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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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Will Anything Change After Bondi — and How Will the Story End?
A man lights a candle as police officers stand guard following the attack on a Jewish holiday celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone
Jews arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788. That is the Australian equivalent of the Mayflower, albeit with convicts.
From their earliest days, Australian Jews integrated into national life visibly, with patriotism and confidence. They built their shuls without apology, established businesses without resentment, and raised families with great pride.
They were disproportionately represented in the military, academia, medicine, and commerce. They embraced their Australian identity fully, while remaining true to their Jewish faith and seeing no contradiction between the two.
Australia was once a country that understood how integration worked. Newcomers were welcome, but they were expected to participate in a shared civic culture. Loyalty, contribution, and respect for Australian society were not considered controversial demands — they were the price of admission. For more than two centuries, Australian Jews lived by that bargain.
This is why the massacre at Bondi Beach during a public Hanukkah celebration seems like more than an act of terror. It feels like a betrayal. Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman, 92, shielded his wife of 57 years in the crowd before dying. That is the Jewish-Aussie spirit that symbolized this community.
Hanukkah is, by design, a public holiday. It commemorates a minority preserving its identity while remaining part of a broader civilization. Light is placed deliberately in the public square. Faith without withdrawal. Cultural continuity without separatism. That is the message of Hanukkah.
That such a celebration was targeted in one of Australia’s most iconic public spaces is not incidental. It was an attack on a place and a community that exemplified successful integration during a festival that celebrates cohesion and tolerance.
Speaking to Australian Jews over the past two years, a new theme has emerged — not only of fear, but abandonment. The country they love increasingly hesitates to defend them, is embarrassed by its own culture, and is unwilling to confront hateful belief systems it has imported.
This is not an immigration crisis. It is a governance crisis.
Great countries are built by immigrants. The Greeks, Romans, and Americans all understood that growth comes from outsiders who want to become insiders. But instead of importing entrepreneurs, innovators, and builders, we have incubated an endless supply of cultural resentment. A nation cannot transmit to its citizens what it no longer values. Assimilation requires national pride and confidence in one’s own civilizational values.
Deterrence is dismissed for fear of “sending the wrong signal.” Enforcement is denounced as cruelty. Borders are discussed endlessly but defended reluctantly. Politicians still perform the language of control, but with the conviction of actors reciting lines they no longer believe.
Western governments have not failed to implement their will. They have abandoned the idea that they are entitled to have a will in the first place. The result is a system engineered for failure while absolving those responsible for it. Illegal entry is rewarded. Removal is treated as a scandal. Integration becomes optional.
What emerges is grievance without gratitude, and hate without consequence. Flags become suspect. History is reduced to a catalogue of sins. Elites perform ritualized shame as a marker of sophistication. A country that cannot defend its own identity cannot plausibly ask newcomers to adopt it.
Bondi was not a random eruption of violence. It was the predictable outcome of a system that encouraged hate, refused to do anything about years of incitement and terror attacks on Jews, and will likely change nothing after this attack.
The bitter irony is that the community that proved integration was possible is now among the first to feel the consequences of a society that has stopped insisting on it.
Nations do not decline in a single dramatic moment. They erode through a thousand small capitulations; each defended as compassion.
Bondi was not an aberration. It was a warning. The only question is whether the warning arrived too late. The story of Hanukkah ends with our salvation and spiritual redemption; how will this story end?
Philip Gross is a Manhattan-born, London-based business executive and writer. He explores issues of Jewish identity, faith, and contemporary society through the lens of both the American and British experience.
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Why Are Greek Media Erasing the Murder of a Greek Priest from the Barghouti Coverage?
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was part of the Global Sumud Flotilla seeking to deliver aid to Gaza and was detained by Israel, gestures as she is greeted by supporters upon her arrival to the Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, in Athens, Greece, October 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
Father Germanos, born Georgios Tsibouktzakis in Greece, was a Greek Orthodox monk-priest who moved to Israel in the early 1990s to serve at the St. George Monastery in the Judean Desert. He was widely respected and known for maintaining warm relations with the local community.
On June 12, 2001, while returning to the monastery from Jerusalem, Father Germanos was ambushed and murdered by Palestinian terrorists. The attack was carried out by Fatah-affiliated gunmen, making him one of more than 1,000 Israelis and foreign nationals killed in Palestinian terror attacks during the Second Intifada.
In 2004, arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti was convicted in a Tel Aviv court and sentenced to five life sentences for orchestrating a series of attacks that killed five civilians, including Father Germanos.
200+ celebrities want Marwan Barghouti freed. But the man they’re calling a “Palestinian Mandela” is a convicted murderer. pic.twitter.com/b9Ak4vJUAy
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 10, 2025
Since 2004, calls for Marwan Barghouti’s release have become a cause célèbre among those willing to overlook terrorism and murder, clinging to the idea that he could somehow emerge as a unifying figure in Palestinian politics or even a partner for peace with Israel.
Support for Barghouti has ebbed and flowed over the past two decades, but the past few months have seen a marked resurgence in articles, commentary, and sympathetic profiles of the Palestinian terror leader. His release was floated in the lead-up to the most recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and more recently, 200 artists and celebrities publicly endorsed freeing him.
This renewed wave of attention has not been limited to English-language media. Coverage of Barghouti has been widespread, appearing in news outlets across the world.
The Greek media has been no exception to the renewed global interest in Marwan Barghouti. Over the past few months, several Greek outlets have published pieces spotlighting the imprisoned Palestinian leader.
Yet one striking omission appears across these articles: none of them mention Father Germanos. The last time a mainstream Greek news outlet referenced his murder in connection with Barghouti was in November 2023.
A review of recent Greek-language coverage shows that these articles devote minimal attention to the actual reasons for Barghouti’s imprisonment. Instead, they focus largely on the arguments being advanced for his release, while entirely overlooking Father Germanos and the other victims whose deaths led to Barghouti’s conviction.
These Barghouti-centered pieces have appeared in numerous major publications, including Business Daily, Kathimerini, ERT News, ProtoThema, Naftemporiki, Skai, and Ethnos.
Instead of highlighting Barghouti’s responsibility for the murder of one of their own countrymen, these Greek news outlets dedicated only a few brief paragraphs to Barghouti’s record of terrorism and violence. Their coverage focused largely on the campaign to free him.
By omitting Father Germanos from recent reporting on Marwan Barghouti, Greek-language media organizations are doing a disservice to their audiences. They present Barghouti’s potential release as an issue confined to the Middle East, rather than one that also carries profound resonance for Greece. What is lost in this coverage is the simple truth that this story is not distant at all, and it is tied directly to the murder of a Greek citizen whose name deserves not to be forgotten.
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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Hamas Rejects Disarmament, Threatens Another October 7 — Media Silence
Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard at a site as Hamas says it continues to search for the bodies of deceased hostages, in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Two years after Hamas’ horrific massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 — and barely two months after the terror group agreed to the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan — Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal delivered an unfiltered message in Arabic: no disarmament, no relinquishing rule of Gaza, no acceptance of any international authority, and a renewed commitment to Israel’s annihilation.
Yet not a single major Western news outlet reported the speech.
Meshaal’s comments were delivered remotely in Arabic at a conference in Istanbul titled, “The Commitment to Jerusalem.” According to experts, his statements were not rhetorical flourishes. They were a clear repudiation of the peace plan Hamas supposedly accepted.
And the silence surrounding them is staggering.
Hamas in Its Own Words
The speech directly contradicted the commitments Hamas has agreed to or said it would consider under the US-brokered ceasefire deal: disarmament, transfer of Gaza governance to an external body, and cessation of hostilities.
Meshaal instead declared: “The time has come for the nation to decide on the liberation of Jerusalem as a symbol of the liberation of Palestine, the cleansing of the Al-Aqsa Mosque … And Gaza, which started ‘Al-Aqsa flood’ in 2023 and turned into the pride of the nation and the conscience of nations, this mighty Gaza deserves more from us.”
On the ceasefire itself, he dismissed it outright: “Yes, two months ago, a ceasefire was announced, but the war is not over.”
He called for “rejecting all forms of guardianship, mandate, and occupation over Gaza, over the West Bank, and over all of Palestine.”
And on rearming, he was very clear: “The resistance project and its weapons must be protected. It is the right of our people to defend themselves. The resistance and its weapons are the honor and strength of the nation.”
According to researcher Idit Bar, who specializes in the Arab and Islamic world, Meshaal’s words amount to a strategic declaration: “Meshaal, one of Hamas’ prominent leaders, says here very clearly, he puts all the cards on the table: No to disarmament, no to relinquishing Hamas’ rule, yes to the annihilation of Israel, yes to the liberation of Jerusalem. He even uses the term ‘cleansing’ al-Aqsa from impure Jews.”
Bar added: “He also calls for the release of prisoners, which he calls captives, from the Israeli prison, which is literally a call to kidnap hostages, because he saw on October 7 that it’s worthwhile. As far as he is concerned, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, there’s space for only one state, an Islamic state, clean of Jews. That’s why he says the war isn’t over.”
What’s Behind the Media Silence
There are only two explanations for the omission: a lack of Arabic-speaking reporters or bias.
But major news organizations do have Arabic-speaking reporters across the Middle East. They could understand Meshaal’s words. They would have known he was speaking — it was all over Arabic social media feeds, and Al-Jazeera covered it. They should have reported it.
Which only leaves the second option as a viable explanation: those “reporters” chose not to publish what they knew. It was easy to hide that choice from editors who do not speak the language. And when newsworthy events or statements go unreported, they effectively cease to exist for the public record.
The bias is all the more striking because the AFP had a reporter covering the conference, yet chose to highlight only the more moderate remarks of Gaza Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, who claimed the group would accept governance by a UN force.
The agency even sought clarification from Hayya, who — knowing his comments would be quoted in English — added that Hamas would disarm only if the “occupation” ended. Meshaal’s far more explicit rejection of disarmament and peace was omitted entirely.
Media outlets have committed a journalistic sin — a manipulation of reality. Meshaal’s speech was a rare glimpse into Hamas’ true intentions: unfiltered, unambiguous, and damning. It contradicted diplomatic assumptions, exposed the fragility of the ceasefire, and signaled preparations for future violence.
But Western audiences, including policymakers, never heard a word about it.
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.