One of the side effects of spending a few decades in the advertising business, as I did, is that certain thoughts percolate in your mind whether you like it or not. They often relate to the whims of winning and losing.
For several years now, this thought has been bothering me: Why is it that the more money and resources we put in our fight against antisemitism, the more antisemitism goes up? If our fight against antisemitism were a business, we’d be in Chapter 11. Instead, we just keep adding new chapters.
I’ve been part of those chapters, and for good reason. If my people are attacked—whether on a college campus or in the media or anywhere else— my first instinct is to fight back. It’s a fight that infuses my life with meaning.
There is, however, a weird downside to that fight. By necessity, we must talk about the disease we’re fighting. This pesters my brain– we’re always talking about the hate against Jews. We talk about it so much, and with such force, we rarely ask ourselves: Are we losing something with all this hate talk?
In advertising, we distinguish between what we say and what we communicate. Is it possible that when we talk about the hate for Jews, we may be communicating the very opposite of what we need to communicate? When we make so much noise calling out the hate, when we do all those things activists are called to do, are we drumming up more hate? Are we unwittingly doing the bidding of the haters?
We need to open our minds to the possibility that the louder we make our fight against Jew-haters, the happier we make them. Nothing brings the haters more joy than the prospect that the more we fight Jew-hatred, the more people will assume there’s something “special” about Jews that is worth hating.
How do you counteract bad news about Jews? With the one thing Jew-haters hate: good news about Jews. Their whole purpose is to keep Jews in the mud of bad news—to frame us as people who must constantly defend themselves, people always fighting a losing battle.
It’s a popular expression these days to “manifest” our aspirations. Whatever we’re looking for—a soulmate, career success, better relationships, etc.— we try to manifest that reality with the right mindset.
Jews have manifested and reinforced a perception that Jews are hated. We’ve now become associated with our relentless and failed effort to end that hate.
Maybe it’s time to manifest something that works for us and would drive Jew-haters nuts, like good news about Jews.
Can we manifest the kind of good news that makes us look like winners? Like, for example, that America does not hate Jews? Or that Jews are doing very well and even thriving as proud Jews, proud Zionists and proud Americans?
Even if there’s plenty of truth to the rise in antisemitism, who says we have to help it along? Why not manifest an aspiration that makes us look strong rather than weak, and do everything possible to live up to that strength? Nothing would crush Jew-haters more than the thought that they’re the weak ones.
This doesn’t mean we abandon traditional methods. When Jew-haters break the law or harass Jews because they’re Jews, or when universities fail to protect its Jewish students, they should suffer the consequences. When we need more security in our institutions, or must correct lies in the media, we do that. Those are no-brainers.
What is not a no-brainer is to include good news in our fight– to associate Jews with winning and our haters with losing.
(For those of you who’ve been reading me through the years, you may be sensing a familiar ring. Indeed, I’ve written many columns on this theme from several different angles. I’m even tempted to gather them in an e-book for greater impact. Stay tuned.)
When the sky seems to be falling on Jews, good news is a hard sell. Bad news feels more urgent, more essential. Jew-haters are hoping we’ll keep it that way and get swallowed up by our fight to end hate. The last thing they need is a winning view of Jews that transcends their hate and thrives on success.
The haters will never turn into losers until we turn into winners. And it’s high time we started winning. I learned that in advertising.
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