Defining Antisemitism Down: American Jews Are Tolerating the Intolerable

Shortly before the recent terror attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England, writer Ashley Rindsberg, attending services at another British synagogue, was told by a friend, “I reckon Jews have about 10 years left in this country.”

When news of the Manchester attack arrived, Rindsberg’s friend said simply, “You see what I mean. Ten years.”

British Jews, in other words, feel they are now facing the choice between “the suitcase or the coffin” and, naturally, must choose the suitcase.

This would be par for the course in Jewish history, sadly. There is not a country to which the Jews have wandered — including medieval England — from which they have not, at some point, been expelled.

American Jews, however, have always seen themselves as exceptions to this history. They believe that such an expulsion, whether by official or unofficial coercion, “can’t happen here.”

America, they believed and mostly still believe, is different.

Some 20 years ago, I might have agreed with them. I no longer do. I now believe that, if things do not change, and change soon, American Jews might have 25 years left in the United States. If they’re lucky, they may have 50. Either way, the American Jewish story, like so many others, will have an unhappy ending.

Many would consider this hysterical scaremongering, and perhaps understandably so. But I fear it is not.

For example, I have spoken with at least one young American Jew who, having suffered egregious antisemitism on campus, has decided to make Aliyah. Yes, this is only one example, and whether they will make Aliyah in the end is uncertain. But I do know that for a young American Jew even to consider the option would have been, two years ago, unthinkable.

In other words, it is already happening here.

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” George Orwell once wrote. American Jews need only see what is under their noses to know that it is happening here.

They can see it in the extraordinary extent to which they have already defined antisemitism down. Put simply, much like those young Jews who are now determined to flee, what was deemed unthinkable two years ago has already been normalized.

We need only look at what American Jews have already submitted to, largely without complaint:

They have been betrayed by personal friends and political “allies” at precisely the moment they most needed non-Jewish support.

They have been ostracized from social and professional spaces that once welcomed them.

They have been betrayed by the Democratic Party, their longtime political home, which has all but completely submitted to a takeover by its antisemitic wing.

They have been forced to avoid certain streets and neighborhoods for fear of their safety.

They have watched hate rallies and mobs pollute their cities, vandalize their property, attack their brethren, and generally conduct themselves like Cossacks while suffering few consequences for their crimes.

They have seen their children viciously abused in schools and universities.

They have suffered targeted harassment, intimidation, assault, and outright terrorism.

They have witnessed indifference to or outright collaboration in these crimes by the very non-Jewish authorities Jews once trusted to honor and secure their civil rights as American citizens.

None of this is unprecedented. It has already happened in France, Britain, and numerous other Western European countries in which Jewish life has now become essentially unlivable. There is no reason to think that, if it continues, the same will not happen in the United States.

It is true that there may be a temporary lull with the apparent end of the Israel-Hamas war, but Israel will fight another war. Even if, by some miracle, it doesn’t, the antisemites who emerged from their hiding places on October 8, 2023, will not disappear. Their genocidal ambitions are not confined to a specific conflict or war. They will continue their malevolent efforts by, as their favorite slogan says, “any means necessary.”

Sadly, because they have continuously defined antisemitism down, American Jews have already begun to accept all this as normal. They are adapting to what cannot be adapted to and tolerating what cannot be tolerated. They hope that lawsuits and onerous security measures at their institutions will succeed in stemming the tide.

But sadly, these are stopgap measures. The truth is that if American Jews persist in adapting and tolerating, then sooner or later, they will face the suitcase or the coffin.

In my new book Self Defense: A Jewish Manifesto, I argue that there can be only one answer to this: American Jews must rise in their own defense. Antisemites will always be there, but if Jews can set the price of antisemitism higher than that of leaving the Jews alone, all but a truly deranged few will back down.

This can only be accomplished, however, if the Jews learn to defend themselves by themselves, including through the legal and moral use of force. Accordingly, they must form a nationwide organization that can train them in things like self-defense techniques, weapons handling, tactical knowledge, and intelligence gathering, and then deploy them accordingly.

If American Jews find the will to do this, they may yet secure their future as Jews and Americans. If they do not, then I fear they will soon be saying, like their British brethren, “I reckon Jews have about 10 years left in this country.”

It will have happened here.

Benjamin Kerstein is an Israeli-American writer who is currently a fellow at the Z3 Institute. His book Self Defense: A Jewish Manifesto is available at Amazon via Wicked Son Books and the Z3 Project.