No, You Don't Have to Hate Jews to be Antisemitic

Announcing a new series around the ways antisemitism is misunderstood in American culture. First up: the myth that being antisemitic requires hating Jews.

The discourse around antisemitism is officially, completely, and utterly broken. There are many people and organizations responsible for this, some out of ignorance, some out of strategic malevolence, and some out of a definition of antisemitism based more in nationalism than in protecting Jews.

Regardless of the reasons, it is vital we address the problem at its core. Antisemitism is spreading, and showing no signs of slowing. If only the discourse around this subject was deeper, we might have been a lot better at seeing it coming and addressing it earlier.

For example, I have been working for weeks gathering data for a piece about why I consider Elon Musk to be America’s leading purveyor of antisemitism in the United States. I truly believe the matter needs to be considered an emergency-level problem. But I realized quickly that the case would be impossible to make without first breaking apart a ton of preconceptions before I even got to the evidence.

So that’s exactly what I plan to do. Today I begin a new series on myth surrounding antisemitism, why they’re so dangerous, and how to reframe our thinking on the subject. I truly believe this is an urgent necessity for anyone who cares about fighting this scourge, so I hope you’ll join me on this journey.

This first piece will be about addressing one of the most foundational and problematic myths about antisemitism in America. It’s one that is used repeatedly to dismiss the very real dangers Jews face, while also enabling the hate to continue to spread until it’s too late.

Myth 1: Antisemitism Requires Hating Jews

Whether Kyrie Irving saying, “I don’t have hate in my heart for the Jewish people or anyone that identifies as a Jew” or Donald Trump repeatedly stating how much he loves Jews despite repeating the same ideologies that antisemitic motivate mass shooters, the idea that antisemitism necessitates an overt hatred of Jews is one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the topic.

The confusion this myth generates leads to massive problems. It allows antisemitism to spread while simultaneously giving an excuse to ignore it.  The more aligned someone is to someone spreading antisemitism, the more likely they are to say things like, “He doesn’t hate Jews” when referring to the person.

So, if hating Jews isn’t the only form of antisemitism, then what is antisemitism?

The Reality: Antisemitism is a Narrative to Make Sense of the World

Think about the more common antisemitic conspiracy theories you’ve heard. Jews control the government. Jews control the media, Hollywood, etc. Jews are orchestrating an invasion of brown and Black immigrants to dilute white nations of their heritage.

All of these are not exactly bullet points of bigotry, like the current most popular demarkation of antisemitism passed around these days, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition, which has been adopted by the State Department, among many others.

This definition may be useful for acts of overt bigotry, but it is less helpful in helping people understand the ways in which antisemitism actually lives and breathes in the world.

Those conspiracy theories, as well as the many other antisemitic tropes, are, in essence, stories. Narratives. This is what most conspiracy theories are, and why so many conspiracy theories are antisemitic. 

Let’s say someone believes that there is a massive conspiracy to make men feminine, weak, and queer. This is a conspiracy theory with massive traction today, especially thanks to the trans and drag show moral panic spreading like wildfire through the rightwing media.  To believe such a conspiracy is absurd: it means believing that men are both simultaneously the strongest people on earth as well as the biggest victims. It also means believing that some of the most vulnerable populations in the world, trans and queer people, are outsmarting and outmaneuvering the master race of (white, Christian) men.  Further, you’d have to find a way to justify hurting such vulnerable people.

This story is similar to Great Replacement, the conspiracy theory that posits that somehow black and brown immigrants are both inferior to white Christian men while also invading their nations.

The only way to justify the inhumanity towards and dehumanization of these vulnerable groups requires seeing oneself as a victim. And the only way to feel a victim is to believe that there is actually something much stronger than you out there controlling things.  A villain.

Yes, many people directly believe that Jews fill that role. But more often than not, it is not expressed that way (at first).  And most who believe these stories, before things get really dark, don’t even think of Jews specifically. That is what makes them tropes, as opposed to Jew hatred.  

People are looking for a way to make sense of the world. And people are by definition created to make sense of the world through narrative. The stories we tell about ourselves and others are how we can turn what often feels like a painful, chaotic, messy reality into one that makes sense.  We all need stories to make sense of the world.

Where conspiracy theories diverge from normal narratives is in the simplicity, the lack of connection to reality, and the us vs. them nature that turns their believers into the de facto heroes.  

The problem, among many, with conspiracy theories is that at some point they require naming the enemy.  And inevitably, as one goes further down the rabbit hole of these narratives, the layers of enemy naming get further and further removed. They start as “Soros,” evolve into a “global Satanic cabal,” transform into the “Rothschilds” before finally…

And so, when you look at it from that perspective, Jew hatred is actually the end result of antisemitism.  By the time people getting to hating Jews, there is no turning back. The buy in is full, and the other minorities targeted have already been sacrificed.

This is why antisemitism as a narrative has to be where the fight against antisemitism starts. Right now, we do the opposite. We wait for Kanye to scream “DEATH CON 3” at Jews or for Jews to be shot in synagogues before we discuss antisemitic tropes. It required the worst massacre of Jews in American history for us to start talking about the danger of Trump spreading Soros conspiracy theories. And after that, the media and thus the rest of America promptly moved on, leaving an opening for the right to continue pushing Soros conspiracy theories.

Now you can find these conspiracy theories every day on Fox News, and repeated almost daily on the most popular show on the channel, on social media, and spread by Republican politicians.  

And there is another place they show up: in shooter manifestos. In many manifestos of hateful shooters, even when they target other minority groups (such as in Buffalo and El Paso), Soros conspiracy theories are mentioned.  And by then, of course, they know that “Soros” actually means “Jews.”

This is the result of a media and rhetorical environment in which only open Jew hatred is acknowledged as antisemitism, and the narrative of antisemitic conspiracy theories are largely ignored.  It fits rather well with America’s other larger problems, such as dealing with symptoms instead of diseases, effects instead of causes, and emergencies instead of prevention.

As a Jew, I cannot abide that for my people, and I cannot abide that for the many other minorities that are sucked into the danger of these narratives.

It’s time we changed the order of things and started with first things first: narratives before murders.

Stay tuned for Myth #2: “Antisemitism is Only About Jews” in the next installment of this series.