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In fighting antisemitism, Jews can be our own worst enemies. We shouldn’t be.
(JTA) — Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, and even if you’re not Jewish, you can’t miss the fact that antisemitism is back in the news again: Kanye West, Kyrie Irving, Nick Fuentes; extremists returning in droves to Twitter; President Donald Trump kowtowing to antisemites over dinner at Mar-A-Lago; “Saturday Night Live” opening with a monologue trafficking in antisemitic tropes; members of the Black Hebrew Israelites intimidating Jewish fans coming to Barclays Center, and an endless feedback loop of antisemitism coursing across social media.
Coming at a time when antisemitic incidents already had reached the highest point in recent memory, this is the kind of mainstreaming of antisemitism that we haven’t seen since the 1930s.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned as CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, it is that when it comes to the Jewish people, hatred doesn’t discriminate. When Kanye says Jews control the music industry, he’s not talking about rich Jews or conservative Jews. He’s not singling those who may support Likud or those who back Meretz, two Israeli political parties. He’s not calling out Orthodox Jews versus Reform Jews. He’s talking about us all.
Same with the white supremacists who are circulating Great Replacement conspiracy theories about Jews conspiring to bring more people of color and immigrants into America to “replace” white people. They don’t care if you are a die-hard MAGA voter or a card-carrying member of Democratic Socialists of America. It doesn’t matter: If you’re Jewish, you are in their crosshairs.
Another unfortunate example is the Mapping Project, an insidious campaign that ostensibly accused pro-Israel Jews of conspiring together in Boston. However, it didn’t target only Zionist organizations. They targeted all Jewish organizations, from a nonprofit helping the disabled to a Jewish high school.
And yet, while our enemies see us as one, the Jewish community too often seems riven by discord and infighting.
We are divided around religious practices and beliefs. We are deeply riven by politics. We do not see eye to eye when it comes to the State of Israel, and at times we can’t even agree on the definition of antisemitism itself. At times, absurdly, some Jewish leaders seek to tear down other Jewish leaders even as it tears apart the community, as Steven Windmuller, a retired professor at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, recently documented.
I point this out not to diminish the value of debate and dissent — these are fundamental to our tradition. But we need to be mindful of when debate descends into division.
Indeed, when viewed by those on the outside, these internecine divisions within our community can lead to misunderstandings and confusion. Why can’t Jews agree on anything? At best, hostility makes us look petty, mean and foolish. At worst, it allows antisemites to see within us whatever it is that they hate the most.
Usually in the aftermath of antisemitic attacks such as we saw after the Tree of Life shooting or the hostage situation in Colleyville, Texas, Jews from across the political spectrum set aside our differences and come together in a show of unity. We lock arms, proclaim we are one, call on our policymakers to do more, put up our defensive shields and hope for the best.
But at a time when a celebrity with a cult-like following, Kanye West, or Ye as he now calls himself, is using his platform of 38 million-plus social media followers to spread hateful tropes about Jews — the kinds of unhinged and hateful canards, such as Jewish control and power, that have led to antisemitic attacks throughout history — I would argue that the locking-arms response, while effective in the moment, does not have the staying power that we could achieve if we had a more unified and close-knit Jewish community.
What does have staying power? In this uniquely fragile moment, we must choose to embrace our differences, or at least accept them and lean into Ahavat Yisrael, the love for our fellow Jews. We ferociously can disagree internally while standing completely united to external hate.
We are our brother’s keeper, and any Jew suffering from antisemitism is ultimately our responsibility. We must come together, despite our differences, and fight those who hate our people.
How can Jews stand together against antisemitism while respecting our ideological divides?
First, this isn’t a moment to try to win each other over. This is a moment to declare that every Jew matters and is worth protecting. We may disagree on many things, but we can appreciate that difference doesn’t have to equal division. We cannot allow the toxic partisanship that has seeped into so much of our society to poison our communal spaces. There are no “Tikkun Olam” Jews. There are no “Trump” Jews. There are only Jews, and we need to remember the dictum — you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Second, we should recognize that self-defense starts with self-love and self-knowledge. Jewish literacy is essential to our long-term survival. Many like to remark how Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel prayed with his feet — but he did so in part because he wrapped tefillin with his hands. This is not to say that we all need to observe our faith in the same manner. There are plenty of Jewish people who opt out of ritual entirely, and yet their connection to our peoplehood is as strong and as valid as those who daven, or pray, every day. But shared values that emanate from Torah still bind us as a people — we need to redouble, not just our efforts to pass on these values to our children in ways that relate to the next generation, but we also must relearn these values ourselves.
Third, we must never allow our ideological blinders to gloss over or ignore antisemitism from those who are generally our political allies. We must be morally firm and call out antisemitism where we see it, and not just when it is convenient politically. We must be equally fierce in the political circles where we belong, where we ultimately have more influence and clout, as in simply calling out hatred by pointing to those on the other side.
During his lifetime, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson shared his wisdom about the fact that while every Jewish person is a unique individual, as a people we share a “basic commonality that joins us into a single collective entity.” The Lubavitcher Rebbe understood that this unity has sustained the Jewish people throughout history.
If we look to our ancestors, we can see examples of how holding together at times of strife has made our community stronger. It’s quite possible that we may be living in one of those difficult periods again. I hope we can meet the moment.
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Door-to-Door Anti-Israel Boycott Campaigns in Britain Raise Alarm Bells Over Hostile Environment Toward Jews
Protesters from “Palestine Action” demonstrate on the roof of Guardtech Group in Brandon, Suffolk, Britain, July 1, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Chris Radburn
Across Britain, local Jewish communities are raising alarms bells over pro-Palestinian boycott activists going door-to-door to track residents who refuse to shun Israeli products, fueling an increasingly hostile and intimidating environment for Jews and Israelis.
Earlier this week, South Yorkshire Police, which serves Sheffield and surrounding areas in northern England, opened an investigation following a violent clash in the Woodseats neighborhood, in the southern part of the city, between the anti-Israel activists demanding residents boycott Israeli goods and opponents who called them “Jew hunters.”
Known as Sheffield Apartheid Free Zone (SAFZ), this anti-Israel group has been active for months across neighborhoods in Sheffield and other parts of the United Kingdom.
As part of a broader effort to undermine the Jewish state internationally, the group distributes materials urging boycotts of Israeli products, claiming that “Israel thrives on international support.”
“When we choose not to buy Israeli goods, it hurts them in the most central place – their economy. Boycotts have worked before. They were a powerful factor in ending apartheid in South Africa and together we can replicate that success,” says one of the group’s propaganda materials.
Sparking outrage among local Jewish communities and political leaders, the group reportedly tracks residents’ responses, noting whether they are “no answer, not interested, or supportive.”
Earlier this week, a violent confrontation erupted in the Woodseats neighborhood in northern England after pro-Israel activists who had learned of the group’s activities on social media arrived on the scene.
Jean Hatchet, a local activist, confronted the anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian demonstrators, following them through the streets while shouting “Jew hunters are coming” and waving a sign reading “No tolerance for Jew hatred.”
According to Hatchet’s testimony, one group member snatched the sign from her hands and struck her on the head, prompting her to file a police complaint alleging assault motivated by religion.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Hatchet claimed the group actively maintains a “blacklist” of anyone who supports Israel.
“They’re taking addresses of people who don’t agree with their point of view,” the pro-Israel activist said. “We have data protection regulations in this country and they’re committing acts that cross the boundaries of what’s permitted.”
Similar door-to-door boycott campaigns have been reported in Bristol and Hackney in England, Cardiff in Wales, and Belfast and Glasgow in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Last Saturday, pro-Palestinian activists were filmed going door-to-door in Brighton, a coastal city in southern England, asking residents to sign pledges to boycott Israeli products.
Vicky Bogel, founder of the pro-Israel group “Jewish and Proud” in Brighton, denounced the incident after witnessing eight teams of volunteers moving systematically from house to house with clipboards and lists of addresses.
“They found out who has ‘Zionist tendencies’ and who doesn’t and where they live,” Bogel told the Jewish Chronicle. “This is cunning and dangerous activity; we’re talking about an intimidation campaign at another level.”
Peter Kyle, the British trade secretary and a member of Parliament representing Brighton, strongly condemned these latest incidents, calling for police investigations into the groups for potential hate crimes and incitement.
However, Sussex Police, which covers the Brighton area, said that “there is currently no evidence of criminal activity,” while acknowledging that the reports are under review.
The Israeli embassy in London also condemned the incidents, calling them a “disgrace” and warning that such campaigns fuel intimidation and hostility toward Jewish communities across the country.
“Compiling lists of homes and businesses to enforce a boycott of Israeli products is not principled protest, it is intimidation,” the statement read.
“Targeting people and shops because of their Israeli identity echoes some of the darkest chapters of European history,” it continued. “Decent people should call this out, clearly and without hesitation.”
What happened in Brighton and Sheffield was a disgrace. Compiling lists of homes and businesses to enforce a boycott of Israeli products is not principled protest, it is intimidation.
Targeting people and shops because of their Israeli identity echoes some of the darkest… pic.twitter.com/BO7IhidcuW
— Israel in the UK
(@IsraelinUK) February 18, 2026
Earlier this month, the Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, revealed in an annual report that it recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2025, the second-highest total ever in a single calendar year and an increase of 4 percent from the 3,556 in 2024.
Last year averaged 308 antisemitic incidents each month — an exact doubling of the 154 monthly average in the year before the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Antisemitic incidents had fallen from the record high of 4,298 in 2023, which analysts say was fueled by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack — the biggest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
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Two Men Spit, Say ‘Free Palestine’ as They Attempt to Gain Access to Jewish Center in Dallas
Two young men who attempted to gain entry to a Jewish life center in Dallas by claiming to be window cleaners. Photo: Screenshot
Jewish community leaders on Monday denounced an antisemitic incident in which two men trespassed the grounds of the Olami Dallas Center in Texas and demanded entry to the home of its rabbi by claiming to be window cleaners.
According to StandWithUs, the perpetrators rang the doorbell of Rabbi Yaakov Rubin, who refused to let them, in response to which one of the men spat on the property as the other said “Free Palestine.” StandWithUs added that they also said “fake Jews” during their attempt to gain access to the building.
However, after realizing they were caught on camera, one of the perpetrators then yelled: “I love the Jews.”
StandWithUs shared video footage of the incident.
“There’s much brazenness required to walk up to a house, in an attempt to intimidate a Jewish Life center, and its host family, ring the doorbell, and say, ‘Free Palestine,’” Rubin said in a statement included in a press release StandWithUs issued following the incident. “This requires us to be that much bolder and proud of our Jewishness and Israel, through open pride, a strong sense of identity and nurturing our mission from G-d. We don’t run, won’t hide, we will be a light to the world.”
The incident at the Olami center comes amid a period of anti-Jewish violence in the US that is unprecedented in the country’s history. Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, Jews have been murdered on the streets of Washington D.C., firebombed in Colorado with Molotov cocktails, and gang assaulted. In a recent incident just last month, a young man apparently radicalized by the far right set the Beth Israel Congregation on fire over its “Jewish ties,” a catastrophic event which has shut down the Jewish house of worship for the foreseeable future. Another arsonist struck the San Francisco Hillel building in December.
In Monday’s press release, Jordan Cope, director for policy and education at StandWithUs, said this latest incident is a reminder of the degree to which antisemitism is coupled with anti-Zionism.
“The youth’s mention of ‘fake Jews’ before his subsequent ‘free Palestine’ assertion followed by his ‘I love the Jews’ comments, is a clear reminder of how bigots all too often disingenuously disguise their antisemitism as a matter of Middle Eastern politics,” Cope said. “Efforts to intimidate the Jewish people into abandoning their pride of their indigenous homeless ultimately seek to intimidate Jews into silence and submission at a time where antisemitism continues to run rife throughout the West.”
He added, “Antisemitism is an age-old hatred. Anti-Israel sentiment is its newest spear.”
For several consecutive years, antisemitism in the US has surged to break “all previous annual records,” according to a series of reports issued by the ADL since it began recording data on antisemitic incidents.
The FBI disclosed similar numbers, showing that even as hate crimes across the US decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this rise in antisemitic hate crimes, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
The wave of hatred has changed how American Jews perceive their status in America.
According to the results of a new survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Federations of North America, a majority of American Jews now consider antisemitism to be a normal and endemic aspect of life in the US.
A striking 57 percent reported believing “that antisemitism is now a normal Jewish experience,” the organizations disclosed, while 55 percent said they have personally witnessed or been subjected to antisemitic hatred, including physical assaults, threats, and harassment, in the past year.
The survey results revealed other disturbing trends: Jewish victims are internalizing their experiences, as 74 percent did not report what happened to them to “any institution or organization”; Jewish youth are bearing the brunt of antisemitism, having faced communications which aim to exclude Jews or delegitimize their concerns about rising hate; roughly a third of survey respondents show symptoms of anxiety; and the cultural climate has fostered a sense in the Jewish community that the non-Jewish community would not act as a moral guardrail against violence and threats.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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In JFNA’s first ‘State of the Jewish Union’ address, security and antisemitism loom large
(JTA) — Speaking from Washington, D.C., on Thursday, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, Eric Fingerhut, laid out his assessment of the state of Jewish life in America.
“The state of the Jewish union in America is strong, but it is being tested,” said Fingerhut. “We are united in our commitment to America and to Jewish life, even as we worry about the real threats of violence and the growing acceptance of antisemitic rhetoric.”
During his remarks, which was billed as JFNA’s inaugural “State of the Jewish Union” address ahead of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address next week, Fingerhut issued six recommendations to Congress which centered on increasing security for Jewish communities.
They included providing federal support for security personnel, expanding FBI capabilities to counter domestic terrorism, increasing support for local and state law enforcement, prosecuting hate crimes aggressively and holding social media companies accountable for amplifying antisemitic rhetoric.
“Jewish children and teens are facing growing risks online, including antisemitic harassment, bullying and extremist content,” said Fingerhut. “We recognize the difficulty of legislating in this field, but states are moving forward, and it’s time for Congress to move forward as well.”
Fingerhut also called on Congress to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion annually, and “make the program more flexible and simpler to use.” (This year, the program is requiring recipients to support federal immigration enforcement and avoid programs advancing diversity, raising concern among many Jewish groups, including JFNA.)
At the beginning of his address, Fingerhut also emphasized the ties between the American Jewish community and Israel, which have come under scrutiny since JFNA published a survey earlier this month which found that only one-third of American Jews say they identify as Zionist.
“The focus of today’s talk will be about the state of Jews in America, but it is not possible to have that conversation without acknowledging and addressing the emotional, familial and religious connection between the American Jewish community and the people of Israel,” said Fingerhut.
Fingerhut’s remarks come shortly after Bret Stephens, the right-leaning Jewish New York Times columnist, argued during his 92NY’s annual “The State of World Jewry” speech that groups devoted to combating antisemitism, including the Anti-Defamation League, should abandon their strategy and instead focus on bolstering Jewish education and communal infrastructure.
During Fingerhut’s address, which largely centered on the security burdens placed on Jewish communities and concern for changes to social services funding, he also pivoted to a broader vision of Jewish life beyond the need for protection alone.
“It is important for the Congress to know that Jewish life is not only what we are protecting, but what we are building,” said Fingerhut. “It is Jewish education and Jewish experiences, but it is also human services, dignity and belonging.”
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