America, Antisemitism, and J.D. Vance

Vice-President J.D.Vance

One of the most comforting aspects of the American ethos is the founding principle that protects the right of every American to practice their religious beliefs freely, without government interference. This right is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Along with this protection comes a corollary principle: people of all faiths are welcome here. As it pertains to us, the Jewish people, we were warmly welcomed and embraced by George Washington himself in his 1790 letter to a synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island.

I believe that the warm embrace of the Jewish people by America’s first president is rooted in the Judeo-Christian values derived from a shared biblical narrative. (Please do not conflate theology with values. Our theologies are entirely incompatible, but our moral frameworks draw from the same biblical stories governing human behavior. Values later carried by Christians into their New Testament originate in that same narrative.)

Although we Jews have suffered our share of antisemitism in this country over its nearly 250 year history, the vast majority of our experience here has been overwhelmingly positive. I don’t believe any fair-minded person would say otherwise.

That said - and as noted - antisemitism has never entirely disappeared. There have always been right-wing extremists who harbored antisemitic views, sometimes with deadly consequences. After the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed to the world following World War II, that kind of extremism was largely relegated to the fringe—few in number and not generally seen as a threat to the everyday life of American Jews. While some mainstream antisemitism undoubtedly persisted in certain circles, it mostly took the form of relatively harmless stereotyping, often lampooned by Jewish comedians themselves.

For the most part, Jews came to be seen as fellow citizens, hardly different from their Christian counterparts. By the late twentieth century, Jews were fully accepted and immersed in every aspect of American culture. That was, by and large, the substance of mainstream America.

But with the rise of the Palestinian cause—framed as an oppressed, indigenous people suffering under a powerful occupier—many of its proponents found their way into academia through diversity initiatives. Combined with leftist ideologues who embraced this narrative, antisemitism on the left was born and has been steadily ascendant ever since.

While studies show that antisemitism exists in roughly equal measure on both the right and the left, they also show that approximately 80 percent of Americans harbor no antisemitic feelings at all. Even today, despite relentless negative rhetoric promoted by Palestinians and their willing enablers in academia, amplified by a mainstream media that too often repeats these claims unquestioningly.

But still - I have always taken comfort in the belief that mainstream America does not buy into the Palestinian narrative, in part because of how that movement has historically pursued its cause: airline hijackings, kidnappings, suicide bombings on buses, in restaurants, and at weddings filled with innocent people. No civilized person can justify such acts. The United States got a taste of that kind of terrorism on 9/11. I had believed that experience would permanently end any sympathy Palestinians had enjoyed.

I was wrong.

Then came October 7, 2023 - the Israeli version of 9/11... 

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