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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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The post Beyond the ‘Day of Hate’: The best strategy to keep American Jews safe over the long term appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The Netherlands Shows Her True Colors Once Again
A view shows the Peace Palace, which houses the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in The Hague, Netherlands, April 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
I never thought I would write these words, but I have lost respect for my own country. I say that with sadness, not anger. For years, I believed in the Dutch reputation for fairness, nuance, and moral clarity. Today, that image has crumbled. The way Dutch media covers Israel is not just biased; it is intellectually lazy, historically empty, and socially dangerous. Worst of all, it fuels a rising wave of antisemitism in a nation that should know exactly where that road leads.
The most recent example came from Trouw, a newspaper that once claimed to value journalistic integrity. It published an uncritical article praising the views of Ta-Nehisi Coates, who labeled Israel an “apartheid state.” That accusation was presented to readers as if it were self-evident truth, not an opinion. No context. No history. No pushback. No mention of equal rights for all Arab citizens. No mentions of terrorism, of facts on the ground, of the repeated rejection of peace initiatives, or of the lives Israelis have been forced to defend from relentless violence. It was a piece of writing that replaced journalism with activism, and knowledge with slogans.
If Dutch journalists insist on making comparisons, then honesty requires them to explain what real apartheid actually looked like. South Africa enforced legally defined racial categories, stripped millions of their citizenship, banned interracial marriage, separated schools, hospitals, beaches, toilets, buses, universities, and neighborhoods. Black South Africans were barred from voting, from certain jobs, and from owning land in most of the country. They were forced into impoverished “homelands,” denied freedom of movement, and subject to routine torture and violence by the state. None of this resembles Israel. Not even remotely.
But the truth no longer seems to matter in Dutch newsrooms. Nuance has disappeared. Context has vanished. Emotion has replaced evidence, and ideology has replaced inquiry. Israel is guilty by default, while its critics are treated as prophets whose words require no verification.
The Dutch media’s relentless one-sidedness reveals something deeper and more troubling than mere ignorance. It reflects a renewed comfort with blaming Jews for the world’s problems, a habit with a long and ugly history in Europe. When articles like the one in Trouw are circulated without challenge, they do not educate the public; they radicalize it. They normalize anti-Jewish hostility. They transform a complex conflict into a morality play, where Israelis are cast as colonial villains and Palestinians as blameless victims, regardless of reality.
As a Dutch citizen, I am ashamed. Ashamed of the intellectual laziness in our press. Ashamed of the moral posturing that ignores Jewish suffering. Ashamed of how quickly we have forgotten our responsibility to truth after the darkest chapter in European history. And ashamed that my country, once known for moral clarity, now prefers fashionable outrage over honest reporting.
Israel is not perfect. No nation is. But the apartheid accusation is not journalism. It is propaganda. And when the Dutch media amplifies it, they are not holding power to account — but are helping to spread a lie with real consequences for Jewish communities and for the possibility of peace.
It is time for Dutch journalists to rediscover integrity. And it is time for readers to demand it.
It is also time, more than ever, to stand up for Israel, because truth still matters.
Sabine Sterk is CEO of the NGO Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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Famine Claims in Gaza Fell Apart, But Western Media Outlets Never Reported It
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel line up at the crossing into the Gaza Strip at the Rafah border on the Egypt side, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Rafah, Egypt, October 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
For months, Western media outlets amplified one of the most dramatic accusations of the Israel–Hamas war: that Israel was causing famine in Gaza.
The IPC, a UN-backed hunger monitor that has been criticized for faulty methodology, published a report in August 2025, claiming that over half a million Gazans were already experiencing famine. The report was shared and repeated across major outlets with almost no scrutiny.
Headlines warned of “mass starvation,” photos of emaciated children (mostly with pre-existing conditions) filled front pages, and Israel was vilified as deliberately starving civilians.
But when new data emerged that undermined the entire famine narrative, those same outlets suddenly lost their desire to report.
The updated numbers, released in July-August by the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC), a group of UN and other aid agencies, paint a starkly different picture.
The GNC found malnutrition rates roughly 23% lower than those used by the IPC. The highest rate measured was 11.9%, which is below the 15% malnutrition threshold that defines famine. This is not a minor revision. It is a total collapse of the most alarming claim made about Gaza’s humanitarian situation.
And yet, the media that treated the original IPC report as gospel did not cover this correction.
Not one major Western outlet ran a headline acknowledging that the famine claim had been based on flawed data. The story simply evaporated. No accountability. No follow-up. No explanation.
The Nutrition Cluster finally published the materials from their Sep 17 meeting, confirming that the IPC “analysis” was indeed based on fabricated data that misrepresented the raw, unweighted malnutrition statistics as if they were the properly age-weighted data required by IPC… https://t.co/WOk7RYOK3F pic.twitter.com/QQqfNNo41W
— Mark Zlochin – מארק זלוצ’ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) October 15, 2025
This silence matters.
The IPC’s famine declaration did not unfold in a vacuum. Its figures were used to hammer Israel diplomatically, spark UN condemnations, inflame protests, and put Jewish communities at risk worldwide.
Once “Israel is starving Gaza” became a viral talking point, it didn’t matter that Israeli officials and independent analysts questioned the report’s accuracy. It didn’t matter that key data was missing. It didn’t matter that the numbers were inconsistent or that the methodology was weak. What mattered was that the accusation fit the narrative, so it was believed.
Now we know more about those flaws. Critics pointed out that the IPC relied on incomplete datasets, pulled numbers from clinic-only screenings that do not represent the general population, and shifted to MUAC-only measurements — a quick arm-circumference test that is known to overestimate malnutrition. These issues were substantial enough to cast doubt on the entire famine declaration.
But instead of revisiting their own coverage, the same outlets that amplified the original claims chose to ignore the updated data. The famine panic was newsworthy; the correction, apparently, was not.
This is not just a journalistic failure. It’s a dangerous one. Once a humanitarian accusation of this scale is made, it becomes a weapon. It shapes protests, justifies threats, and fuels antisemitism. If the story collapses, but the media refuses to report it, the lie continues to live.
And this is exactly what happened.
Even as the GNC data undercut the famine claim, the global discourse remained stuck in August: Israel was still being accused of starving Gaza. The emotional imagery that accompanied the IPC report continues to circulate online. The outrage it generated still shapes public perception. The correction never got the same megaphone.
UN’s Gaza Famine Fraud Exposed:
IPC tested 15,700 kids for malnutrition in July and found 12%—below 15% famine threshold
Problematic. So what did they do?
Solved. Now UN can claim famine in Gaza!
Evidence & sources: pic.twitter.com/Re1grOvGsQ
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) August 24, 2025
This should be a wake-up call. In conflict zones, information is a battlefield, and humanitarian terminology, like “famine,” “siege,” or “starvation,” can be misused for political ends. When journalists fail to interrogate their sources or revisit their own reporting, misinformation hardens into “truth.”
Readers should take note: if journalists won’t be skeptical, you must be. Every dramatic humanitarian claim warrants scrutiny. Every alarming statistic should be questioned. Every institution, even UN-affiliated bodies, must be held accountable for accuracy. Because if not, falsehoods travel, outrage spreads, and real people pay the price.
In this case, Israel’s reputation was smeared, global discourse was distorted, and Jewish communities were exposed to heightened risk, all based on data that didn’t hold up. And the media, which should have corrected the record, simply looked the other way.
So next time a headline declares catastrophe, treat it with the skepticism journalists should have shown in the first place.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Why do people want ‘Zootopia 2’ to be about Israel?
This article contains spoilers for Zootopia 2.
Since Zootopia 2 takes place in a world of talking animals, it might be the last place one would expect to find commentary on Israel and Palestine. But several viewers have read the film’s plot — which concerns the division of Zootopia’s weather-controlled neighborhoods — as providing exactly that.
In this sequel to Disney’s 2016 animated hit, the sinister and wealthy Lynxley family plans to expand Tundratown, the part of the city where polar species reside, into Marsh Market. The Market is a home for already ostracized animals, such as aquatic mammals, and a hideout for reptiles, who were banished from the city. Because each neighborhood has a specific climate controlled by “weather walls,” the merging of one section with another would necessitate the immigration of those unable to live in the new climate.
The more powerful animals use a lot of hierarchical language referring to the “lower” or “lesser” species who would lose their homes because of this plan. Reptiles are also stigmatized as being “dangerous” due to a fatal incident a century earlier that involved a snake and a turtle. For viewers of the first film, which took on racial profiling, the existence of speciesism in the Zootopia-verse won’t come as a surprise. But what has captured viewers’ attention is the film’s discussion of the stolen Reptile Ravine neighborhood.
“Did Disney get tricked into making a pro-Palestine movie?” one user of the movie review platform Letterboxd wrote with their five-star rating. “Yes they did 🫡.”
Commenters under the review had mixed opinions:
“Do you seriously think a Zionist company made a pro-Palestine movie?” someone responded.
“Finally saw someone thinks so too, the ethnic cleaning theme is indeed pretty strong on this one,” said another user.
Some reviewers have also likened the plot to settler-colonialism, which feels like a bit of a stretch given that none of the animals in charge of the expansion travelled from one place to another in order to conquer it and therefore don’t really qualify as settlers. All of the contested land is already within the constituted borders of Zootopia, so the plan involves expanding the qualities of one neighborhood into another, not completely redrawing territorial boundaries.
A more apt comparison might be gentrification in American cities and the way that has impacted racial minorities. The buried reptile neighborhood feels more reminiscent of communities such as the San Juan Hill neighborhood in Manhattan that was eliminated by Lincoln Center or the Hayti community in Durham, North Carolina that was all but wiped out by a freeway and urban renewal. The accents, music, and general appearance of Marsh Market are clearly inspired by the American South, specifically the bayous of New Orleans, which have always been an important landmark in Black American culture.
Of course, it wouldn’t be wrong to also think of Palestinian towns that have been renamed and replaced with Israeli neighborhoods. And to get into the nitty gritty of gentrification versus settler-colonialism might seem futile — many activists and social scientists would probably tell you that despite being different strategies, they have the same oppressive result.
But why focus on Israel? Clearly, there are numerous examples of subjugation from across the world and across time that Zootopia 2 could be mirroring. Israel’s government is not the only entity to ever be accused of ethnic cleansing.
The focus on comparing the Lynxleys to Israel feels especially problematic in this case since the Lynxleys also operate the weather walls and are shown to secretly determine Zootopia politics. This would make the Lynxleys wealthy Jews who control the government and the weather.
Maybe because Israel and Palestine have taken over headlines, there is a recency bias influencing the comparisons people are making. It could also be because the star of Zootopia 2 has found herself at the center of controversy related to the recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last year, Ginnifer Goodwin, who voices the Zootopia protagonist Judy Hopps, was criticized for allegedly condemning the statement “globalize the intifada” as a threat to Jews and encouraging defunding UNRWA. Several months ago, that post was shared to a Boycott Divest Sanction subreddit, where users called for the boycott of Zootopia 2.
The post-credits scene of Zootopia 2 hints that avians will be at the center of a future film. Who knows how viewers will interpret the birds’ role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The post Why do people want ‘Zootopia 2’ to be about Israel? appeared first on The Forward.