Party Disinvited
If you’re worried about the fate of global Jewry, well . . . it’s not getting any better. Actually, it’s getting worse. The tipping point has been surpassed with no finish line in sight.
The world’s oldest prejudice has returned with a vengeance and in violence. Never before have Jews assimilated into Western societies this successfully only to discover that the countries that granted them citizenship feel no responsibility to protect them from ancient enemies who migrated from their ancestral home.
So much for all that presupposed global power that Jews hold in abundance. Here it is, inexplicably, useless in defending the people who, apparently, control all the levers.
The good news is that the only people paying attention to antisemitism are the antisemites themselves. Most Jews, and most everyone else, haven’t noticed a thing.
Meanwhile, despicable incidents zigzag from every direction. Some that go unnoticed and unpunished lead to upgrades in antisemitism. The dormancy of Jew-hatred has awakened without shame.
So, here’s a refresher on recent events. There’s no obligation to sound the alarm.
If you do or say nothing—or default to bashing Israel—you’re in good company.
A recent poll in Long Island reveals that many residents believe that Jews have exaggerated the Holocaust. Fully a third think that it’s time for Jews to “move on.” Teaching the Holocaust in public schools is a waste of taxpayers’ money.
So much for the “Never Again” slogan, the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Oscar haul of “Schindler’s List.”
This is Long Island, where Jews have lived in great numbers for decades! What’s up with all those friends and neighbors? Go figure: The people of Casper, Wyoming somehow have more feeling for Jewish history.
In another bastion of Jewish residency, Scarsdale, in Westchester County, flyers promoting an event hosted by the Israel Culture Club at the high school were found in the urinal of the boy’s bathroom. What’s more, the daughter of a school board member posted the photo of such antisemitic performance art on Instagram with her approval.
Speaking of school boards, in Michigan, Amir Makled, an attorney who represented pro-Hamas protesters at the University of Michigan, received the Democratic Party’s nomination for the university’s Board of Regents.
Makled’s social media posts show him to be a terrorist fanboy who should be deported, not elected to a position where he will help direct the governance of one of the finest public universities in the country. He defeated a Jewish former member of the Obama administration who was the target of pro-Hamas mobs.
What does that tell you?
Of course, Makled is from Dearborn, Michigan, where the mayor and the entire city council are Muslims in a Muslim-majority city—the same city where we first heard chants, “Death to America!”
In Michigan, antisemitic activism is not just confined to its flagship university. One of its two senatorial slots may be handed to an avowed anti-Israel Islamist. Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told CNN just this past week that there is no difference between Israel’s government and Hamas.
Most of his rallies are replete with anti-Israel rhetoric. He had already scrubbed his social media accounts of thousands of posts aligned with the Jew-hating progressive agenda. A recent campaign rally featured progressive streamer Hasan Piker, who has said that America “deserved” what it received on 9/11, and that Hamas is the “lesser of two evils” when compared to Israel.
There are now Mayor Mamdanis everywhere—progressives who stake all their political capital on slandering Israel with the false charge of genocide.
And the sources of support for such candidates are growing. Yale University just released data indicating that 10 percent of voters aged 18 to 34 agree with antisemitic statements such as that Jews are guilty of dual loyalty and exert disproportionate and pernicious influence. Hardly anyone over age 65 believes such nonsense.
The difference in perception held by Democrats and Republicans is even more glaring. An Echelon poll shows that nearly half of all Democrats believe that the United States takes its orders from Israel. Half of all Democrats under the age of 50 have a “very unfavorable” opinion about Israel and believe it to be an apartheid state that systematically oppresses Palestinians. Hardly any Republicans feel that way.
For the first time since Israel’s founding in 1948, Americans sympathize more with the Palestinians than with the Jewish state. The Pew Research Center released even more dire findings: 80 percent of all Democrats view Israel unfavorably. Six in 10 Americans feel “somewhat unfavorably” toward Israel, a massive jump since 2022.
Sensing the public mood within their own party, 36 Democratic senators voted on a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to Israel, with an even greater number, 40, voting to bar the sale of bulldozers. Israel uses them to demolish homes that terrorists have boobytrapped with explosives.
No matter. Democrats decreed that they can’t have them.
Republicans ultimately defeated the measures, but 40 out of 47 Democrats voted to block the sale of such military hardware.
Seriously? NATO nations refuse to join the United States in putting an end to the menacing Islamic regime of Iran. Israel remains the one reliable American ally that also happens to know how to pack a punch. And Democratic senators wish to withhold weapons to Israel; armaments used in its own defense against the common enemy of global terror?
What message does that send?
And get this: Ten of the 40 Democratic senators are Jewish! That’s a whole lot of tribal Benedict Arnolds. Like the two Jewish co-founders of the Women’s March who were surprised to discover that their progressive sisters were unrepentant antisemites, these Jewish senators have yet to realize that their grand bargain with snickering Social Democrats is doomed to fail.
Jewish Democrats sure can’t take a hint. At what point does one come to realize that they’re at a party to which one is no longer invited? After serving three terms in the Senate, a centrist like Joe Lieberman got elected to a fourth term by running as an Independent. Democrats had ousted him. Today his former party is unrecognizable, having been captured by the improbable conjuring of an Islamic left.
Jewish Democrats sure can’t take a hint. At what point does one come to realize that they’re at a party to which one is no longer invited?
The Jewish Democrats of FDR are giving way to the Muslim voting bloc of AOC—and the two groups get along no better than the Middle East variety.
Jews in the United Kingdom have found themselves shipwrecked on a similarly sinking vessel called the Labour Party. The difference is that British Jews are clear-eyed about their circumstance. American Jews are blindly peeking through psychedelic granny glasses.
Most American Jews have trained their minds elsewhere. Hating Donald Trump is a fulltime job, after all. Who has time to envision a more ominous future for global Jewry?
If Israel is not important to you, if rising antisemitism somehow doesn’t apply to you—either because you’re ignorant, naive, or simply too smug—then best of luck. You’ll need it.
If Israel is not important to you, if rising antisemitism somehow doesn’t apply to you—either because you’re ignorant, naive, or simply too smug—then best of luck. You’ll need it.
At some point you might be reminded that you no longer belong—if you ever did
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.”