, Alabama. Seeing the memorials to Black Americans persecuted and lynched by and under the very system that should have been protecting them from the worst elements of society is a reminder that not all minorities in America could then — or today — win over the elements of American society that control criminal justice.
Visitors view items left by well-wishers along the fence at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on the first anniversary of the attack there, Oct. 27, 2019. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
A strategic plan to defeat antisemitism that must be collectively embraced by American Jews would build on this earlier success and invest in the infrastructure of American democracy as the framework for Jewish thriving and surviving, and continue the historic relationship-building that changed the Jews’ position in America. It would stop the counterproductive internecine and partisan battle that is undermining the possibility of Jewish collective mobilization.
It means more investment, across partisan divides, in relationships with local governments and law enforcement, using the imperfect “definitions of antisemitism” as they are intended — not for boundary policing, but to inform and help law enforcement to monitor and prevent violent extremism. It means supporting lawsuits and other creative legal strategies, like Integrity First for America’s groundbreaking efforts against the Unite the Right rally organizers, which stymie such movements in legal gridlock and can help bankrupt them.
It means practicing the lost art of consensus Jewish collective politics which recognize that there must be some baseline agreement that antisemitism is a collective threat, even if any “unity” we imagine for the Jewish community is always going to be be instrumental and short-lived.
It means supporting institutions like the ADL, even as they remain imperfect, even as they sometimes get stuck in some of the failed strategies I decried above, because they have the relationships with powerful current and would-be allies in the American political and civic marketplace, and because they are fighting against antisemitism while trying to stay above the partisan fray.
It means real education and relationship-building with other ethnic and faith communities that is neither purely instrumental nor performative — enough public relations visits to Holocaust museums! — so that we have the allies we need when we need them, and so that we can partner for our collective betterment.
And most importantly, it means investing in the plodding, unsexy work of supporting vibrant American democracy — free and fair elections, voting rights, the rule of law, peaceful transitions of power — because stable liberal democracies have been the safest homes for minorities, Jews included.
I doubt we will ever be able to “end” individual antisemitic acts, much less eradicate antisemitic hate. “Shver tzu zayn a Yid” (it’s hard to be a Jew). We join with our fellow Americans who live in fear of the lone wolves and the hatemongers who periodically terrorize us. But we are much more capable than we are currently behaving to fight back against the collective threats against us. Instead, let’s be the smart Americans we once were.
The real work right now is not baseball bats or billboards, it is not Jewish pride banalities or Twitter refereeing: It is quiet and powerful and, if done right, as American Jews demonstrated in the last century, it will serve us for the long term.
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Trump is still going after Palestinians in the U.S. Jews must keep protesting those antidemocratic efforts
Mohsen Mahdawi, a 35-year-old Palestinian, has been a permanent resident of the United States for the past 14 years. And as the U.S. government presses ahead with efforts to deport him over his pro-Palestinian advocacy at Columbia University, more than 1,000 Jews have come forward to defend him by signing an open letter I authored.
Why? At a time of particularly fractious division in the Jewish community over issues related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how is it possible that so many Jews have come together in support of a Palestinian activist?
One key reason is that the government is seeking to infringe upon the rights of someone who neither engaged in acts of violence nor supported them. In July, the Second Circuit Court overruled a prior district court judge’s dismissal of the deportation case against Mahdawi, giving new energy to the government’s efforts.
Mahdawi has committed no crime; the government has not even bothered to accuse him of doing so. Instead, he simply gave voice to his belief in the necessity of freedom for his people.
Jews of all ideological stripes can and should agree that it is wrong to penalize someone for the expression of their political views. They don’t need to go far back in time to recall that such tactics have often been used against Jews themselves — in the Soviet Union to suppress refuseniks who sought to manifest their identity as Jews; in the U.S. during the McCarthy era; and, most ominously, during the dark age of Nazi totalitarianism.
In drafting an open letter defending Mahdawi, focused on the attack on his political rights, I hoped that a diverse range of Jews would be willing to acknowledge that whether they agree or disagree with Mahdawi, the government’s targeting of him represents a threat to all of us.
I know Mahdawi personally. We met at a peace-building retreat in the summer of 2024. He was an enormously compelling presence who drew people together through his preternatural calmness and clarity of purpose.
Since then, I have come to see him as a unifier, not a divider. He’s an advocate of peace, not war. And he has the potential to become a leader of enormous charisma and potential.
So why has the Trump administration devoted so much attention to persecuting a Palestinian student who has repeatedly called out antisemitism, including at a Palestinian solidarity rally at Columbia?
The sad reality is that Mahdawi, like his fellow Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, is being persecuted for the crime of being Palestinian.
The U.S. State Department came up with the logic-defying claim, in March 2025, that Mahdawi’s activities at Columbia “would have a potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.” If this administration truly wishes to advance its foreign policy interests, then it should focus on reconstructing Gaza and building a framework for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, not targeting a devoted adept of non-violence like Mahdawi.
Many who signed the letter in support of Mahdawi joined in for the simple reason that they believe it is un-American to discriminate against people on the basis of their political views. Some who added their names felt, as I did , that there was another compelling reason to sign on: that Mahdawi’s activism gives the lie to the prevalent myth that to be pro-Palestine is to be antisemitic. This proposition gets buried in the raging discourse around antisemitism and Israel today.
It is essential to recognize that support for the cause of Palestinian freedom and self-determination is not the political or moral equivalent of antisemitism. It is a precondition to a world in which Israeli Jews and Palestinians live peaceably together. And it is a cause that Jews, by virtue of their own historical experience of exile, should be eminently capable of both understanding and supporting.
Mohsen Mahdawi perfectly exemplifies the position. He is fierce in his advocacy for Palestinian rights. And he is fierce in his opposition to all forms of identity-based discrimination, including and especially, antisemitism. He deserves better from the U.S., and we Jews must vigorously oppose the profound miscarriage of justice being directed against him.
David N. Myers teaches Jewish history at UCLA.
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Lawmakers seek 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect prayer goers from protests
(JTA) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a federal legislation Thursday in the House and Senate aimed at protecting houses of worship from disruptive demonstrations, following a series of protests outside of synagogues this year.
The Right to Worship Act was introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, alongside Reps. Brad Knott, a North Carolina Republican, and Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat. It would establish a 100-foot “buffer zone” around houses of worship during religious services — mirroring similar legislation recently enacted in New York.
“The First Amendment guarantees every American the right to freely exercise their faith, and Congress has a duty to ensure that guarantee is met,” Cruz said in a statement Thursday.
The legislation would also establish civil penalties for offenders and provide pathways for individuals, including state attorneys, to seek court orders and damages in federal court. While the legislation would target protesters who knowingly disrupt scheduled religious services, houses of worship would not be required to make their schedules public.
The bill’s sponsors say the measure is aimed at conduct rather than the content of protesters’ speech.
“No one should have to push through a hostile crowd or shout over a bullhorn in an attempt to pray,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which helped lawmakers draft the legislation.
It’s the latest attempt at passing federal legislation aimed at insulating houses of worship from protest, following Suozzi’s “SACRED Act” legislation, a similar bill he introduced in April but which has not progressed in the House.
Those efforts have now been joined by Slotkin, who is Jewish, and Cruz, who has often taken aim at antisemitism within the Republican coalition over the past year.
“Exercising your right to worship should not require you to exhibit particular courage as you enter your synagogue, church, mosque, temple, mandir, or gurdwara,” Suozzi said in a statement.
The New York City Council passed a local buffer zone bill in March following a series of pro-Palestinian protests outside of synagogues that hosted Israeli real estate expos. While Jewish groups and leaders heavily advocated for the measure, it also faced opposition from civil rights leaders who said it would have a chilling effect on First Amendment protections.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Lawmakers seek 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect prayer goers from protests appeared first on The Forward.
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Over 95% of Canadian Jewish university students report exposure to antisemitism
(JTA) — Nearly all Jewish students surveyed on Canadian university campuses said they have experienced or witnessed antisemitism, according to a new government-commissioned report.
The survey from the Department of Canadian Heritage found that 95.7% of Jewish students said they were exposed to antisemitism, with 70% saying their university did not take antisemitism seriously and 22% reporting physical violence against Jews.
“Antisemitism on Canadian campuses is neither isolated nor episodic,” said Jack Jedwab, the report’s main author, at a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday. “It can reasonably be described as systemic.”
The surveyed students anonymously detailed rhetoric, discriminatory treatment, vandalism, intimidation and physical attacks from their classmates as well as professors and administrators. Some 45% said they experienced Holocaust denial or distortion often or sometimes, and 65% said they encountered it “at least rarely.”
One respondent said they had witnessed a friend who wears a kippah being chased out of a school building by a group of students who shouted, “There is a Jew … let’s get him.”
Another student described a professor writing that “we need to kill all Zionists, that she had worked with them and saw how evil they were.” Students also said they were pressured by peers and professors to give their opinions on Israel because they were openly Jewish.
Some 36% of respondents complained about course content or classroom discussions that “they experienced as antisemitic or biased,” while 34% said “a professor introduced Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism when unrelated to the course subject.”
The survey, out Wednesday as part of a report titled Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences, included about 900 Jewish students from schools across Canada. It was originally conducted for the government’s special envoy on antisemitism, a role that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration dissolved alongside an Islamophobia envoy earlier this year.
Carney replaced those offices with a new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion, which he announced in June after saying that the country was “failing Jewish Canadians.” The new council was introduced as a push to unify the government’s approach toward combating systemic prejudice, but some Jewish groups decried the elimination of distinct envoys.
Pressure has mounted on Carney’s administration to stem the tide of antisemitic attacks in Canada since 2023, including gunfire at Jewish schools and synagogues and attacks on Jewish businesses and community centers.
On the same day the report was released, an Oklahoma-based organization called Jewish Tulsa made news for urging President Donald Trump’s administration to offer refugee status to Jewish Canadians.
“With the urgency around the challenges and the inaction we see in Canada, an asylum pathway makes sense,” Joe Roberts, who leads the conservative think tank, told The Canadian Press. He said that his family moved from Ontario to Tulsa after witnessing antisemitic graffiti in his neighborhood.
Martha Piper, former president of the University of British Columbia, said the campus antisemitism report revealed “a shocking presence of campus antisemitism throughout this country along with a troubling institutional failure to respond.”
“The results suggest a university culture that is not welcoming to Jewish students and systemically tries to exclude and vilify them,” said Piper.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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