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Growing Islamophobia is being overlooked — while drawing on an antisemitic framework
Imagine if a pair of House members launched a “Talmud Free America” caucus predicated on the notion that Jewish law is incompatible with American values.
Imagine that more than 50 members quickly signed up to join this caucus, while House leadership either remained silent or joined the caucus themselves.
Imagine that members of the new caucus came out with quotes complaining that “from Pico-Robertson to Lakewood, halacha is sweeping across America — and must be stopped” and insisting that their “constituents in New Jersey are constantly expressing their concern and asking what can be done about the rise of mass Jewish immigration in south Florida.”
Imagine if one of the president’s top advisers was a self-described “proud antisemite” who believed “Judaism was a cancer on the world” and that “it should be illegal in the United States for Jews to hold office.”
And imagine that the president himself moved repeatedly to limit Jewish immigration or travel to the U.S. on national security grounds.
Given that many Jews saw echoes of Nazi Germany in the campus protests against Israel following Oct. 7 — comparisons that flourished against following Zohran Mamdani’s election as New York City mayor — I’m confident that the mainstreaming of this kind of unvarnished antisemitism would send them reeling and dominate the media as a pressing societal crisis.
And yet, this is almost exactly what has happened with the Sharia Free America caucus formed by Republican members of Congress in December, and the Trump administration’s punitive approach to Muslim immigration and foreign nations (his defense secretary has spoken about the Iran war in religious terms), while receiving very little attention.
I mention this in a newsletter about antisemitism because one of the most common refrains I hear from Jews about antisemitism is that if these things were happening to any other group, we — meaning, I guess, Americans — would never tolerate it.
But Americans certainly seem to be tolerating Islamophobia that is far more explicit in its animosity toward Muslims than comparable expressions of hostility against Jews.
Rep. Ilhan Omar said “it’s all about the Benjamins baby” in reference to congressional support for Israel — prompting fierce debate over whether she was invoking antisemitic tropes or making a crude but legitimate comment about the influence of money in politics, and drawing an eventual apology from Omar.
Contrast that with Rep. Randy Fine, a member of the Sharia Free America Caucus, who said recently that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one” — a remark with no apparent point beyond the suggestion that Muslims are subhuman.
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When many Jews complain about the extent to which antisemitism is tolerated, they’re thinking about progressives or liberal institutions like universities. And while some have struggled, especially in the face of post-Oct. 7 protests, this establishment has also responded to antisemitism in robust ways. President Joe Biden unveiled the first-ever national strategy to counter antisemitism in 2023 and upgraded the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, which has existed since 2005, to the level of ambassador while his administration launched dozens of federal investigations into campus antisemitism. Colleges and universities across the country also created task forces to address antisemitism, and have updated their policies at the behest of Jewish organizations.
The national media has been incredibly responsive to Jewish concerns over antisemitism in the aftermath of Oct. 7; it’s difficult to imagine a Muslim pundit who made her name campaigning against Islamophobia being installed atop a major American TV network the way Bari Weiss was at CBS News.
And of course this is all on top of establishment antisemitism watchdogs such as the Anti-Defamation League, which despite recent controversies remain influential with liberal business and political leaders.
Now contrast that with the conservative ecosystem. While many Jews may hold it to a lower standard, because minority rights have not historically been a right-wing priority, the people promoting this resurgent Islamophobia are either Jewish themselves, like Fine and Trump advisor Laura Loomer, or those have positioned themselves as close friends of the Jews.
For instance, Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who co-founded the Sharia Free America Caucus, has railed against campus antisemitism and said his new group is intended to “defend our Judeo-Christian values.”
Now, depending on how one looks at the issue, there are reasons for Muslims to feel more existentially secure than Jews. While they’re a tiny sliver of the American population, there are around two billion Muslims in the world and many Muslim-majority countries.
And claims of “Islamophobia” are sometimes used to dismiss legitimate concerns over domestic terrorism, opposition to countries with especially repressive policies toward women and minorities like Iran, or questions about Mamdani’s foreign policy positions.
There is also legitimate scholarly, political and religious debate over Sharia and Islamic law, including among Muslims with diverse views and practices, summarized well in this backgrounder from the Council on Foreign Relations.
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But perhaps the most striking aspect of the mounting rhetoric toward Muslims that I’m referring to is how closely it mirrors the mechanics of antisemitism. Antisemitism often functions differently than other forms of racism; it is less about describing Jews as inferior and oppressing them than it is about claiming that they hold outsized — and fictional — influence over world affairs, and that they use this power to hurt non-Jews and help themselves.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican and Sharia Free caucus member, also described Islam as not a religion but a “death cult” whose legal system “teaches that it is righteous to kill all infidels, especially Christians.” That tracks closely to how antisemitic influencers like Candace Owens talk about Judaism as “the synagogue of Satan” and claim that the Talmud teaches that non-Jews are “animals, that they have a right to own us, make us worship them, lie to us, sue us, take everything we have.”
And we all know about the tendency to scapegoat a tiny number of Jews for society’s larger problems, which has echoes in dozens of members of Congress joining a caucus focused on the supposed menace posed by Muslims, who make up around 1% of the U.S. population.
That’s a reason for Jews to worry about Islamophobia. It’s hard to imagine a very durable barrier between people who believe that a small group of Muslims are using their faith to take over the country and subvert Western civilization and those who would believe the same canards about Jews.
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In Congress, a measure to tighten U.S.-Israel military ties sparks backlash on both sides of the aisle
Next year’s National Defense Authorization Act has made its way to the House floor, and has some Democrats and conservatives alike rallying against a provision that critics in Congress say would embroil the U.S. in unprecedented levels of military integration with Israel.
The measure, Section 224 of the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, was advanced by Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., as part of the committee’s annual defense bill. If enacted, it would establish a framework for expanded U.S.-Israel defense cooperation. An official designated by the Pentagon would be responsible for coordinating collaboration with Israel on technologies ranging from missile defense and drones to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and biotechnology. The provision also encourages joint research projects, shared manufacturing arrangements, military training exercises, and closer cooperation between American and Israeli defense companies.
While the proposal has generated controversy in its own right, it is also fueling a broader conversation about what the U.S.-Israel defense relationship should look like after 2028, when the current 10-year memorandum of understanding governing American military assistance to Israel expires.
The United States has provided military assistance to Israel since 1960, but since 1998, the bulk of that aid has been directed by a series of such memoranda negotiated between the two countries. Congress must still approve the funds annually, but lawmakers have historically funded the agreements as negotiated.
But in recent months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that he does not wish to renew the 2016 MOU to its full extent, stating that he hopes to “taper off” U.S. aid over the next decade and wishes to focus instead on a more collaborative defense relationship.
His comments come as public support for Israel has declined in the United States and military aid has come under increasing political scrutiny, with many Democrats and some Republicans calling to reduce or cut off assistance. An April Pew Research Center survey found that 60% of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% a year earlier. Negative views have risen among both Democrats and Republicans, particularly among younger generations. Today, 57% of Republicans and 84% of Democrats ages 18 to 49 have an unfavorable view according to the Pew survey.
Rachel Brandenburg, managing director and senior policy analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, said Israeli leaders are likely aware that future aid packages could face greater scrutiny from both Democrats and an increasingly isolationist wing of the Republican Party, a factor that helps explain the Israeli interest in reducing its reliance on U.S. aid. At the same time, she said, Israel’s increasingly sophisticated defense industry and strong economy have made it less reliant on American financing than in the past.
Against that backdrop, supporters of Section 224 argue that deeper cooperation could help lay the groundwork for a future relationship based on mutual benefits.
“The United States has more to gain by harnessing Israel’s defense tech ecosystem, their innovative capabilities,” Brandenburg said. “Their economy is strong, so there’s quite a bit that they could be buying with their own dollars.”
Michael O’Hanlon, the Chair in Defense and Strategy and director of research in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, told the Forward he believes the concerns that Section 224 would integrate the U.S.-Israel defense relationship to unprecedented levels are overblown. “My overall sense is that this would move the US-Israel relationship in the direction of AUKUS,” he said, referring to an existing trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“In theory, it shouldn’t really be needed because collaboration is already close,” he explained. “In practice, this kind of provision might help cut through bureaucratic red tape and speed up collaborations. But on balance, I don’t expect huge change because the partnership is already very tight.”
Critics, however, see the proposal very differently.
Its opponents worry that if the U.S. and Israel move away from a military-aid relationship and toward a more collaborative partnership, large parts of the U.S.-Israel defense relationship will be harder to scrutinize or limit. Instead of debating aid packages, lawmakers could find themselves dealing with defense projects that are already built into Pentagon programs and contracts.
“It’s taking one program that’s become unpopular and turning it into another program that those who would disapprove of an intensified U.S.-Israeli defense relationship won’t really know about,” said Steven Simon, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.
If combined with Israel’s stated desire to reduce its reliance on aid and other efforts to deepen defense cooperation, Simon says Section 224 could produce a relationship that is “much more integrated, immutable, and immune to political pressures than has ever existed.”
Similar concerns have been raised by lawmakers on the left.
Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Monday that he intends to “strongly oppose” the provision, arguing that “Netanyahu is lobbying for Section 224 in the national defense bill, a provision that quietly expands U.S.-Israel military cooperation and weapons development with almost zero oversight.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, also opposes the provision and introduced an amendment to strike Section 224 during committee markup, stating, “The American people are tired of the arrogance and insolence of Prime Minister Netanyahu telling America what we should do.”
On the right, political figures and commentators have framed the measure as a threat to American sovereignty.
Former representative Marjorie Taylor Greene tied the provision to the recent reports of Israeli espionage against the U.S., stating on X, “The Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on the U.S. to the highest level and AIPAC is openly cheering Republicans for section 224 in the NDAA that merges our military with Israel’s military.” Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie — who this week held a hearing premised on the conspiracy theory that Israel intentionally killed U.S. soldiers on the USS Liberty during the Six Day War — pledged to offer a floor amendment to strike the section.
The debate has also been picked up by far-right commentators, including podcaster Alex Jones, who stated: “This is beyond treason. This is absolutely a foreign government merging with us. Israel is now the main threat to the existence of this country.”
Brandenburg pushed back on concerns that the proposal would weaken oversight. Rather than moving cooperation further from public view, the legislation calls for additional reporting to Congress and public disclosure of some forms of existing coordination between the two countries, Brandenburg noted.
“That’s new,” she said, “in the sense of adding the accountability and transparency to these elements of the relationship in ways that didn’t exist previously.”
She also asserts many critics have overstated the significance of Section 224, noting that many of the forms of cooperation described in the legislation — including collaboration on missile defense, cyber security and counter-drone technology — are already taking place.
“Those who want to counter the idea that Israel and the United States should be working together have exaggerated what this legislation is actually saying,” she said. “They are accusing it of things like integrating the U.S. and Israeli militaries, or subjugating the U.S. military to the Israeli military. None of that is actually called for in here.”
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Israel names a street after renowned Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever
The Israeli city of Netanya has renamed one of its streets Rechov Avrom Sutzkever (Abraham Sutzkever Street), after the renowned Yiddish poet and Vilna partisan.
The event on June 10 marked an important cultural moment, recognizing the legacy of a poet who devoted his life to Yiddish language and Jewish culture. During his lifetime, Sutzkever was celebrated not only for his poetry, but also for editing the storied Yiddish literary magazine Di goldene keyt (The Golden Chain) for 46 years. His work remains a fixture in the field of Yiddish literature today.
Sutzkever was born in 1913 in the shtetl of Smorgon, in what is now Belarus. During World War I, his family moved to Siberia, where his father, Hertz Sutzkever, died. In 1921, his mother Rayne moved the family to Vilnius, where Sutzkever attended cheder.
Sutzkever survived the Vilna Ghetto. He was a leader of the “Paper Brigade” that rescued Jewish cultural treasures from the Nazis and later became the only Jewish witness called by the Soviets to testify at the Nuremberg Trials.
His poetry chronicled his childhood in Siberia, his life in the Vilna ghetto and his escape to join the Jewish partisans. In 1947 he settled in Palestine, later Israel.
In Israel, he continued to create, publish and preserve Yiddish culture for decades. Yet, despite his immense influence around the world, he remained less known in Israel because he chose to write and fight for the Yiddish language rather than switch to Hebrew.
This is the first time a street in Israel has been named after him. Even Tel Aviv never did so, despite the fact that Sutzkever lived there for many years and the city was once a hotbed of Yiddish cultural activity, due to the influx of Yiddish-speaking immigrants who settled there after the Holocaust.
The street-naming ceremony was attended by the Mayor of Netanya, Avi Slama; representatives of the Lithuanian Embassy; public figures, artists, and members of the family, including Sutzkever’s granddaughter, Hadas Kalderon.
In the past decade, Kalderon has been instrumental in keeping Abraham Sutzkever’s memory alive, most notably through two documentary films: Ver Vet Blaybn? (Who Will Remain?) in 2021, and Black Honey: The Life and Poetry of Avraham Sutzkever in 2018.
Kalderon told me that she was very moved by Netanya’s decision to name the street after her grandfather, in a garden overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. “It was not only a tribute to Sutzkever himself, but also a powerful moment of recognition for Yiddish language and culture within the State of Israel,” she said.
The post Israel names a street after renowned Yiddish poet Abraham Sutzkever appeared first on The Forward.
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At the dawn of the World Cup, the story of the Jews who helped bring soccer to America
When the North American FIFA World Cup starts in Mexico City on June 11, the story will largely be told through the familiar lenses of Lionel Messi, the geography of the 48 participants and three hosts, and — because 75% of the games will be played there — the continuing rise of soccer in the United States. But there is another, less familiar story woven through the tournament: the long, strange and often overlooked history of Jews in North American soccer.
Mostly that’s been in the United States where players and owners have included a larger proportion of Jews than in Canada and Mexico. By my count, no Jewish players have represented Mexico, and only two Jewish men have represented Canada at senior international level and one of them, Tomer Chencinski, only did so once, in a friendly game where Canada lost 2-0 to Belarus in Doha. (Daniel Haber played 5 international games in his career).
For whatever reason, whether more closely linked to Europe, denied entry to other sports, or just arbiters of excellent taste, Jewish Americans have been at the forefront of soccer in the United States for over a century. The first American to play for a major European team was Eddy Hamel for Ajax Amsterdam in 1922. Hamel was a New York-born winger who became a star for Ajax in Amsterdam during the 1920s. An injury forced his retirement in the 1930s and, after the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, he was deported and murdered at Auschwitz in 1943. His story remains one of the most tragic intersections of Jewish history and world football.
Jews also comprised the largest soccer crowd in America when 46,000 New Yorkers watched Hakoach Vienna play New York All Stars in 1926. That record stood for over 50 years but it also encouraged a number of members of the Hakoach team to emigrate to the US and start a New York team that was a crucial part of the American Soccer League of the era.
Later, in the 1970s, the National American Soccer League — the glitzy NASL — became a success thanks to the glamorous New York Cosmos. As head of Warner Communications, their CEO Steve Ross, born Rechnitz, was the person who brought Pele over and made the league the star-studded affair it became. After Herman Sarkowsky co-founded the Seattle Sounders, the continent was almost ready for football.
When the NASL faded and folded, soccer dwindled as a major sport in the United States. Alan Rothenberg saw an opportunity to revive the sport by hosting the 1994 World Cup and founding the MLS as a reset. As president of the U.S. Soccer Federation and the chief executive of the World Cup USA 1994 organizing committee, he made both of those happen and laid the foundations for the current shape of U.S. soccer.
The success of the MLS was not a foregone conclusion, though; indeed, it barely survived to the millennium. It was founded in 1993 but only started playing in 1996 — losing an estimated $350 million between its founding and 2004. The league initially turned to Don Garber, a former NFL executive, in August 1999 but even he couldn’t turn it around. By late 2001, it looked like the league would fold like its predecessors but it was able to secure new financing from owners Lamar Hunt, Philip Anschutz, and the Kraft family to take on more teams. Over the past 20 years, it has become robust, enjoying the general boom of all things soccer, riding the coattails of the English Premier League.
Without Robert Kraft and Anschutz, Major League Soccer might not exist today. During the league’s precarious early years, the two billionaire owners absorbed enormous losses to keep the fledgling competition alive. Kraft, the owner of the NFL’s New England Patriots, was also a central figure in bringing the 2026 World Cup to North America. As chairman of the United Bid Committee, he played a crucial role in securing the tournament for the United States, Canada and Mexico.
If Kraft represents one side of the Jewish soccer story, Chuck Blazer represents another.
The larger-than-life American soccer executive helped expose corruption inside FIFA, serving as a key witness in the investigations that ultimately toppled some of the most powerful figures in world football. Yet Blazer was a product of the very system he later helped unravel. His spectacular rise and fall remains one of the strangest chapters in soccer history, a tale of luxury apartments, exotic pets and global corruption.
Unlike baseball, basketball or boxing, soccer never became known as a major arena of Jewish achievement in the United States. Perhaps that has been due to the historic lack of status for soccer in the country. Despite the excellence of Yael Averbuch West for the USWNT and a number of Jewish players for the USMNT including Jonathan Bornstein, Benny Feilhaber, Dan Calichman, DeAndre Yedlin, Kyle Beckerman and the maverick Yari Alnutt there have been no soccer equivalents of Sandy Koufax or Hank Greenberg.
The stalwart defender Jeff “Goose” Agoos came closest with 134 international appearances and six more for the U.S. soccer Olympic team. But playing with a mediocre USMNT, he enjoyed few legendary moments. In fact, arguably no professional moments outshone the bizarre story of his 1989 NCAA championship ring in his junior year, the season that he played in the Maccabiah. On Dec. 3 of that year, his Virginia Cavalier team (playing for future USMNT coach Bruce Arena) met the top ranked, undefeated Santa Clara team in a freezing cold stadium in Piscataway, N.J. The teams were still tied 1-1 after FOUR overtimes and, with no penalties on the books, they shared the spoils. It was the third time that two teams shared the championship and has never happened again.
This year’s USMNT squad does include the only Jewish player at this summer’s tournament — reserve goalkeeper Matt Turner. If, as coach Mauricio Pochettino plans, Turner exclusively warms the bench, he will take his place alongside many of America’s notable Jewish soccer figures who have furthered the game, even if not on the field.
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