On Fighting Antisemitism and the American Dream

Excerpts from a Feb. 10 address at George Washington University.

The story is told of a man who gets a call from his doctor. “I’ve got bad news and very bad news,” says the doctor. “What’s the bad news?” asks the man. The doctor replies: “You have 24 hours to live.” “That’s the bad news!” says the man, “what’s the very bad news?” The doctor responds: “I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday.”

When we talk about the resurgence of antisemitism these days, we understandably dwell on bad news and very bad news. Today, I want to offer a pragmatic but very different message. History teaches us that antisemitism cannot be eradicated but it can be confronted, exposed as dangerous and corrosive to society and it can be marginalized.

The 20th-century American Jewish poet Delmore Schwartz famously wrote: “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.”

We should dream of an America that is patriotic and proud, tolerant and strong, productive and safe, decent and kind, centered on the Judeo-Christian virtues on which our country was founded.

We should dream of an America in which our Jewish citizens – unlike today – can drop our kids off at Jewish schools without having armed guards there to protect us from would-be killers or protesters masked in keffiyehs, shouting obscenities and threatening violence.

We should dream of an America that reflects George Washington’s pledge to the Jewish community of his day: “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens.”

If we still dream of that America, then we need to take responsibility for bringing that society about for all Americans, including Jewish Americans. We need a new attitude – unapologetic, respectful, determined and courageous – and a new action-focused collaboration across government, the private sector and the nonprofit and academic spheres.

If we study the past, we know that when significant societal crises arise, when the tectonic plates of historic, economic and cultural periods shift, unrest inevitably follows. We are living through such a time today.  And it’s especially in these moments that Jews become targets, scapegoats for societal anxiety, unease and discontent.

In the 11th century, when Christians and Moslems clashed during the Crusades, Jewish communities in Europe were slaughtered as by-products of the conflict. Today, as Islamic extremists gain footholds in historically Christian Europe, it is Jews across Europe who are being targeted for persecution and violence.

When the Bubonic Plague swept through Europe in the 14th century, Jews were blamed for causing the disease. In our time, widely-disseminated neo-Nazi and Jihadist conspiracy theories blame Jews for creating COVID-19.

When European agrarian societies shifted to industrialization in the 19th century, Jews were accused of being reactionary architects of exploitative capitalism, and the exact opposite: subversive Marxists who were undermining traditional society. In the 20th century, the dehumanization of Jews by the fascist right led to the genocidal German annihilation of 6 million Jews across Europe, a true genocide, if we have the humility to respect what that word means, as Jews were systematically hunted down for a decade across 20 countries and murdered in death camps on an industrial scale.

After the Holocaust, Soviet Communism cultivated its own obsessive hostility toward Jews and Israel, a hatred that is normative today among many in the intellectual left around the world, in organizations like the United Nations, and in parts of American society as well.

In recent years, we’ve seen conspiracy theories blaming Jews for 9/11, for the global financial crisis, for the murder of Charlie Kirk. The extreme ideological left and right, as well as Jihadist groups, frequently tie Jews, Israel and the United States together as a single adversary. What starts as hatred of the Jew does not end there.

Today, antisemitism from the Islamic world sets the tone for so-called activists in our country who openly lionize Hamas, Hezbollah, Osama bin Laden and Yahya Sinwar, celebrating in the streets and campuses of the United States the ongoing murder of Jews in terrorist attacks, and on a massive scale, in the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023. Technology and AI have only compounded the problem with young people today uninformed about history and easily manipulated by false claims on social media and visual deepfakes.

But while the bad news is real, it is not the challenge – but our response to it – that is going to define us. I want to highlight three pieces of good news – which can be great news – if we are willing to seize the moment.

The first piece of good news is that this administration has been unequivocal in exposing antisemitism as hateful, anti-American and destructive of our nation’s interests and values. Whatever differences may exist on other issues, Americans across the political spectrum should give President Trump credit for his leadership in confronting antisemitism and in calling out the obsessive and false condemnations of the State of Israel, a tiny but inspired country, a trusted ally, a democracy aligned with American national security interests and our shared values in a perennially dangerous and unreliable part of the world.

There is also bipartisan alignment among many in Congress – as well as among state and local politicians – who understand well the historical truth that burgeoning antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to a society’s cultural well-being. We in government must work together with greater determination at the federal, state and local level and we must collaborate more effectively across party lines.

A second piece of good news is that many great Americans and people worldwide – in business, law, medicine, entertainment, academia, the nonprofit community and the public at large – are genuinely appalled that overtly antisemitic attitudes, rhetoric and violence have again become casual and acceptable.

We need to move beyond corporate and organizational responses to antisemitism that are no longer effective and forge a much bolder path to preserve the dream of an American society – and, to the extent we can, a global community of nations – that is not corrupted and fatally undermined by normative antisemitic disrespect and violence.

Finally – and most importantly – there is the often-underestimated power of each one of us as individuals.  In May of last year, a young Jewish couple was murdered outside a Jewish event here in Washington. The murderer shouted “Free Palestine” as he shot the young Jews to death near the U.S. Capitol. Antizionism, delegitimization of the State of Israel, boycotts and slander of Israel and Israelis is antisemitism, pure and simple. Those who claim to care about Jewish people in America while justifying boycotts and violence against Jewish people from Israel demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of Judaism and of Jewish history.

When that young Jewish couple was murdered, a Catholic friend of mine told me she’d worry less about me if I didn’t wear my kippah around Washington. The authentic response to antisemitism in our day is not to hide, to take the kippah off our head, to change the name on our Uber app so it doesn’t sound Jewish or to believe the solution lies in ever more security for Jewish institutions. Instead, we should challenge ourselves to be more identifiable as Jews, more confident and more positive, to dedicate ourselves with greater passion to our heritage and ancient mission: to be a holy nation that respects all human beings. To be ambassadors of humanity. To be Jews who are unapologetic, productive and proud Americans.

To our non-Jewish friends – Christian, Muslim and others – you have no idea how much your support means. The essential psychic anxiety of the Jew throughout history is that he or she is all alone. We need your words, solidarity and action more than ever. Jews – in the U.S. and around the world –  just want to live in safety and dignity and to help ensure that we and our brothers and sisters in Israel and everywhere are not, time and again, victims of relentless incitement, defamation, and tragic violence.

There is bad news – to be sure – but there is good news that will be great news if we collectively take the opportunity to work across government at all levels, to bring together leaders of goodwill across key segments of society, and to step forward as individuals – Jews and non-Jews – to ensure that America remains a country that gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, that requires of us only that we demean ourselves as good citizens.

Pierre Gentin is the general counsel of the Department of Commerce.