They’re not pretending any more. Americans who were previously careful to claim they were “anti-Zionist, not antisemitic” have been emboldened since October 7. While they may still point at Israel or Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, they openly target Jews inside the United States.
The marginalisation of Zionists on college campuses and in left-wing spaces isn’t new, but the problem has intensified. Observe the places protested – or people attacked – and it’s clear there is an effort to stigmatise Jews playing out at synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses, in Jewish neighbourhoods and elsewhere.
For example, masked men marched through a Jewish area in Queens, New York with a Palestinian flag last December, “circling multiple Menorahs”, as FreedomNews.TV reported.
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters gathered outside a synagogue in Teaneck, New Jersey hosting an Israeli real estate fair in March, and a SWAT team had to be dispatched. The New York Times reported that the “police had to break up a few potential fights.” The following month there was a protest at another Teaneck synagogue at a fundraiser for ZAKA, the Israeli first responders who care for victims of terrorism and other disasters. A second Israeli real estate fair at a Los Angeles synagogue turned violent in June. Political consultant Noah Pollak wrote in the Free Press: “Around 100 pro-Hamas activists attacked, bear-sprayed, harassed, and brawled with Jews” while police discouraged Jews from entering the synagogue and largely stood by. This past Sunday, about 60 Hamas supporters protested outside a synagogue in a Jewish area east of New York City.
Targeting centres of Jewish religious life extends to college campuses. Hillel Jewish student centres on university campuses were the scenes of protests with violent threats at Hunter College and Baruch College, both part of the City University of New York (CUNY), earlier this month.
Jewish food and Jewish-owned businesses are also treated as fair game. Five hundred anti-Israel protesters rallied outside Philadelphia falafel shop Goldie last December, accusing the Israeli-born Jewish owner of “genocide”. A vandal graffitied “genocide supporters” across two Jewish-owned stores in a Jewish area north of New York City in January. The same month, flyers encouraged San Francisco residents to boycott six Jewish-owned restaurants. In April, anti-Israel activists added “Boycott Israeli goods: Contaminated with Apartheid & Zionism” stickers to Passover food at a DC-area grocery store. A vandal spray-painted “Stop genocide” and “Free Palestine” on a Jewish-owned bagel store in Miami in June. This month, campus hostility followed Hillel-affiliated students to dinner at a kosher restaurant in Manhattan, where protesters shouted abuse and threatened students and other nearby Jews. According to Tablet, the police merely moved the mob five feet from the restaurant’s entrance. On Twitter, @ManhattanMingle reported there are also now calls to boycott a Manhattan hotel with a kosher cafe “because the owners are Jewish and have a son in the IDF”.
More generally, this aggressive minority of Americans opposes Jews participating in public life. Masked protesters recently interrupted a Washington DC event featuring CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash discussing her new book about the 1872 election. According to a video on Twitter from citizen journalist @thestustustudio, two protesters interrupted the event by screaming that Bash is an AIPAC-paid liar who is “complicit in the genocide”.
And what has been the response? Miami’s mayor helped clean up the vandalised bagel shop. And an assemblyman showed up at the synagogue targeted by protesters on Sunday east of New York City, where the county’s new anti-masking law enabled an arrest.
These are some of the exceptions, though – especially in New York. Too many government officials are missing in action and, if they do comment, there are typically no meaningful follow-up actions. Meanwhile, many Americans remain silent.
Is it any wonder that a coalition of “anti-Zionist” organisations is encouraging Americans to “reject Zionism” by attacking mainstream American Jewish institutions such as Hillel? Or that an advocacy organisation – whose national leader praised October 7 – publicly opposes a Los Angeles City Council motion requiring protesters to respect a buffer area around religious institutions, not block entrances, and keep eight feet from those they approach non-consensually?
The ante continues to be upped, and that will continue until those stigmatising Jews encounter vigorous opposition. Government officials must do better, but everyday Americans also need to be more vocal.
Open discrimination against Jews isn’t progress. It’s a red flag about the state of American society.
