A Jewish Goal Line Stand
When it comes to the hatred of global Jewry, unnecessary roughness is not a penalty but rather pay dirt. Many receive great satisfaction treating Jews as tackling dummies—blaming and besmirching them; resenting their success; cheering their losses. Antisemitism comes with a scorecard, and the smart money is always betting against the Jews.
The Super Bowl is upon us, and the entire world will be watching. Along with the action on the field, many will pay equal attention to the TV commercials. They cost more to air and tend to be more slickly produced: a dystopian “1984” for Apple; fashion models guzzling Pepsi-Cola or devouring Carl’s Jr.; celebrities working the drive-thru at Dunkin’ Donuts; Clydesdales hocking Budweiser.
Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, which happens to be playing in this year’s Super Bowl, is a proud Jew who started a foundation to combat antisemitism. For the past three years, he has showcased his own Super Bowl commercial to address the spike in antisemitism—largely coinciding with Israel’s war in Gaza.
This year’s ad, which debuted the week before the game, features a Jewish boy walking the halls of his public high school, self-consciously mindful that his fellow classmates are snickering at him. He finally realizes that someone had affixed a sticky note to his backpack that reads: “DIRTY JEW.”
Out of nowhere comes a tall African-American teenager, possibly a popular jock, who says: “Do not listen to them. They’re not worth it, bro.” The Jewish teen is befriended and talked out of fighting back. The ad ends with this take-away: “2 in 3 Jewish teens have experienced antisemitism.”
The ad cost Kraft $15 million—a pricey gamble for 30 seconds of TV time. His motivation is admirable. Many Jewish titans of industry and finance have sat in the cheap seats and watched as the unkosher pigskin of antisemitism has bounced around in schools, universities, and mainstream media.
But is this TV commercial, righteous, sentimental and well-intentioned though it might be, the right remedy for these times? Will it make a difference for the 66 percent of Jewish teenagers who claim to have been bullied by Jew-hating juveniles?
Many took to social media, and to their own newsletters and columns, to debate the utility of the ad. Some felt it was inspiring and that Kraft’s goodwill and largesse should be commended.
Others saw it as a predictably insipid surrender to contemporary Cossacks. Why not instead show the audience an ad for the derring-do of the IDF—the “Fauda”-styled rescues; the ingenious detonation of head-separating cell phones; the aerial wizardry that turned grounded missiles into wreckage in Lebanon and decimated Iran’s air-defense systems and nuclear capability?
Or, we could just have Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman gulping Gatorade, winking at the audience, then thrusting her arm forward while stating: “I am just the tip of this Jewish spear.”
No one seemed to pick up the ad’s central piece of misdirection, however. In what public high school in the United States would an African-American jock come to the aid of an ostracized nerdy Jewish boy? The Black-Jewish alliance of the 1960s is no longer a footnote. Blacks are going the way of Kanye West (sorry, apology not accepted), Bobby Vylan, Kyrie Irving, Candace Owens, Tamika Mallory, Alice Walker, Stephen and DeShawn Jackson, Marc Lamont Hill, Nick Cannon, Ice Cube, and, of course, Louis Farrakhan.
In what public high school in the United States would an African-American jock come to the aid of an ostracized nerdy Jewish boy? The Black-Jewish alliance of the 1960s is no longer a footnote.
The number of celebrity African-Americans who stand with Jews are few: Charles Barkley, Amar’e Stoudemire, Chris Rock, Van Jones and Tiffany Haddish (who is Jewish). Those names do not a full roster make, especially if you can’t count bi-racial Jewish celebrities like Lenny Kravitz, Rashida Jones, Drake, Maya Rudolph, Tracee Ellis Ross—who call audibles rather than being audible in support of their people.
Pro-Zionists Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin would be appalled.
If you’re a European Jew, Kraft’s Super Bowl ad is laughable. Snickering by a bunch of harmless white kids? That’s your hardship? In France, three children were shot dead by an Islamist outside their Jewish day school in Toulouse. A 12-year-old Jewish girl was dragged inside a shed and gangraped by three Muslim boys. A teenager nearly had his hand sawed off by a gang of Islamists. A college-aged student was tortured and burned alive by an Islamist group shamelessly called the Gang of Barbarians.
These nightmares are not confined to France. In London, cars circle Marble Arch and blare out, “Rape Jewish daughters!” In Copenhagen, a Muslim gunman, aiming for a girl in the midst of her bat mitzvah, killed the synagogue’s security guard.
Sorry to sack this Super Bowl commercial, but what Kraft is showcasing doesn’t quite convey the x’s and o’s of the modern-day pogrom playbook. He’s still in the single T formation. Jews must mount a stronger goal line stand.
Sorry to sack this Super Bowl commercial, but what Kraft is showcasing doesn’t quite convey the x’s and o’s of the modern-day pogrom playbook. He’s still in the single T formation. Jews must mount a stronger goal line stand.
He might as well be promoting saccharine because what he is describing is both fake and too sugary. It reflects the antisemitism of the 1950s—cold shoulders, hushed tones, country club restrictions, college admission quotas. October 7 demonstrated that Islamists don’t mind getting their uniforms dirty with Jewish blood while “progressives”—whose preferred epithet is “dirty Zionist” rather than “dirty Jew”—cheer maniacally from the sidelines.
Schoolyard antisemitism in the Middle East is much worse! The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education issued a report on the textbooks assigned to children in the West Bank. News flash: They are not being taught to simply harass Jews with sticky notes.
Fourth graders learn math by calculating the number of dead Israelis killed by suicide bombers on buses and inside shopping malls. By 14, they discover explosive belts and knives used to slash Israeli throats. The entire educational system romanticizes martyrdom and indoctrinates kids to commit jihad.
Does anyone care about the genocide to the minds of Palestinian children? Super Bowl fans won’t be learning the more insidious side of the eternal war against Jews.
Earlier this week, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens delivered the “State of World Jewry” address at the 92nd Street Y in New York. He called the tens of millions of dollars spent annually fighting antisemitism a failure. He even suggested dismantling the ADL. Better that the money be spent strengthening Jewish education and cultural institutions.
A recent book by Benjamin Kerstein, “Self Defense: A Jewish Manifesto,” calls for a more aggressive style of offense against antisemites, which includes not statistics-gathering but “self-defense techniques [and] weapons handling.”
The problem runs much deeper than any one Super Bowl ad can hope to capture. The highlight reel is too violent—even for football diehards. And too gory for TV audiences gorging on nachos and pizza.
The Super Bowl clock will wind down on the scoreboard and confetti will rain down from the sky. The Most Valuable Player will announce, “I’m going to Disney World.” Everyone will leave the field.
Jews, however—at least the sentient ones—will know that the gladiatorial gridiron allows no exit for them. They must stay alert. And avoid sudden death.
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, where he directs the Forum on Life, Culture & Society. He is the legal analyst for CBS News Radio. His most recent book is titled, “Beyond Proportionality: Israel’s Just War in Gaza.”
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