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.




opinion
Purim in Okinawa: A Chaplain Realizes
He Almost Missed His Calling
Rabbi Zevi Lowenberg
J ust like millions of Jews around
the world, I am immersed in
Purim preparations, both spiri-
tual and logistical. I am taking
stock of the stock of groggers
and hamentaschen, finding chari-
ties and organizations for matanot l’evyonim, gifts
to the poor, and organizing a megillah reading. I am
contemplating the ancient story of vulnerability and
courage in which a Jewish community saved itself.

The Book of Esther has special resonance for
me this year. It’s my first at Kadena Air Base on
Okinawa, the tiny tropical island that’s home to more
than 26,000 American service members and their
families. I serve as chaplain to the Jewish commu-
nity, about 50 strong.

Life here is entirely colored by the experience
of being at the “tip of the spear” in the Pacific. We
sit closer geographically to both China and North
Korea than we do to Tokyo, the capital of Japan.

Deployments both off island and to the island are
numerous and constant. The constant ear-splitting
noise of fighter jets reminds us of the freedom we
enjoy and the threat that looms across the sea.

These aren’t air shows the pilots are training for: It’s
the ever-present potential of conflict. When we go
through a base-wide exercise, it’s not just for play,
it’s for the worst-case scenario that is a constant
prick in the back of our minds.

The approach of Purim heightens our sense of
the incredible responsibility to be the protectors,
not just of ourselves, but of our community and our
neighbors. Serving side-by-side with the Japanese
forces, on deployments with allies in the region and
from around the world, traveling to different bases in
the Indo-Pacific region, each of these moments has
caused me to reflect on my opportunity as a rabbi
to be the calming presence and to be the vessel into
which people are able to pour their deepest worries,
their darkest moments, and find light. Mordechai’s act
of heroism started with one simple action: listening.

Yet for the 10,000 Jews serving in the U.S. armed
forces around the world, there are only 37 chaplains.

What’s more, in the Indo-Pacific region, which is
increasingly important as the United States contends
with China, we have 400 Jewish service members and
only two chaplains. I am one, and the other, based in
Korea, is scheduled to leave in the next six months.

When Jewish military communities don’t have access
to a Jewish chaplain, they are vulnerable. Some have
suffered from an inadequate supply of ritual foods
and objects at holiday times. Others are scared or
anxious and seek in-person counsel, not a Zoom
session. Until recently, the military Jewish commu-
nity of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa was conducting
Shabbat services in a shipping container after being
ejected from the chapel.

Jews like these are in deep need of a Mordechai,
someone who will sit, listen, care. Mordechai’s
service became an essential element in saving not
just the life of the king, but the lives of so many
members of the Jewish communities of Persia. I am
so grateful to do this work. Yet even my service as
chaplain almost didn’t happen.

pursue that same career, but that being a rabbi in the
military was exactly what I was being called to do.

It was JWB, for example, who intervened to find
the Djibouti Jews an alternative to their shipping
container. And it was JWB that “endorsed” me to
the Department of Defense after I was ordained
in 2020 by the Jewish Theological Seminary, the
Conservative Movement’s flagship institution. Since
1945, when Americans first took Okinawa during the
waning months of World War II, there has been a
continued rabbinic presence on the island. I am proud
of the lineage I now inherit as the senior active duty
rabbi in the region, especially as the eyes of the world
turn towards us and the growing threats in the region.

We need more Jewish chaplains to keep creating
places of community for Jewish military families in
this ever-changing landscape of military life.

Growing up in Baltimore, I knew that Jews had
been serving in the military since the founding of
our nation, taking part in the battles and wars that
defined each generation. I cherished the stories
of my grandfathers in World War II, serving both at
home and overseas, the stories of my great-uncles
in Korea, my dad’s generation and their experiences
surrounding Vietnam. I too wanted to serve in the
military, wherever that path would lead. Unlike most
of my high school friends who chose to go to schools
with large Jewish communities, I chose West Virginia
University in the hills of Morgantown, where I joined
the Air Force ROTC program, completely unaware of
the chaplaincy and rabbis who served alongside the
soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen.

I found Jewish life at Hillel and, at Hillel, I found a
siddur, a prayer book published by the JWB Jewish
Chaplains Council in the World War I era. Now a
signature program of the JCC Association of North
America, JWB was founded in 1917 to serve Jewish
soldiers fighting in that conflict. The book’s black
cover had grayed, its white pages yellowed with
time, the whole thing one strong breeze from simply
turning to dust. There was no saying how it had
ended up on the bookshelves there, but it spoke
to me, its history and heritage. That book planted a
seed, which flowered when I met an actual chaplain
in person and it dawned on me that not only could I
Mordechai understood that to speak is essential,
but only if he was able to listen first. I write this article
because I want other young people to understand,
as I did after finding that prayer book and meeting
that chaplain, that this holy work is an option for
them, too.

We need more Jewish chaplains to keep creating
places of community for Jewish military families in
this ever-changing landscape of military life. The
Jewish community is better served when families
and kids know that this job exists and that we as
military rabbis exist, when it’s spoken of in the
community not as a job that was once done, but that
is currently being done around the world, by Jewish
clergy from the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox
and Chabad movements, when kids know all their
options. Representation matters — in sports, in
politics, in media and in the clergy, and it is my hope
that one day kids will grow up knowing that they can
be authentically Jewish, that they can serve their
country as both military leaders and Jewish commu-
nity leaders, in the same incredible job that I am so
privileged to have today. ■
Rabbi Zevi Lowenberg, an Air Force captain, is a
Baltimore native and a chaplain serving the Jewish
community at the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa,
Japan. JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
15