NYT: "Antisemitism is an Urgent Problem"

My responses to readers' reactions

Question: I just read “Antisemitism is an Urgent Problem” in Sunday’s NY Times (June 15, 2025). Do you, like me, distinguish between Antisemitism and anti-Zionism? And what can Jews do about these issues?

Antisemitism is the hatred of Jews simply for being Jews. Anti-Zionism is the hatred of Jews who support Zionism, the movement for Jewish self-determination in the State of Israel, which anti-Zionists perceive as an act of European colonialism and Palestinian genocide.

Thoughtful anti-Zionists argue that anti-Zionist violence against Jews is politically motivated, while antisemitic violence against Jews arises from a hatred of Jews, regardless of their political stance. Most people I know who make this distinction are Jews. The majority of those who kill Jews don’t know their victims’ politics. They just want to kill Jews. Typically, these individuals are not Jews.

What can we do about antisemitism? Nothing.

Despite the New York Times’ absurd assertion that ancient Greek and Egyptian mockery of Judaism was antisemitic rather than xenophobic, Christians created antisemitism: Jews are children of Satan (John 8:44); Jews killed Jesus (Matthew 27: 24-25; John 5: 16-18; Acts 2:23; 3:13-18; 5:30), Jews use the blood of Christian children in our Passover matzah, etc. Christianity spread Jew-hatred around the globe where over time it morphed into versions both Islamic and racial (Nazi).

Jews are not responsible for this hatred, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.

Anti-Zionism, on the other hand, could end tomorrow if the State of Israel were to dissolve voluntarily and all Jewish Israelis “self-deport” to their great-great-grandparents’ countries of origin. (Don’t go too far back, or you might end up where you started in Israel.) However, this scenario is highly unlikely.

What is more likely, considering Israel’s willingness to confront Iran militarily—something that the United States, Europe, Jordan, the Saudis, and many Iranians quietly applaud—is that Israel will emerge as a military powerhouse; the murder of Jews by anti-Zionists will continue, and the oppression and exploitation of Palestinians will persist, regardless of the virtue signaling from the United Nations.

Question: The New York Times’ op-ed “Antisemitism is an Urgent Problem” reminded me of Walker Percy’s proof that Jews are God’s Chosen People: “Where are the Hittites? Why does no one find it remarkable that in most world cities today, there are Jews but not one single Hittite, even though the Hittites had a great flourishing civilization while the Jews nearby were a weak and obscure people? When one meets a Jew in New York or New Orleans or Paris or Melbourne, it is remarkable that no one considers the event remarkable. What are they doing here? But it is even more remarkable to wonder, if there are Jews here, why are there no Hittites here? Where are the Hittites? Show me one Hittite in New York City.” How would you respond to Mr. Percy?

There are no Hittites in New York, New Orleans, Paris, and Melbourne because the Jews (more accurately, the Israelites) killed them all thousands of years ago: “Regarding the people living in the cities that your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall not allow any person to live. Rather, you shall obliterate them: the Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite, as your God has commanded you” (Deut. 20:16-17).

The reason there are Jews in New York, New Orleans, Paris, and Melbourne is that Babylonians, Romans, Catholics, Protestants, Cossacks, Nazis, Communists, and Muslims weren’t as effective at obliterating Jews as Jews were at obliterating Hittites. I don’t think this proves anything other than that people are violent, and the gods, states, and religions we invent are no less so.

QUESTION: I used to think of Israel as Athens: a thriving democracy founded in education and the arts. I now see Israel as Sparta, a militarized warrior culture. How will this impact the fate of the Jewish people?

Instead of Athens and Sparta, consider Yavneh and Masada.

Masada is a mountaintop fortress built by Herod the Great, which Jewish zealots used to wage guerrilla warfare against the Roman army during the First Jewish-Roman War. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the night before the Romans were set to capture Masada, the zealots, led by Eleazer ben Ya’ir, committed suicide.

During the same war, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, unable to convince the leaders of besieged Jerusalem to surrender, smuggled himself and his disciples out of the city and negotiated a separate peace with Vespasian, the commander of the Roman army and future Emperor. He secured the study of Torah and Judaism in the coastal city of Yavneh, which led to a global Jewish civilization of scholars, mystics, philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, artists, doctors, scientists, and revolutionaries that continues to flourish today.

As the Jewish beneficiaries of Ben Zakkai shift their allegiance from Judaism to Zionism, I fear that Masada, rather than Yavneh, is our spiritual, if not literal, future.

Question: As I marched in our local No Kings rally yesterday, and read the NYTimes’ essay on antisemitism today, I thought of Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder, two Jewish scholars of fascism, who have taken refuge at the University of Toronto. Aren’t they the proverbial rats escaping a sinking ship? And why Canada? Why not Israel? Do you ever think about leaving?

Were Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein rats for fleeing Germany in 1933? Was Martin Buber a rat for fleeing Germany in 1938? Were Hans and Margret Rey, the Jewish creators of Curious George, rats for fleeing Paris on bicycles to escape the advancing German army in 1940? Of course not. They were among the few who had the foresight and wherewithal to escape the impending genocide. I view Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder the same way.

I believe that MAGA’s war on public schools, higher education, libraries, law, liberalism, the First Amendment, science, and the separation of church and state is, in part, a war on Jews, as these are the elements that enable Jews to thrive in America. However, Israel’s shift toward Jewish supremacy, messianic theocracy, and apartheid makes relocating there impossible for me.

Like Stanley and Snyder, I would choose Canada. My reasoning is simple: First, I earned my master’s degree in religion at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, so I speak the language. Second, while Canadians own many guns, they generally do not shoot their fellow Canadians. Third, I feel safer with King Charles than with King Donald. Sadly, Canada doesn’t want me.