Is it Antisemitic?

Growing up in one of the few Jewish families in suburban Boston, I experienced antisemitism. A couple of fights; some taunts (“Mike the kike” stands out as one of the more creative); a few pennies pitched at my feet. It was far less common and intense than my parents experienced, which in turn was less than their parents experienced, which was an order of magnitude less than their parents experienced. I saw it as the kind of chronic, low-grade price for being Jewish. Not really a big deal, especially when compared with the pogroms and the Holocaust.

Another reason it wasn’t a big deal was because of the role that Israel played in my psyche. Israel was a safe haven. Imperfect to be sure (I visited for the first time when I was in college), but a country where there was no price for being Jewish. It was also a country that actively stood for the defense of Jews across the world. There was something that was deeply empowering about that. I never felt like I was in physical danger due to my Jewishness, but its very existence made a real difference. There was a secure place from which to counter threats, and a place of refuge should things go horribly wrong in doing so.

That said, in terms of Jewish history the United States is a remarkable country that has allowed Jews enough breathing room and legal protections to thrive. In college, I do not remember experiencing any antisemitism and I began to increasingly feel a disconnect between my own sense of safety and opportunity and the constant drumbeat coming from the institutional Jewish community about the dangers of antisemitism. Surely, antisemitism was much less of an issue than it was being made out to be.

I was not the only person who felt this. Professionally, I entered Jewish studies in the heyday of the movement against the “lachrymose” historiography of the Jews. Earlier academic histories of the Jews focused on their persecution. Jewish history was portrayed as a never-ending tale of woes. In the middle of the twentieth century, though, historians (led by Salo Baron) pushed back against this narrative. Jewish history should be seen as tale of repeated creative adaptations. This was an upbeat narrative that told of Jewish thriving, even under sometimes adverse conditions. This approach to Jewish history became increasingly popular in the United States, although it took longer to penetrate into Israeli historiography. My point is simply that I was, and remain, a product of my time, with my eye toward that which was shared between Jews and their neighbors rather than that which drove them apart.

Although I was trained to recognize and analyze the anti-Judaism that permeated early Christian texts and the difficult relationships they generated, and to a more limited degree how these sentiments were expressed in early Islamic texts, I never really thought about teaching a course on antisemitism per se. I did not want to be in the camp of the alarmists. It seemed more important to me to promote a more “realistic” narrative in which Jews were active agents and not passive victims.

Paris came first. And then Pittsburgh. And Charlottesville. And suddenly all did not seem well in America or the West anymore. So a few years ago I decided to teach a course that I called Antisemitism: A History. It seemed to go well. What it did not prepare me - or my students - for, though was October 7 and its aftermath, particularly on college campuses.

As I begin to prepare for teaching this class again in the fall, I continue to reel from the events of this academic year. How do I understand and frame them for myself, no less for my students? How can I help to generate critical understanding, and not simply fuel partisan rancor?

I do not yet have answers, and do not expect to have fully figured things out by the fall. But I do have some preliminary thoughts that might help me find the way through the confusing thicket of claims about contemporary antisemitism. I offer them here to invite you to think with me.

Definitional Approaches

Is Zionism a form of racism? Is a call for divestment from Israel antisemitic? Is Israel genocidal? Is calling calling Israel “genocidal” a form of antisemitism or racism? Framed in this manner, these questions at hear boil down to definition. What do we mean by each of these terms? Thus, any discussion of antisemitism must begin with a reflection on definitions.

It is imperative that we recognize that two of the terms being commonly bandied about, “antisemitism” and “racism”, are intrinsically weaponized terms. There is nothing objective about them (despite the attempts of some writers to make racism in particular a descriptive rather than value-laden term). They are bad words that we use to characterize, rightly or wrongly, people we determine are evil or espousing ideas that deem evil. The history of these terms in complex and may not always have had the nuances that they do now, but in this case origins are largely irrelevant. Except in some very odd and perverse circles (catch the weaponized, vague use of language here?), we never call someone a racist or antisemite as a compliment.

“Zionism,” though, is not intrinsically value-laden. Nor, though, does it always have a clear meaning. Like most “-isms” and other political movements, “Zionism” comes in a huge range of forms. Most people would probably not debate its basic meaning, as “the [modern political] movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.” Some Zionists have an expansive definition of “the land of Israel,” some do not. Some Zionists connect the political movement so particular economic forms (e.g., socialism), while others do not. Zionists debate the meaning of “self-determination” and “statehood.” Just as there is no single form of communism or democracy, so too there is no single or canonical full expression of Zionism. There is nothing inconsistent, in theory or practice, to being a committed Zionist who believes that Palestinians should live in dignity both within Israeli society and in their own state alongside Israel.

Racism is a tricker “-ism” because it relies on an a priori belief that there are “races.” Yet we know now that while “race” may have some genetic underpinnings (especially in terms of phenotype, or some physical characteristics), it is mostly a social construct. The first step of racism is to create a race, a group of people usually classed together according to certain arbitrarily selected phenotypical markers. To make this a bit more concrete, we know that left-handedness, propensity to heart disease, and the experienced flavor of cilantro are all genetically marked. With the limited exception of left-handedness, though, people who share these markers are usually not grouped together into something called a “race.” We create a race only to discriminate against it. The movement is from racism to the creation of race, not from the existence of race to racism. In 1975, the United Nations passed Resolution 3379, declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” They then clearly had second thoughts. In 1991, they repealed the resolution by an overwhelming vote. They never clarified what had changed.

Antisemitism, racism, and Zionism have no meaning in the law. “Genocide,” on the other hand, does. Both U.S. and international law offer definitions that pin the term to a deliberate attempt “to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.” To date, while some international groups have flirted with the idea that Israel is committing “genocide” in their current war in Gaza, the International Court of Justice has specifically and pointedly refused to label Israel’s actions as genocide. Genocide, though, can bear a second usage, one that like “antisemitism” and “racism” is intrinsically weaponized. To call Israel “genocidal” is a smear meant to offend and isolate, not a statement of fact.

Finally, most of the international bodies that apply legal terms such as “genocide” are not moral bodies, they are political entities. Bodies like the U.N., the U.S. State Department, and the International Court of Justice, are all political entities working to promote the interests of their members and backers. The fundamental purpose of the U.N., for example, is to help us all avoid nuclear annihilation, at which it has done a top rate job. Secondarily, it helps enemies to avoid war, a goal it which it is significantly less successful. Finally, it facilitates our ability to address larger global issues, a goal that it only rarely accomplishes. When the U.N. declares that an act is bad, it is first and foremost advancing the political agendas of its member states. Non-profit groups are rarely more objective, as they all tend to hue closely to the positions of their own self-selected constituencies.

The end result is that we are left in a definitional thicket, in which language is often used precisely because it is imprecise. Recognizing the problem, This particular charge is addressed in a policy document known as IHRA. In 2005, a European agency created a working, non-legally binding definition of antisemitism, to be used to provide guidance for governments and agencies charged with and legislating on issues relating to bias toward Jews. According to their definition:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

This definition was formally adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016, which further fleshed out the definition with eleven examples that were meant not to be definitive, but to offer guidance. About half of them concern the State of Israel. A group of scholars, concerned that the focus on Israel might dampen legitimate debate about the actions of the Israeli government, formulated a competing definition known as the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Outside of a few limited academic and small left-leaning circles, the Jerusalem Declaration - which in my reading is quite similar to the IHRA definition - is largely ignored. The U.S. Department of State, for example, draws on the IHRA definition.

The IHRA definition is well-meaning and helpful, but it continues to work in the cramped definitional approach. Its purpose is to help us to determine what acts and speech we can “legitimately” (although not legally) label as “antisemitic.” There is some value in this approach, but the events of the last year have also show that confining the discussion of acts concerning Jews to definitions is, by itself, insufficient.

Antisemitism and Expressive Harm

Racism and antisemitism can be overt, aggressive, and undeniable. Such acts and words, though, constitute a tiny fraction of racism as it practiced in the real world today.

Today’s racism is more subtle. It is often couched in a set of loose symbols and memes that point toward rather than naming a position. It is cloaked in deniability even as it spreads its evil tentacles. How do we think about speech or other acts that make us uncomfortable when the perpetrators deny any ill intent?

It is in this very question that I think that we can see a way out of the definitional thicket. In his book, How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi reflects on how we identify racism. His focus is on policies: any policy that disproportionately negatively affects a particular demographic group is racist, whereas those that drive toward equality are antiracist. This approach shifts our lens from definitions to affects. If one demographic group is disproportionately affected by an action or discourse, those actions or words might be described as “racist.”

Kendi’s approach dovetails with the framework of expressive harm. Actions and words can undermine a person’s dignity, perpetuate stereotypes, or do other social and psychological damage. As individuals, we might experience expressive harm in “microaggressions.” As groups, we might see them as discrete expressions of racism.

One example of this dynamic is the controversy over the removal of Confederate statues. When set up about a century ago, they clearly were meant to assert White Supremacy. That, though, was a century ago. Now, for many of the defenders of these statues, they are morally neutral historical markers that should be preserved. On the other hand, most of the statues’ detractors thought that they were examples of expressive harm that continued to work on the African-American population in particular. There is no objective or definitional way to adjudicate this disagreement. Ultimately, many municipalities removed these statues (correctly, in my view) because they recognized that they were exerting a disproportionate expressive harm on a certain demographic group.

Academic arguments gave way to, or at least were settled by, real life experience.

Contexts

Language exists in contexts. For the purpose of this reflection, there are three contexts that are particularly important, intent, effects, and the mob.

Intent. Language that is unobjectionable in one context can become harmful in others. The issue here is usually the intent of the speaker/writer. A joke in one context can be a hostile attack in another. We are all sensitive to this, particularly when we are on our guard. Does the speaker mean us well or ill? Harsh language can be generated out of love as well as hate.

Take Israeli news. Like the United States, Israel has a robust free press that routinely, and sometimes quite harshly, criticizes policies and politicians. Within an Israeli context, such language, although sometimes contested, is understood as coming from a good place: the desire to create a better society. That same rhetoric, though, when used by those who oppose the very existence of Israel means something very different.

Effects. One of the scary things about Charlottesville and President Trump’s odd comment on it were not exactly the words themselves, which were often vague enough to offer their speakers some wiggle room, but the work that such language did on the general atmosphere. It “normalized” certain kinds of language that then pushed the boundary closer to truly aggressive language and violent behavior. Often, although not always, that is in fact the very intent of such language, whether consciously or not. An intimidating environment can encourage one’s opponents to self-censor, for fear of provoking violence.

Mobs. Over the past several months, we have seen protests against Israel. These protests were mostly peaceful, but they also sometimes used aggressive and deliberately imprecise language expressed in a hostile tone. There is nothing illegal about doing this, although once in a while the emotion and language does spill over into actual violence or it encourages some in the crowd toward violence.

Even putting the actual violence aside, mobs are context to which Jews (and others) can be particularly sensitive. Most Jews, from their childhood, have learned about the danger of mob; it was through impassioned mobs of people who thought themselves well-meaning and morally justified that multitudes of Jews were murdered. In any context in which Jews are “others,” mobs are potentially scary. This might be analogous to the way that many African-Americans feel about law enforcement. The vast majority of encounters between law-abiding African Americans and police officers are peaceful, but some are deadly. It is the threat of the deadly ones that generates distrust. Ta-Nahisi Coates writes eloquently of “the talk” that parents have with their children about how to deal with the police during a traffic stop in order to avoid a dangerous confrontation. Such a talk might be necessary, but it also reinforces distrust. For most Jews, the mob - no matter what it is aggressively shouting - is like that.

Frameworks, Not Definitions

I have attempted here to sketch out a general framework for understanding some of the speech that has pervaded college campuses (and beyond) this year. My goal is not to eschew definitions entirely, but to show how anti-Jewish, like other “racist” speech, goes beyond words. Even well-intentioned language can have terrible impacts. This post has already gotten too long, so I will save my thoughts for a future post on how this approach helps us to understand what is happening more broadly now, and the dramatic spike of “antisemitism” in the United States.