Conditional Concern: The Politics of Antisemitism in America
I’ve always maintained that there are two Jewish diasporas–the American one, and then…the rest of us.
Any non-American diaspora Jew who has spent time in the US knows what I’m talking about. A significant amount of American Jews are, or, at least pre October 7th were, too comfortable. Still, even before October 7th, when antisemites celebrated our slaughter, tore down our hostage posters, or waved Hamas flags in the street, the diaspora was not exactly a walk in the park.
It seems almost irrelevant now but many diaspora Jews will remember May 2021 as particularly traumatic. During this time, antisemitic incidents skyrocketed worldwide. Jews were beaten on the streets of New York City and Los Angeles, Synagogues were vandalized across the US, a convoy of cars in London draped in Palestinian flags terrorized a local Jewish community, one even used a megaphone to shout “fuck the Jews, rape their daughters,” while the world cheered it on, justified it, or ignored it. Many of those who were indifferent to May 2021’s spike in antisemitism voiced their outrage a few months earlier when January 6th rioters wore “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirts to storm the capitol. It was then I first noticed that the morality of denouncing antisemitism depends on the identity of the antisemite. More often than not, the motivations for condemning antisemitism weren’t about standing up for Jews, but about scoring political points. It’s common to see politicians and public figures condemn antisemitism when it comes from across the aisle, but not so much when it’s from their own side.
While Jews were aghast that AOC voted against Iron Dome funding, bleeding heart leftists’ “concern for antisemitism” extended only to GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comments blaming Jews for the California wildfires–which, while outrageous and offensive, is clearly less serious than a US politician’s desire to render our Israeli family and friends defenseless against rocket attacks.
In early 2022, news spread that an armed man had entered a synagogue and was holding congregants hostage in Colleyville, Texas. Immediately, activists took to social media to denounce white supremacy and the rise of antisemitism on the right. Yet, once details about the assailant and his Islamist motive emerged, concern for Jews held at gunpoint completely dissipated. The tone quickly changed, and soon, instead of condemning the terrorist or his ideology, activists on twitter said things such as “You’re about to hear some ugly and vicious Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry this weekend…people will use it to divide Jewish and Muslim communities…don’t fall for it.”
Even Jewish activists like Adam Eli shared this sentiment while Jews were still being held hostage inside a synagogue. Another Jewish activist, Mattxiv–who tweeted extensively about the Colleyville Synagogue hostage crisis–quickly deleted his tweets about the importance of speaking out against antisemitism.
In the wake of May 2021’s spike in antisemitism and the Iron Dome funding controversy, the left’s reaction to the Colleyville synagogue attack was the nail in the coffin of ignoring antisemitism. The true irony is that this is a group furiously dedicated to condemning every kind of bigotry known to man. Yet, they couldn’t bring themselves to utter a few words when Jews were in actual physical danger. For a year and a half, the left was repeatedly caught with its pants around its proverbial ankles condemning only the ‘right’ kind of antisemitism, while the wrong kind of antisemitism went unchecked.
Luckily for leftists, Kanye West presented a unique opportunity to condemn antisemitism in November 2022. I am, of course, referring to his twitter rampage declaring “death [sic] con 3” on Jews and singing Hitler’s praises. This was the good kind of antisemitism; the flavor of antisemitism that is socially acceptable–even encouraged, to condemn. It was around this time when I received an Instagram message from Hacks actress Hannah Einbinder saying she loved me, “knew how exhausting this moment was [for Jews],” and “was so proud and grateful.”
Eleven months later would be the deadliest single day for the Jews since the Holocaust; 1200 slaughtered in the most brutal of ways, 250 kidnapped, and several thousands injured. By that time, Hannah’s fiery passion for fighting antisemitism seemingly burned out. The first time in the nearly 17 months since October 7th that Einbinder even acknowledged the massacre’s victims was as an afterthought—while condemning Israel’s response during an acceptance speech after receiving an award from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). In the speech, Einbinder also denounced Elon Musk’s Nazi salute at Trump’s rally . The next day, she co-posted with UNRWA–whose workers notoriously participated in the October 7th Massacre.
Reasonable people understand that killing and kidnapping people is worse than insulting them. If given the choice between October 7th and a hundred Nazi salutes from Elon Musk, the obvious one is the latter. Yet, in her speech, Hannah Einbinder insisted that only Elon Musk’s Nazi salute and other right-wing antisemitism made her “feel unsafe.” Needless to say, Einbinder did not mention that she “felt unsafe” by equally outrageous gestures like calls to globalize the intifada or the display of PFLP, Hamas, and Hezbollah flags displayed at nationwide protests.
While Musk’s Nazi salute, Kanye’s twitter outbursts, or right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories are outrageous, and disgusting, we must reckon with the fact that many who denounce these gestures do so only for political gain. Similarly, conservatives will happily condemn antisemitic sayings like “globalize the intifada” or flags of terrorist organizations dedicated to destroying the Jewish people while staying silent when their republican colleagues blame Jews for natural disasters or claim that there were “fine people on both sides” at white supremacist marches. The reality is that people who are truly serious about antisemitism will condemn all antisemitism, even when it’s politically inconvenient.
For those of us outside the American bubble, none of this is surprising. We’ve always known that Jewish safety is conditional—on how likable we are, how quiet we stay, and how well we fit the narrative. When activists cry for justice but fall silent as Jewish blood spills, when celebrities DM support but can’t spare a sentence for 1200 murdered Jews, it becomes clear: the outrage isn’t about us. It never was. It's about branding, optics, and tribal loyalty. And when antisemitism becomes just another pawn in the culture war, Jews become acceptable collateral. Until calling out all antisemitism is seen as a moral obligation, not a political inconvenience, none of these “allies” are actually standing with us. They’re just standing where the cameras are.