Can Things Get Even Worse in 2024?

Woodbine, New Jersey, was founded in 1891 as a settlement for Eastern European Jews. Philanthropist Maurice de Hirsch purchased 5,300 acres of land in Cape May County and began to invite immigrants fleeing Poland and Russia to settle in the new community. Within two years, they cleared the forest and built a settlement with thriving farms. Sometimes called the Jewish Colony, Woodbine also became known as “the first self-governing Jewish community since the fall of Jerusalem.”

My great-grandparents fled to Woodbine in the early 1900s. They came here with nothing. My grandfather, born in 1908, had to work as a child in a clothing factory to help the family. He was so happy to get an orange for his Bar Mitzvah; he had never eaten one before. 

And yet, they were finally safe and free. 

A century later, I’m raising my son, Alexander, in New York City, and I wonder: Is he still safe and free? I never thought I’d have to ask this question. But here we are dealing with the aftermath of the worst atrocity since the Holocaust — and most of us are stupefied.

Jews here and all over the world are being bullied, harassed, abused, and physically assaulted. But according to our esteemed Ivy League presidents, this harassment — even if it calls for genocide — “depends on the context.” Because we’re Jews. 

My parents never had the privilege of going to college, but they would well understand that we’re at another inflection point in Jewish history. And if they were still alive today, they likely would be terrified — and angry. Angry just as much at the status leftists who allowed it to get to this point as at the Islamists who are religiously committed to murdering every Jew.

As David Hazony put it in Sapir: “War has been launched against the Jewish people … The emergence of ancient hatred against us, seemingly detached from all reality, triggers an ancient, existential fear. We are so few, and they are so many.”

Given this alarming rise in hostility, it’s worth asking: Is America still safe for the Jews?

Given this alarming rise in hostility toward Jews, it’s worth asking: Is America still safe for the Jews? And is it finally time to go home?

Globalized Intifada

Let’s start with the most immediate and tangible dimension: Safety in the streets. New York City, like Los Angeles and other major cities, has witnessed an almost absurd number of people who hate Jews and have no problem moving quickly from verbal to physical violence. “A global antisemitic movement has suddenly emerged, marching through our cities,” Hazony writes, “celebrating the barbaric violation of Jewish bodies, tearing down posters of Jewish victims, blaming Jews for the atrocities committed against them, and unleashing yet more violence against Jews and Jewish institutions.”  

A week after Oct. 7th I was forced out of, of all places, Tal Bagels. Tal had sold his bagel shops to two Arabs, and unlike the Arabs who had previously worked there they were not warm or welcoming. One started singing a very ugly Arabic song directly in the faces of anyone who was visibly Jewish. Before we all left, I asked the manager why they were doing this. “We don’t want you here,” he responded. 

It was my first encounter of this type. I was shaken. On the way home, I put my Star of David, handed down to me from my great-grandmother, underneath my shirt. But as nearly every Arab cab driver has made a point of telling me since I moved here: I still “look Jewish.” That has always been a source of pride, to be part of “an eternal people,” as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it. But that existential fear had been awakened, and I didn’t know how to face it.

A week later, I saw Generation Z high school kids walking the streets, proudly wearing kippahs and mezuzahs. My precious inheritance came back out. 

But the encounter at Tal was just the beginning.

In Brooklyn, Arabs beat up three Jews in separate attacks. In Times Square, rioters cheered Israeli civilian fatalities and made throat-slitting gestures. The Kosher restaurant Hummus Kitchen was vandalized twice in four days. In Queens, hundreds of high school students forced a Jewish teacher to be moved to another part of the school. Mass riots (these are not “protests”) have also taken over Grand Central Station and Penn Station. 

Elisha Wiesel, son of Elie, was forced to remove the Israeli flag from his shoulders because he dared to argue with the Islamist rioters who had taken over Penn Station.

A mob of 1,000 rioters violently disrupted a private IDF fundraiser hosted by Donna Karan. They spent hours banging down the door. Attendees, including the mother of an Israeli hostage, had to be escorted out by the NYPD. 

California has also been hit hard. The death of Paul Kessler during a protest and counterprotest in Thousand Oaks. In Oakland, an 11-foot menorah was broken and thrown in a lake. Antisemitic graffiti was scrawled onto the base, including “we’re gonna find you.” An antisemitic phrase was scrawled on a Holocaust survivor’s home. A leader of AIPAC had his home targeted.

Restaurants and menorahs have also been vandalized in Philadelphia, Chicago, Maryland, and Florida. In Detroit, a Democratic holiday party ended in bloodshed. More than 400 Jewish institutions received bomb threats since Oct 7th.  

“Grievances against The Jew,” Hazony writes, “take on infinite importance, providing infinite license to override any principles of morality, decency, self-restraint, empathy, dignity, or sobriety in response to the perceived threat. The Jew is infinitely demonized, and any attack is thus inherently just—to be celebrated, embraced, and used to fuel further rage.”

Between Oct 7 and Dec 7 Hate crimes against Jews were up nearly 500%  over the same period  the year before, rising from 465 incidents in 2022 to 2,031. In Senate testimony, the FBI stated that antisemitism in the U.S. is “a threat that is reaching … historic levels.” 

“We’re going to rape your women!” some Islamists scream at riots. Knowing how the left has either downplayed or ignored the gang rapes and mutilation of Israeli women — it’s taken The New York Times until Dec 31 to put it on the front page — Jewish women here have to take these barbaric threats seriously. 

And what about Jewish babies and toddlers? If the left can ignore the beheading of Israeli babies, how safe are our littlest ones in day cares, nursery schools, even hospitals — if even one employee leans Islamist? 

In fact, a new group calling itself “Doctors Against Genocide,” co-founded by Michigan physician Nidal Jboor, was planning to “invade” the National Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Because that’s what doctors do.

“The lid to the sewers is off,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said last month.

“When they say ‘by any means necessary,’ they mean it,” Hazony writes.  “Antisemitism has torn off its mask, and it is far more widespread, integrated, and bloodthirsty than many of us imagined.”

NYC finally moved to ‘level 3’ NYPD mobilization, the second highest alert, on Christmas. Videos show violent clashes with police throughout the city, injuring many officers.

The attempt to “disrupt” Christmas and holiday travel moves us to the next stage of the globalized Intifada: Target everybody and everything, Jewish or not. Israelis know all too well what this stage means: Blowing up busses, restaurants, etc. This is no doubt why the NYPD remains on the second highest alert.

New Yorkers are all too familiar with level 4. Indeed, on Dec. 28, pro-Hamas rioters actually tried to storm the World Trade Center while shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

Leftism + Islamism 

The very first thing we need to understand: The left here is no longer liberal. The Democratic Party is no longer the party of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Martin Luther King, Jr., both ardent Zionists.

Zionism is a subset of classical liberalism, which is why Democrats fully supported Israel from 1948 until the 1990s, when what we now call leftism began to take over the party. What is leftism? A sordid mix of neo-Marxism, moral relativism, and identity politics.

The second: This is not just a war on Jews, but on Western civilization. Through neo-Marxism, leftism has teamed up with Islamism — just as the KGB helped Egyptian Yasser Arafat create the PLO in 1964 — to create a set of lies about Jews, history in general, and humanity.

The Big Lie of today is “colonization.” Details such as the fact that some of the biggest colonizers throughout history have been the Arab world never seem to get mentioned. And what about the fact that the Arab world still enslaves blacks? Somehow that never made it into Critical Race Theory (CRT), a set of distortions about history that always seem to find a way to blame Jews for society’s ills. 

CRT’s “oppressor” narrative enabled those who claim to be committed to social justice to support the so-called “oppressed” — even if that includes Islamists, who aside from wanting to kill all infidels, persecute gay people and treat women far worse than the Western patriarchy ever did. Suddenly, it seems, “honor killings” became woke. 

“In the name of social justice, progressives are … imposing an ideological prism on life and events that leads to dehumanization, a hardness of heart, cruelty, and a lack of conscience,” Peter Wehner writes in The Atlantic. The left has been “deformed by a toxic ideology that not only rejects inconvenient truths; it inverts morality in order to confirm its presuppositions.”

The good news is that because Islamists have gone so far over edge this time, many classical liberals have begun to speak up. Bravery was forced upon them.

Can the left return to liberalism and thus return to truth, reason, facts, and morality? The good news is that because Islamists have gone so far over edge this time, many classical liberals have begun to speak up. Bravery was forced upon them. But the left, most especially the Democratic Party, still has a long way to go to return to sanity.

“The world is watching us right now,” writes Hazony. “Western civilization itself is under attack; this is not just the Jews’ war. But Jews must lead by example: If we do not fight this battle, who will?”

Academia

In today’s “elite” universities, microaggressions like misgendering a desk can get you thrown out of school, while macroaggressions like calling for the genocide of Jews or bullying Jewish students will leave you empowered. Just a few examples:

Harvard. A mob of anti-Israel rioters — including Ibrahim Bharmal, editor of The Harvard Law Review — followed, surrounded and intimidated a Jewish student on campus. “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” the rioters screamed into his ear, encircling him.

Cooper Union. Rioters pounded on windows as Jewish students took shelter in a locked library.

Columbia. An Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia University’s main library; former IDF soldiers have been mocked in group chats; Hillel has been serving three meals a day because Jewish students don’t feel safe on campus.

Cornell. Patrick Dai, 21, posted on a university forum calling for the murder and rape of Jews: “if I see a pig male jew i will stab you and slit your throat. if i see another pig female jew i will drag you away and rape you and throw you off a cliff. if i see another pig baby jew i will behead you in front of your parents.”

University of Massachusetts. Rioter punches Jewish student who is holding Israeli flag, and then spits on the flag.

University of Michigan. A mob of rioters stormed administrative buildings while screaming “ceasefire now.” A “Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine” (FSJP) chapter was just formed, accusing the school of “horrific suppression” of anti-Zionist viewpoints and “brutal actions against students.”

How did we get here? For the past three decades, the ethical code of keeping political bias out of the classroom — especially a professor’s bias — was fully dismantled, to the point where professors now create entire classes based on their personal views — with administrators doing nothing. 

Education, in other words is being replaced by indoctrination.

Students have been taught that “systems of oppression overlap.” And guess who the major oppressors are? The Jews, of course.

Added to that is the convergence of the three ideologies (neo-Marxism, moral relativism, and identity politics). These students have been taught that “systems of oppression overlap.” And guess who the major oppressors are? The Jews, of course — victims of more persecution than all other minorities combined. A minor detail that leftist activists always forget to mention.

Inevitably, Islamist “professors” saw a safe, ignorant space and filled it with antisemitism. 

Jonathan Haidt has called the double standards that stem from these ideologies “institutional antisemitism”— precisely what the Jews endured in the quotas that reigned between the 1920s and 1950s. 

And of course, the biggest double standard applies to speech and harassment. Since the surreal testimony of our esteemed university presidents — when “free speech” was invoked only when Jews were bullied — the ADL has begun to take necessary proactive steps.

In an open letter, CEO Jonathan Greenblatt reminded academia of its obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment and intimidation.

“Shockingly, many students engaging in this activity — including harassment, intimidation, and other clear violations of student codes of conduct — have not faced consequences,” Greenblatt wrote. “This is unacceptable. Full stop,” he continued. “Universities have by and large been derelict in their duty to protect Jewish communities on campus, in many cases raising serious concern under Title VI … Simply put, to date, there have been too few consequences — that must change.”

On college campuses alone, the ADL recorded 470 anti-Semitic incidents between Oct. 7 and Dec. 18. During that same period in 2022,  there were 323.

To its credit, the ADL also created, with the Brandeis Center, Hillel and a legal team from Gibson Dunn, the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line (CALL). “Volunteer lawyers will assess reports of antisemitism, conduct information-gathering interviews, and, as appropriate, provide pro bono representation for victims.” Any student, family, faculty, or staff member can go to the CALL website or text “CALLhelp” to 51555 to report incidents of “antisemitic discrimination, intimidation, harassment, vandalism, or violence that may necessitate legal action.”

The situation on campuses would also improve if the Biden administration had issued long promised regulations that apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to civil rights investigations. It would help protect Jewish students from harassment rooted in anti-Zionism. The regulations were scheduled to be issued last month. But they now won’t be instituted until at least Dec. 2024. The ADL should be addressing this as well.

Public + private schools

We moved my son out of the public schools and into a one private that focuses on “traditional academics” because the NYC public school system has become an indoctrination factory, despite the fact that the new chancellor, David Banks, has warned teachers against expressing “their personal views about political matters during the school day.”

For any NYC parent, these “warnings” are almost amusing. All NYC public school teachers do is express their personal opinions throughout the year. For us, the real fun started in middle school. In nearly every class, my son would tell me that they had been “introduced” to “a different lifestyle.” It went downhill from there. I will say that the one time there was an antisemitic incident — a kid pretended to be Hitler at recess — he was immediately suspended. But by then, the Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework (CRSE) had been codified: “A critical lens through which they challenge inequitable systems of access, power, and privilege.” Advanced placement classes were dropped; “merit” and “excellence” were viewed as racist; and the “oppressor” narrative was institutionalized. It was time to go.

Sadly, the selection of private schools both in and around NYC hasn’t been much better. At some, Jewish kids were forced to do “privilege walks” across the stage. I want to be clear here because millennials have taken to scapegoating Gen Z for pretty much everything. These were millennial teachers indoctrinating Gen Z in woke ideology. 

But the other part of this that no one likes to mention: leftist parents are part of the problem. Not only do they see nothing wrong with indoctrination, but many don’t seem to even understand the difference between education and indoctrination. 

How do we depoliticize education if many Jewish parents don’t understand this essential difference? If they don’t understand what thinking critically means?

Despite Banks’ tepid warnings, NYC public school teachers now fetishize “centering Arab narratives.” California’s new “Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum” (ESMC), passed in 2021, of course goes far further. As Brandy Shufutinsky, director of education at the Jewish Institute of Liberal Values, has put it: “It’s a Trojan Horse to institutionalize antisemitism in California schools.”

Activist anti-journalism

Not surprisingly, politically biased journalism, which gained steam over a decade ago, has hurt Israel the most. Journalism at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and MSNBC have routinely distorted Oct 7th and downplayed the antisemitic aftermath. 

And then there are publications like The New Republic, the epitome of brilliant journalism under Marty Peretz, which is now virtually indistinguishable from Al Jazeera. As one former colleague put it: “They just make [stuff] up.” Indeed, leftist millennials appear to specialize in fabrication. 

With all of these lies in the media, our schools, and of course on the most venomous platform — X — is it any wonder that more than half the country now hates Jews?

Rays of Light

Despite all of this, there have been rays of light — hope. 

I would say the strongest has been Bill Ackman and those who have followed his lead. For years, many of us have wondered why Jews in positions of power weren’t doing anything about the clear signs of growing antisemitism. For many, retaining status was prioritized. But Ackman showed that standing up to hate and ignorance in the highest realms is a moral obligation, especially for those in powerful positions.

Another is Gen Z. Sure, we’re watching many of them do a lot of stupid things on campus right now. But the photos leftist media never show are of Jewish students coming together peacefully, often singing in Hebrew. 

Most Gen Zers are incredibly grounded. They’ve had to be. They’ve been lied to their entire lives; their bulls— detectors are on high alert. Indeed, the Gen Z revolt is just getting started. Check out OpenDor Media, ClubZ, Me’ver Youth. Check out sophomore David Pomerantz at Columbia University or rapper Noah Shufutinsky, who performs as Westside Gravy.

There are other rays of light that we can cling to during these dark times: Unity, resilience, pride. How did our ancestors get through times like this?

There are other rays of light that we can cling to during these dark times: Unity, resilience, pride. How did our ancestors get through times like this? Through humor, creativity, and creating a language our enemies didn’t understand. Well, we have the most beautiful language that most of us can read but not speak. Being able to converse in Hebrew is essential right now.

“I am blessed to be a voyager on an ancient pathway,” wrote Rabbi Rachel Cowan. Perhaps we’ve been treated to some major bumps on that pathway in order to teach Jews on both the far left and the far right that words do have meaning, that actions do have consequences.

“Too often in Jewish history, our zenith turns out to be our precipice,” Stephens wrote in The New York Times. “Too often in world history, that precipice is also the end of free society itself. Antisemitism is a problem for democracy because hatred for Jews, whatever name or cause it travels under, is never a hatred for Jews only. It’s a hatred for distinctiveness … Authoritarians seek uniformity. Jews represent difference.”

Over-assimilation has never worked out well for us. We are an incredible people, a passionate, vibrant ethnicity, that needs to re-find — “decolonize” — its soul. That needs to rediscover the beauty of our particularism. Our safety—here, in Europe, in Israel—will only come from that realization. ■

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.