In Nazi Germany and in much of Europe from the Middle Ages to the modern era there was legal antisemitism with laws that discriminated against Jews. The most notorious were the 1935 German Nuremberg laws, but in the 1920s and 1930s, Italy, Poland, and Hungary also had laws limiting the rights of Jews. But legal discrimination against Jews was much older. During the European medieval period Jews were frequently denied citizenship rights, could not hold government or military positions, and were excluded from many trades. During the 11th through 14th century anti-Islamic Christian Crusades Jews were also targeted. There were massacres of Jews in France and the Holy Roman Empire in places that are now part of Germany. Jews were expelled from England in 1290, France in 14th century, Germany I 1350s, Spain in 1492, Portugal in 1496, Provence in 1512, and the Papal States 1569. In the 1880s, Tsarist Russia passed a series of May Laws that restricted where Jews could live, and established quotas limited the number of Jews who could practice different professions. The Spanish Inquisition was the harshest of these discriminatory measures leading to torture, murder, and forced conversions of Jews.
Institutional and political antisemitism while not legal, influence society and can lead to antisemitic laws. Institutional antisemitism is by non-governmental agencies that victimize or discriminate against Jews, including the Roman Catholic Church and different Protestant denominations in Europe. There was also less formal antisemitism by banks, in housing, and in group membership.
Political antisemitism has been part of the platform of nativists and anti-immigrant groups in the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries including in the Klan, the Nazi Party, and American Firsters in the United States. The antisemitism of populist groups, including the Populist People’s Party in the 1890s, was less pronounced but often present in the rhetoric and writing of spokespeople like Mary Lease who saw the Rothschilds as a threat to this country in much the same way that contemporary antisemites see the influence of George Soros behind everything they do not like. Political antisemitism is dangerous when it threats to assume state power like in Germany in the 1930s or when its rantings influence disturbed individuals to take lone wolf action like the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
What I call transactional antisemitism is the ordinary, everyday, biases of individuals who don’t like Jews for whatever reason. It influences their speech and relationships. For younger people it may lead to graffiti or vandalism or just idle doodling. While it is disturbing, it is not a threat on the level of political, institutional, and legal antisemitism. It tends to come in waves and then disappears until something sets it off again.
Despite legitimate upset about antisemitic chants at some college protests against Israeli actions in response to the October 7th attack by Hamas, antisemitism today has little impact on the lives of American Jews; it is transactional, on the political fringe, or an angry response to current events. Institutional antisemitism is rare and Jews in the United States are protected from legal antisemitism.
Peter Beinart, an editor at Jewish Currents, a CNN contributor, and journalism professor in the City University of New York, posted a blog “How to Think about Antisemitism in America” where he suggests ways he believes are useful for thinking about antisemitism. This include recognizing that there despite the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, there is no consensus among American Jews about what constitutes antisemitism.
According to Beinart, the rise in Israel-related antisemitism witnessed in the United States is attributable to the war fought by Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He cites academic research that shows “a strong correlation between substantial Israeli military operations that kill a lot of Palestinians and rise in reported antisemitic incidents.” He argues “that if the war were to end, and the Israeli military were to stop killing so many Palestinians, likely the number of reported incidents of antisemitism would go down.”
Beinart believes that to counter this type of antisemitism, American Jews need to make a “distinction between the Israeli government—its actions and its character—and Jews.” Part of the problem is that “many established American Jewish organizations don’t want to make that distinction. They don’t want to distinguish Jewishness or Judaism on the one hand from Israel, and Zionism on the other, because they want to suggest that being a Zionist or supporting Israel is inherent in being Jewish,” something he and I strongly disagree with.
Last weekend thousands of people protested in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem demanding a cease fire that would release hostages held by Hamas and the immediate removal of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel. These Jewish protesters were not antisemitic of anti-Israel.
Beinart also makes the point that too many things are mistakenly attributed to antisemitism. As an example, protests against a pro-Israeli speaker who is Jewish is not automatically antisemitic. The same protests likely would have happened if the speaker did not identify as Jewish. Beinart makes the same point about college protests calling for an immediate cease fire and this would apply to protests branding Israeli as an apartheid state and even protests opposed to the existence of the State of Israel. Even attempts to socially isolate Jewish supporters of Israel would not by definition be antisemitic. Social isolation can be employed against any group you disagree with and does necessarily target Jewish students because they are Jewish.
Even when there are clear incidents of antisemitism, that “does not mean that Jews in America are oppressed.” There is currently no legal discrimination against Jews in this country and it is very unlikely in the foreseeable future. Police have not been targeting Jews and there are no bans on Jewish groups on college campuses.
Beinart dismisses the idea that somehow “we’re at the end of a Jewish golden age in the United States because of rising antisemitism.” If, as some suggest, Jews no longer have the same cultural influence in the United States as they did in the past, it is probably because American Jews have largely assimilated into the mainstream culture and fewer things are recognizably “Jewish.” This has everything do with choices made by Americans who identify as Jewish and nothing to do with antisemitism.
Beinart did not discuss it, but I am concerned that American Jewish organization who equate Jewish identity with blanket support for Israel are the ones currently politicizing antisemitism to promote their political agenda. Eighteen Democratic members of the House of Representatives who identify as progressive began calling for a cease fire in the war between Israel and Hamas when it became apparent that there were heavy civilian casualties in Gaza because of Israeli bombing. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (APAC) recruited and is funding political moderates in an effort to oust these representatives in Democratic primaries, including at least two, Jamaal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio-Ortiz who represent district in the New York metropolitan area. These Democrats have played an important role in the passage of major legislation that is part of the Biden-Democrat reconstruction and climate change agenda. Their positions on Israel are not antisemitic and they belong in Congress.