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We’re losing the fight against antisemitism. Here’s how to turn the tide
Why are we failing to effectively fight antisemitism?
When New York Times columnist Bret Stephens sparked a furor by making the case, earlier this month, that it’s time for the Jewish community to stop prioritizing that fight — because we’ve invested so much in trying to educate people about antisemitism, yet there is still antisemitism — he got the fundamental issue wrong.
The question is not whether we should try to fight antisemitism. It’s how. What if we took Stephens’s premise — that these efforts aren’t working — and imagined what could?
Since Stephens’ speech, our communal reaction has been too focused on the smaller-scale issues he raised. Was his critique of the ADL reasonable? Was he right that Jews are hated because of our “virtues and successes,” and that antisemitism is too powerful for appeals to tolerance and education to work? By focusing on such questions, we risk missing the bigger picture. Antisemitism will never be fully eradicated. Still, if, as one study suggests, some 45% of Republicans under the age of 44 feel that Jews are a threat to the American way of life, the answer can’t be to shrug.
But the fact that we have yet to make meaningful 21st-century strides in reducing antisemitism — and that, per most polls and studies, we’re going in the opposite direction — means that we need to rethink how to combat it in 21st-century terms. Here are three ideas for how to begin.
Invest in media literacy
Given that we know that antisemitism and conspiracy theories work together to sow distrust and paranoia and induce nihilism, perhaps Jewish leaders should spend more time pushing for greater investment in media literacy — not only about antisemitism, but in general.
A 2022 Stanford study found that “high school students who received only six 50-minute lessons in digital literacy were twice as likely to spot questionable websites as they were before the instruction took place.” At first glance, media literacy isn’t “about” or “for” Jews. But a 2025 study from Chapman University found that young people, like the rest of us, are being pushed by social media into echo chambers. Increasingly, and relatedly, they believe all information is suspect, or at least equally agenda-driven — a reality that makes pushing back on conspiracy theories more difficult, particularly when research has also found that teenagers are likely to believe content if they see it over and over again.
A country in which more people are taught how to be on guard against conspiracy and untruths is one in which people are more prepared to identify and critically react to the antisemitism being sprinkled into their media diet.
Rethink how we teach about the Holocaust
In his address, Stephens also essentially said that Holocaust education hasn’t worked. After all, we tried it, and yet, per the Claims Conference, “nearly 20% of Millennials and Gen Z in New York feel the Jews caused the Holocaust.”
But is it that teaching about the Holocaust doesn’t work — or that we need to teach it differently?
Some studies suggest that learning about the Holocaust increases tolerance toward minorities and people with different viewpoints. They also suggest, however, that mandating Holocaust education as an isolated item — rather than as part of a broader education in history and bigotry — doesn’t do much to help improve students’ knowledge.
The lesson here is that how we are teaching and learning about the Holocaust matters. Some, like scholars Jennifer Rich and William L. Smith, have suggested moving from a “learn from” approach to a “learn about” approach. Rather than use the Holocaust to teach students why they shouldn’t be antisemitic, the thinking goes, we should use it to teach them about the societal conditions that allowed the Holocaust to happen, and what actually transpired during it.
In other words, if we are too focused on Holocaust as an overarching moral lesson, we may fail to teach its concrete takeaways — about how hatred builds in a society, and the devastation that can follow — effectively.
Map the full network of hate
Finally, maybe we can’t fight antisemitism if we think about it in isolation. Our identity — and the suffering that can accompany it — does not exist in a silo.
There are good reasons to think that it’s more effective to fight antisemitism in tandem with other hatreds. In a 2016 study, researchers Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson looked at what they called “stigma-based solidarity.” What they found is that certain social conditions can push stigmatized group members to turn against other stigmatized groups, while other conditions can encourage them to turn toward one another. Consider how some Jewish and Muslim students became suspicious of one another during the Gaza war — and also how, as the Forward recently reported, some have found deeper connections since.
“One way to bridge the category divide,” Craig and Richeson wrote, “is by making an explicit connection between the in-group and another stigmatized group.…Common experiences or challenges are also associated with more coalitional attitudes among stigmatized groups.”
That means that pointing out the ways in which, say antisemitism and racism can play off each other can build solidarity between the targets of those hatreds. It is true that antisemitism is in some ways exceptional: it often functions in ways that look different from other forms of bigotry. But stressing its exceptionality may be working directly against the solidarity other minority groups feel for us.
In addition to hopefully building solidarity, explicitly drawing the link between antisemitism and other hatreds — and between Jews and other members of society — would be more honest and accurate. Antisemitism doesn’t only have negative consequences for Jews. We are seeing across the country, for instance, how the great replacement theory villainizes Jews and immigrants alike. When we embolden those who push conspiracy theories and nihilism, they hurt Jews, but they do not hurt Jews alone.
The pain of many persecuted groups in this country are bound up together. Maybe our way forward is, too.
The post We’re losing the fight against antisemitism. Here’s how to turn the tide appeared first on The Forward.
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This Toronto street corner has been a site of anti-Zionist activism for months. Police just opened a hate crime investigation.
The Toronto Police Service hate crimes unit is investigating teacher Abbas Hamze for remarks about “Zionists.” Canadian Jewish groups, including the Jewish Federations of Canada’s advocacy arm and B’nai Brith Canada, have called his speech, which went viral online, “blatant antisemitism.”
Hamze’s remarks invoked antisemitic tropes, accusing “Zionists” of performing “black magic” as well as raping and killing children. He spoke at the intersection of Bathurst and Sheppard, in the heavily Jewish Toronto neighborhood of Bathurst Manor – Clanton Park.
According to his LinkedIn, Hamze works as an instructor at several Canadian colleges in the area, including the University of Niagara Falls and Georgian College. He does not specify what he teaches.
Hamze could not be reached for comment. The University of Niagara Falls and Georgian College did not respond to requests to comment, and the Toronto Police declined a request for comment.
UNF issued a statement addressing Hamze’s remarks, distancing the university from the instructor’s statements and stating that they have “zero tolerance for discrimination, hate, harassment, or any conduct that threatens the dignity and well-being of others.” They announced that they are “launching an internal investigation” into the matter.
In his speech, Hamze claimed that “British colonizers have planted this cancerous, false Zionist state of Israel … right in the heart of Islam.”
Later — wearing a keffiyeh and reading from his phone into a megaphone emblazoned with the Lebanese flag — the instructor repeated numerous antisemitic conspiracy theories, including the debunked idea that Jews have caused or deserved centuries of persecution.
“The Zionists have never had a country of their own because of their mischief,” Hamze said. “They are the most kicked-out people in the world who are making black magic and horrible things.”
He went on to say that Jewish corruption is “crystal clear in Epstein Island where they have the Jewish leaders from all around the world.” He accused “Zionists” of having “raped, and killed, and ate children at the same time.”
Finally, he unfoundedly blamed the actions of President Donald Trump on “Zionists” who “blackmail” and “control” people.
“That’s why you can see now a guy like Trump who caused this genocide in Gaza kidnaps the presidents of Venezuala, kills the supreme leader of Iran Imam Ali Khamenei, may God sanctify his soul,” he said. “This is because of them, the terrorist Zionists.”
It appears that people became aware of Hamze’s remarks after Casey Babb, an Israel and International Relations scholar, posted a video of him on X.
In a joint statement, Canadian Jewish groups described Hamze’s claims as “antisemitic blood libels that have been used for centuries to justify hatred and violence against Jews.”
The statement says that the intersection where Hamze spoke, Bathurst and Sheppard, has long been a site of “antisemitic harassment, intimidation and provocation, too often under the guise of anti-Zionism,” and called on Toronto’s police department to investigate the incident.
“Allowing this behaviour to go unchecked is to normalize antisemitism as an everyday feature of life in this city,” it stated.
The city’s police have opened an investigation. However, online, some said that Hamze had been speaking at the street corner for months without police intervention.
In Canada, public incitement of hatred is considered a criminal offense. The Canadian criminal code says that “communicating statements in any public place” that “incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace” is a breach of law, resulting in up to two years in prison.
The post This Toronto street corner has been a site of anti-Zionist activism for months. Police just opened a hate crime investigation. appeared first on The Forward.
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West Elm’s Russ & Daughters merch did something their in-house line could never
Figuring out one’s Judaica vibe can be a challenging endeavor for those of us who don’t have tastes in line with the colorful stained glass or embossed silver aesthetics that tend to dominate the category. Newer designers have introduced some minimalist options, but that’s also not really for me.
But for those of us with a tendency toward the whimsical or kitsch, furniture retailer West Elm is coming to the rescue with two new collections, geared toward the High Holidays and Hanukkah.
There’s a Russ & Daughters collaboration of blue-and-white ceramics, featuring serving platters with handpainted designs such as a fish or latkes, trinket trays with pickles and more fish, simple Delft-colored dinnerware and napkins with little cutlery printed in the corners.
And, separately, in an apparent attempt to capitalize on the Jewish market, West Elm also released a set of their own plates, bowls and tea towels printed with colorful “deli favorites” — pickles, brisket, hamentaschen, black-and-white cookies, and the like.
The concepts are pretty similar; both lean into the idea of decorating plates with food objects that may or may not be the food you actually put on them.
I do admittedly already have a large blue-and-white platter with a fish painted on it that I find charmingly eclectic, and just as suitable for serving foods that are not of the oceanic persuasion as it is for foods that are indeed from the briny deep. So I’m not inherently opposed to the concept. But I don’t feel as good about the in-house West Elm Jewish designs, like a bowl with a sort of mushy depiction of matzo balls at the bottom. Imagine eating anything else out of that. Honestly, imagine eating matzo ball soup out of it. It seems disorienting.
Everyone’s tastes vary, and if you want to eat a salad off of a plate with a colorful brisket sandwich painted on it, be my guest. But I think the Russ & Daughters offering is the better of the options. For the most part, the collection stays on the artful side of kitsch largely thanks to the simplicity of the designs and the color scheme. And, more importantly, the internal logic seems actually Jewish. The pieces are useful — perhaps with the exception of the latke platter — for multiple Jewish occasions. The matchbox with a challah on it may feel a bit random at first glance but it does conjure an image of lighting candles on Shabbat, and there are matching candle holders. The art kind of evokes Marc Chagall.
The West Elm deli hits sets on the other hand — which are separate from their collab with the iconic Lower East Side deli — feel as though they’re screaming their Jewishness. The tea towel mixes together hamentaschen and sufganiyot (or possibly a bagel, it’s hard to tell) on the same piece of cloth, despite the fact that these desserts correspond to different holidays. The drawings are cute, but the overall effect is frantic, like someone dumped every Jewish food they could name onto the same page and sent it off to the printers. It’s giving Target Rosh Hashanah decorations — the sort that have a menorah alongside the apples and honey.
A few years ago, Crate and Barrel had Jewish lifestyle influencer Rebecca Lowin curate a Hanukkah display, but it was done using items the store already carried in white, blue and silver; only the menorah was specifically Jewish. Now, a similar home decor store is creating entire lines catering specifically to Jewish holidays and culture. That’s a sign of an increased mainstream embrace of Jewish culture, and that’s a good thing — it wasn’t so long ago that it wasn’t possible to find much public recognition of the existence of the High Holidays, and every attempt featured a hanukkiah with the wrong number of branches or a loaf of challah for Passover. Today, if Jews want twee merchandise — and no judgment — there’s plenty. There are even Hanukkah gnomes, if your taste runs to that.
But there’s still a dearth of decor that feels elegant and thoughtful, instead of try-hard. Decor that feels actually rooted in Jewishness, instead of like a Jewish gloss on something that’s really for another holiday. The Russ and Daughters collaboration is rooted in actual Jewish history. Even if you don’t like a fish motif as much as me, that’s a step in the right direction.
The post West Elm’s Russ & Daughters merch did something their in-house line could never appeared first on The Forward.
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Sephardic and Mizrahi groups accuse New York Magazine of erasing Middle Eastern Jews. The editor-in-chief agreed to a meeting.
As editors of New York Magazine dug in their heels this week, defending the magazine’s viral “Habibi City” package published earlier this month, 14 Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish organizations delivered an open letter on Monday night, accusing the magazine of erasing Middle Eastern Jews from its coverage.
On Tuesday, Editor-in-chief David Haskell invited them to meet in September, saying he wants the magazine’s coverage to reflect the multitude of perspectives in the region.
In addition to asking for a meeting, co-signers of the letter, convened by JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa), asked the magazine to acknowledge what they call the package’s exclusionary framing and provide more representative coverage of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews going forward.
The dispute centers on the magazine’s August issue about the city’s burgeoning Southwest Asian and North African cultural scene known as SWANA. The package explores restaurants, cafes, cultural collectives and dance parties, tracing much of their growth to the war in Gaza that followed theHamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Out of that resistance,” the magazine writes, “a cultural ecosystem started to bloom.”
This week, the magazine published a statement standing by its use of the term genocide to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza, adding that “accusations of antisemitic intent were in fact obfuscating an overwhelming scholarly consensus, and that its use would be allowed in our pages.”
The open letter did not address the use of that term. Instead, it addressed the article’s framing.
The package describes membership in SWANA community in political terms.
“To be in SWANA community,” one article says, means “embracing a set of shared beliefs: that Palestinians deserve human rights. That what happened in Gaza in the aftermath of October 7 constitutes a genocide. That social justice and social welfare override capitalist concerns.”
The same article describes the place of Israelis within SWANA culture as “complicated,” in part because of the term’s “political framework.”
It also says SWANA New Yorkers “face xenophobia, Islamophobia and Zionism” in the city — language that drew particular ire from the coalition and online critics.
According to the letter, New York Magazine’s framing turns SWANA from a geographic and cultural identity into an ideological one, excluding many of New York’s Jews from the Middle East and North Africa unless they reject Israel — the country where many of their families found refuge after fleeing persecution and discrimination elsewhere in the region.
“A Mizrahi Jew whose grandparents were born in the region, expelled from their country of origin, and who carries the region in her language, liturgy, and kitchen belongs only upon disavowal of the movement through which her family survived,” the letter reads.
As the letter puts it, for a great majority of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews to be represented “as we actually are” means representing them as Zionists.
The letter also faults the package for invoking Oct. 7 repeatedly without acknowledging the atrocities committed that day and erasing the region’s non-Muslim populations.
“When we read ‘Habibi City,’ we immediately saw that this wasn’t something one organization should answer alone,” Sarah Levin, JIMENA’s executive director told the Forward. “The feature made claims about who belongs in contemporary Middle Eastern and North African and ‘SWANA’ communities in NYC, so the response needed to come from the breadth of the communities being written out.”
After she read the package, she began contacting other Sephardic and Mizrahi organizations about writing an open letter. Within four days, all 14 organizations had signed on.
“Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, North African and Sephardic communal organizations almost never act in concert, and they’ve united around one argument,” Levin said.
Signatories include the American Sephardi Federation, the Iranian American Jewish Federation of New York and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
Levin said the groups had little difficulty reaching consensus. “When the argument is, ‘We exist, and we will not be defined out of our own region,’ there isn’t much for our communities to debate.”
What concerned Levin most, she said, was the size of New York Magazine‘s audience and cultural reach. The Pulitzer Prize-winning bi-weekly magazine boasts reaching 1.8 million readers each week.
“When a magazine that shapes American culture tells millions of readers that belonging to the Middle East requires renouncing Zionism, that is not a small thing,” Levin said. “That is why we responded the way we did.”
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