opinion
A Snapshot of American Jew
Hatred Melissa Langsam Braunstein
H eadlines reverberate with news of rising antisem-
itism. But how widespread is Jew hatred in the
United States?
The Anti-Defamation League has queried Americans
about antisemitism since 1964. Its latest survey
captured changes, including the virtual disappearance
of the gap between traditionally tolerant young adults
(ages 18 to 30) and older Americans.

Beyond that, 39% of respondents believed American
Jews are “more loyal to Israel than America.” Some
36% said “Jews do not share my values.” A total of
26% thought that “Jews have too much power in the
business world,” and 20% believed “Jews have too
much power in the United States today.”
Overall, the number of Americans agreeing with at
least six of 11 tropes jumped from 11% to 20% between
2019, when ADL last conducted this survey, and 2022.

Is a near-doubling possible?
“It is too soon to say that antisemitism has doubled,”
said David Hirsh, senior lecturer in sociology at
Goldsmiths, University of London and Academic
Director of the London Centre for the Study of
Contemporary Antisemitism. “We’ll see what the next
survey says, and the one after that. But this fi gure is
coherent with my own experience and judgment.”
Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage
Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, doesn’t
believe that antisemitism has doubled. Greene noted
the American population has remained fairly constant;
no particular incident between 2019 and 2022 should
have multiplied antisemitism; and people’s opinions
remain “stable over time.” However, “what has dramat-
ically changed is that people are willing to tell the
surveyor” — in this case, a faceless Internet poll — that
they view Jews negatively.

America’s experienced a “cumulative deterioration
[of restraint] in polite society,” observed Greene. The
Kurtzer Continued from page 13
relationships with local governments and law enforce-
ment, using the imperfect “defi nitions of antisemitism”
as they are intended. It means supporting lawsuits and
other creative legal strategies, like Integrity First for
America’s groundbreaking eff orts against the Unite the
Right rally organizers, which stymie such movements in
legal gridlock and can help bankrupt them.

It means practicing the lost art of consensus Jewish
14 MARCH 2, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
pandemic also “broke [Americans] a bit. … [It] broke
down norms of civil discourse that would stop people
from saying impolite things out loud.” Put diff erently,
Americans with hateful opinions now feel emboldened
to tell strangers. These individuals “may feel like they’re
winning, have support and are part of a group.”
So, what is the reality of American antisemitism?
Alvin Rosenfeld, professor of Jewish Studies and
director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary
Antisemitism at Indiana University, said, “We live in a
time when anti-Jewish hostility has been on the rise, at
least since the turn of the millennium.”
Explaining younger Americans’ increased animosity
towards Jews, he pointed to social media, where “many
sites are antisemitic and anti-Israel, and they imbibe
that.” Additionally, many college campuses “expose
students to prejudicial views about Israel and Jews.”
Then there is the far-left congressional “Squad” of
progressives and celebrities, who have also modeled
anti-Israel invective as the socially acceptable way
to express anti-Jewish sentiment. Relatedly, ADL’s
survey found 21% of young adults “agree[d] with fi ve
or more anti-Israel statements,” while only 11% of older
Americans did.

ADL’s survey “adapted questions from [Daniel]
Allington and Hirsh’s Antizionist Antisemitism Scale,”
which Hirsh explained looks at “the relationship
between ‘classic’ antisemitism or antisemitism that
would be widely recognized as such, and antizionist
antisemitism that is hotly contested.”
Some 40% of respondents adopted Holocaust
inversion, agreeing that “Israel treats the Palestinians
like the Nazis treated the Jews.” A total of 24%
believed that “Israel and its supporters are a bad
infl uence on our democracy,” accepting “Jews as a
universal evil,” elucidated Hirsh. Another 23% leaned
into the myth of Jewish media control, agreeing
that “Israel can get away with anything because its
supporters control the media.” And 18% were “not
collective politics.

It means supporting institutions like the ADL, even as
they remain imperfect, even as they sometimes get
stuck in some of the failed strategies I decried above,
because they have the relationships with powerful
current and would-be allies.

It means real education and relationship-building
with other ethnic and faith communities that is neither
purely instrumental nor performative.

And most importantly, it means investing in the
plodding, unsexy work of supporting vibrant American
comfortable spending time with people who openly
support Israel,” namely, the vast majority of Jews.

And 10% are so antagonistic they agree that “Israel
does not have a right to defend itself against those
who wish to destroy it.”
Hirsh observed, “What we know for sure is that if you
hate Israel, you’re more likely to hate Jews, and if you
hate Jews, you’re more likely to hate Israel.”
Or as Izabella Tabarovsky, senior advisor at the
Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, refl ected: “This
survey illustrates once again how tightly demonization
of the Jewish state, which is becoming increasingly
normalized in American progressive discourse, is inter-
twined with the demonization of the Jewish people
(which is typical of right-wing antisemitism) — and how
increasingly meaningless is the distinction between
the two.”
Based on these fi ndings, 20% to 25% of the American
population embraces Jew hatred. Greene said “the
true rate of antisemitism has to be higher than the
revealed rate” because some respondents adjust their
responses to direct questions about bigotry.

Rosenfeld suggested education and more organized
Israel trips so that Americans can see Israel’s reality
fi rsthand.

For her part, Tabarovsky advised American Jewish
leaders to learn about the demonization of Israel and
Zionism; devise strategies to counter it; and teach all
of the broader American Jewish community, which
currently fi nds itself defenseless against this form of
defamation and hate.

ADL’s forthcoming reports on its 2022 survey should
provide more granular data about the contours of
American antisemitism. In the meantime, though, it’s
clear that much work remains for those wishing to
combat antisemitism. ■.

Melissa Langsam Braunstein is an independent
writer based in metro Washington, D.C.

democracy because stable liberal democracies have
been the safest homes for minorities, Jews included.

The real work right now is not baseball bats or
billboards; it is not Jewish pride banalities or Twitter
refereeing: It is quiet and powerful and, if done right, as
American Jews demonstrated in the last century, it will
serve us for the long term. ■
Yehuda Kurtzer is the president of the Shalom
Hartman Institute of North America and host of the
Identity/Crisis podcast.