Why I Don’t Care About Antisemitism

I don’t care about antisemitism.

That does not mean I don’t care about Jews. I am shomer Shabbat, attend a community minyan daily, have three Jewish grandsons (so far …), and a brother whom I helped bring to traditional Jewish practice who lives in Jerusalem and learns in kollel.

I care a lot about Jews.

What I am tired of is Jewish political and communal organizations making the fight against antisemitism such a focal point of American Jewish life.

We have organizations fighting antisemitism, conferences about antisemitism, committees studying antisemitism, webinars teaching us about antisemitism and politicians condemning antisemitism. Then, after something actually happens, the police increase patrols in Jewish neighborhoods, statements are issued, everybody promises that hate has no home here, and we wait for the next incident.

And yet antisemitism seems to be doing just fine.

Maybe we are fighting the wrong battle.

I don’t expect antisemites to be polite to me. I don’t particularly care whether they like me. And I certainly don’t think the Jewish community should measure its success by whether a university administrator, politician or activist issues the appropriate statement after Jews are treated badly.

My concern is whether Jews are safe, whether Jewish institutions are strong, whether our children and grandchildren remain Jewish and whether we are spending our limited resources intelligently.

Those are different objectives.

UCLA Is a Good Example

Jewish organizations understandably celebrated the settlement of Frankel v. Regents of the University of California in July 2025. The settlement totaled more than $6 million. The individual plaintiffs received $50,000 each, while millions went toward attorneys’ fees, charitable contributions benefiting organizations supporting UCLA’s Jewish community and UCLA’s own Initiative to Combat Antisemitism.

I don’t begrudge the lawyers their fees, and I hope every dollar going to Jewish organizations accomplishes something useful. But when I looked at those numbers, my reaction was different from much of what I was reading in the Jewish community.

Why are we spending this much money and energy trying to convince UCLA to be a place Jewish students should want to attend?

Maybe they shouldn’t.

UCLA has had controversies involving Israel, Jewish students, speakers and campus politics for decades. The recent problems did not suddenly materialize after Oct. 7, 2023. At some point, Jewish parents need to stop asking what UCLA is going to do about antisemitism and ask a much simpler question: Would I send my kid there?

If the answer is no, don’t.

There are plenty of excellent universities in America.

Jews constitute only a small percentage of the American population. We have been remarkably successful in this country, but we are still a tiny minority. That means we need to pick our fights. We don’t have the resources to fight everybody everywhere about everything, and I’m not convinced that getting UCLA to spend money making itself temporarily more hospitable to Jewish students constitutes a major Jewish victory.

Sometimes the smarter strategy is refusing to play on somebody else’s battlefield.

If a university needs to be sued before it protects the rights of Jewish students, perhaps the answer isn’t another Jewish task force working with that university. Perhaps the answer is fewer Jewish students applying there, fewer Jewish parents paying tuition and fewer Jewish alumni writing checks.

That would get my attention if I were running a university.

Somewhere along the way, however, American Jewish organizations became extraordinarily invested in being accepted by institutions that don’t always seem particularly invested in accepting us. I don’t understand that strategy.

I don’t need UCLA to like Jews. I don’t need every professor to support Israel. I don’t need every student organization to approve of Zionism. I don’t even need people to refrain from saying stupid or offensive things about Jews.

It’s a free country. People are allowed to dislike us.

What I do care about is what happens when that hostility turns into discrimination, intimidation or violence. And when an institution repeatedly demonstrates that it won’t protect Jews unless forced to do so, I think Jews should be much more willing to take our children, our money and our support somewhere else.

That isn’t surrender. It’s common sense.

I would rather spend $1 million building something Jewish than spend $1 million convincing people who dislike Jews to dislike us a little less.

Antisemitism Is Not Judaism

There is another reason I am bothered by the Jewish obsession with antisemitism: It allows our enemies to occupy far too much space in our Jewish lives.

Judaism isn’t about antisemitism.

My Jewish life isn’t organized around people who hate me. It is organized around Shabbat, Torah, minyan, family, community, Israel and our relationship with our Creator.

When I sit at the Shabbat table with my grandchildren, I don’t want their Judaism to be about Hitler, Hamas, campus protesters or whichever politician said something offensive this week. I want them to know why being Jewish is worth the trouble.

I think that is a much more important Jewish project.

So, yes, I don’t care about antisemitism — at least not in the way our communal institutions seem to want me to.

Obviously I care when Jews are attacked. I care when Jewish students are threatened. I care when synagogues require armed guards and Jewish children need security outside their schools.

But antisemitism is not going away. History should have cured us of the fantasy that one more educational program, conference, task force or carefully worded statement is finally going to fix it.

I would rather see Jewish organizations spend more of their energy asking different questions. How do we get more Jews into synagogues? How do we make Jewish education affordable? How do we strengthen our connection to Israel? How do we build communities that young Jewish families actually want to join?

And, most important to me: How do we make sure our grandchildren remain Jewish?

Those questions interest me.

Whether somebody at UCLA likes me doesn’t.

We don’t need everybody to love us. We need to build a Jewish community strong enough to survive the people who don’t. 

Bill Gross is a Los Angeles businessman, husband, father and grandfather of, objectively speaking, the three cutest boys in the world.