Antisemitism here and there

The difference between Israeli and American responses to Jew-hatred

The short period on the Hebrew calendar between Holocaust Remembrance Day, Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars, and Israel Independence Day - a period in Israel known as Aseret Y’mei Ha’T’kuma, the 10 days of rebirth - is an opportunity to reflect upon the symbolic disparity between these two key commemorative events. Much thought and writing has been dedicated to this subject in Israel, but the most poignant comparison is that the former is the result of the Jewish people without an army while the latter represents the Jewish people with an army.

It is around this time each year, because of Holocaust Remembrance Day, that the Anti-Defamation League publicizes the results of its annual survey on antisemitism in the United States, now home to the world’s second largest Jewish community.

The most recent survey, to no one’s surprise, reflects the growing number of antisemitic incidents recorded during the past year. According to the ADL report, “Over half (54%) of Jews in America have either experienced or witnessed some form of incident that they believed was motivated by antisemitism over the past five years.

About half (49%) of Jews have heard antisemitic comments, slurs or threats targeted at others. One in five (21%) have been the target of antisemitic comments, slurs or threats. The same number (22%) report vandalism, damage or defacement of a Jewish institution they are associated with because of antisemitism.

One in seven (14%) knew someone who was physically attacked because they were Jewish. One in 20 have had their home, car or property deliberately vandalized or defaced because of antisemitism (6%) or have been physically attacked (5%).

To these figures may be added the scurrilous conspiracy theory, echoing the 14th-century bubonic plague calumny that world Jewry is responsible for the creation and spread of the current novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic.

Antisemitism, no different than all other forms of social or racial prejudice, must be confronted and challenged. As an American Jew who spent his formative years in the United States but has been living in Israel for nearly four decades, I recognize a telling difference in the way American Jews and Israeli Jews react and relate to antisemitism.

Throughout the post-World War II era, even as is revealed in the recent ADL survey, the most common form of antisemitism known to American Jews has been verbal. Vandalism to property and physical assaults have been far less common.

OF COURSE, the more recent horrific exceptions to this rule were the cold-blooded shooting murders of Jewish worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in October 2018; the Chabad of Poway, California, shooting in April 2019; and the stabbings in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Monsey, New York in December 2019.

In contrast to American Jews, Israeli Jews are, in general, far less responsive to verbal and written expressions of antisemitism. American Jews typically take great offense and sense an atavistic threat to their security when exposed to any derision of Jews or the Jewish religion, even if couched in humor, and even if they are secular. History demonstrates that what begins at the verbal level has the potential to escalate into the potentially lethal physical realm.

In addition to verbal antisemitism, American Jews remain alert to the possibility - though rare these days due to strict federal laws - of discrimination in hiring practices, admissions policies or in the workplace. It is the American legal system upon which the American Jewish community has come to depend for protection from antisemitism.

Israeli Jews, particularly those raised in the Diaspora, are well aware of the antisemitism that exists in the US and elsewhere. They are not insensitive to it, but they care less.

Why? It is because this type of antisemitism - classic antisemitic caricatures, name-calling and conspiracy theories offered up by non-Jews in far-away places, but even found today in abundance over the Internet - has no direct effect on their daily lives. It is brought to their attention through various Israeli media.

Hearing or reading about antisemitism in New York, Miami or Los Angeles is to an Israeli Jew somewhat like reading a novel. They may be shocked, but they sense no personal looming danger, and feel no fear. Israelis look upon this antisemitism from afar and view those responsible as simply cretins. This is exactly the condition that the early Zionists sought to bring about with the creation of a Jewish nation-state.

Unfortunately, a different form and level of antisemitism, much more lethal than the chanting of hate calls or even the smashing of synagogue windows, does threaten the Jews of Israel. This antisemitism emanates from the Muslim world and today especially from Shi’ite Iran.

Iran not only promotes the hatred of Jews on a worldwide scale. It is also responsible for decades of deadly attacks on Israeli Jews beginning even before the creation of the state. Israel has nevertheless succeeded in undermining and deterring its enemies. It not only survives but thrives.

At its worst, the antisemitism that confronts Israel poses an existential threat and should rightly be the cause of national anxiety, from Metula to Eilat. Yet international surveys conducted in recent years consistently reveal that Israelis rank among the top 15 countries on a scale of happiness. There is a matter-of-factness, a feeling of normalcy and an internal security about being a Jew in Israel that cannot be found elsewhere. This outlook even finds expression in the ways in which Israel has employed its unique resources to battle the COVID-19 virus.

The going certainly hasn’t been easy, and the story of the first sovereign Jewish state in nearly 2,000 years is far from over. But there is a clear parallel and an historic lesson in the symbolic chasm that divides Holocaust Remembrance Day from Israel Independence Day, and also in the way American and Israeli Jews each confront the ongoing scourge of antisemitism.

The writer is the founder and director of iTalkIsrael in Efrat. italkisrael.com.