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Many Jews are finding this Christmas season somber as pro-Palestinian rallies continue to turn violent amid echoes of Jew-hating jeers. Since October 7, 70% of American Jews have reported feeling less safe than before.
Jews continue to debate how to combat anti-Semitism. But all Americans should stand against this evil. Jew-hatred is not a Jewish disease, it is a non-Jewish disease.
In addition to violating American values, bigots have also attacked some of America's most defining landmarks, such as pasting bloody handprints on the gates of the White House and defacing Lincoln Memorial Square with “Free Gaza” graffiti. He has lashed out at national symbols. Why don't more Americans object?
The message “Liberate Gaza” is seen spray-painted near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. (WTTG)
It's a long time ago. By targeting Jews, Jew-haters often attack liberal democracy, Western values, America's core identity, and civility itself. The hooligans who threatened the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree praised the bloodshed of Hamas, supported genocide, and chanted “End the settler Zionist state.”
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Demonstrators waved posters with swastikas on them. They promoted Jew-hating stereotypes suggesting that Jewish money and power seduced President Biden, labeling him “Massacre Joe.” And, as usual, conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism, they shouted, “The NYPD, the KKK, the Israel Defense Forces…they're all the same.”
America has a long tradition of peaceful protests, but this is not one of them. Who will tear down posters of innocent people, babies and elderly people kidnapped from their homes? Do we really want our fellow citizens to be intimidated by masked, aggressive hooligans every time we disagree with each other?
Americans should look at how anti-Israel protesters are introducing and normalizing authoritarian bullying into American democracy, and ask ourselves, is this the tone we want in our public squares? It is.
But when 290,000 people marched peacefully on Washington in November to support Israel and denounce anti-Semitism, the fight against Judeo-hatred appeared to be a Jewish concern. “It was empowering, but also very lonely, in that most of them were Jewish,” one former student emailed.
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Traditionally, non-Jewish Americans also showed up to fight against Jew-hatred. George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport in 1790 that the American government “gives no sanction to prejudice, no aid to persecution.” It's in America's DNA – European religious persecution was not welcome here.
Sadly, that vow was not always fulfilled, but Washington shifted the blame away from the victims and targeted them.
Seventy-two years later, President Abraham Lincoln spoke out against a rare act of official American anti-Semitism. General Ulysses S. Grant's General Order No. 11 expelled Jews from West Tennessee in 1862. In revoking Grant's order, Lincoln explained that “to condemn a class is, to say the least, to mistake good for evil.”
Most presidents sympathized with Washington and Lincoln, including President Grant, who apologized after being elected. Unlike Enlightenment Europe and today's Middle East, American leaders have consistently condemned anti-Jewish incidents.
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But this is also a grassroots, mass effort. Every decent American must fight against Jew-hatred and all forms of bigotry. Despicable silence will never silence hate.
It's time for every American to stand tall and reach out to our Jewish friends who are feeling anxious and fearful. Symbolic gestures and comforting words can reassure fellow Americans who feel harassed while rejecting bigots.
Remarkably, it was precisely that soothing tone, that empathy, that the three Ivy League presidents failed to convey to Congress during their now infamous testimony.
In contrast, a more typical incident occurred in December 1993 in Billings, Montana, when thugs smashed a 6-year-old's bedroom window decorated with Hanukkah decorations.billings gazette I printed the menorah as an insert. Afterwards, thousands of Montanans also displayed paper menorahs in their windows. One sign proclaimed, “Not in our town! No hate, no violence. Peace on earth.”
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Therapists teach that feeling community support and connecting one's suffering to a broader mission can help traumatized veterans and hate crime victims heal. Freed Soviet Unionist Levsenik Natan Sharansky survived nine years in a concentration camp, helped by activists' global solidarity, which left him ideologically and communally challenged. It reminded me of my “deep attachment.''
Five years ago, one week after an anti-Semite murdered 11 Jews worshiping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018, I was in Kemp Mill, Maryland. I visited my brother's family. That Sunday evening, 250 parishioners of St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church meandered toward Kemp Mill Synagogue, holding candles.
In medieval Europe, when the local population marched to a synagogue, things ended badly for Jews, especially if there was a fire. The walk ended, in American fashion, with hugs, thanks, and toasts celebrating religious and national unity. Strangers who were neighbors quickly became friends.
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Adlai Stevenson praised Eleanor Roosevelt in 1962, saying, “I would rather light a candle than curse the darkness.” Since October 7th, too many Jews have been alone cursing the darkness. This holiday season, my non-Jewish friends should also light a candle and start lightening their load.
Let's continue these traditional, all-American, symbolic gestures that protect America, fight hate, and sometimes forge true and unexpected friendships.
Click here to read more from Gil Troy
