It’s no secret that these are bad times for most Jews in the diaspora. Anti-Semitism across the West has reached a virulence not seen since the 1930s.
A clear danger should lead to greater solidarity, but instead we are seeing greater division among Jews. Shockingly, the scourge of Jewish anti-Zionism has metastasized after October 7, often allying itself with Islamists committed to the eradication of Israel and, in some cases, assaults on Jewish communities around the world.
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The most obvious exemplar is Senator Bernie Sanders, a Brooklyn Jew at birth but seemingly now more comfortable with Islamists dominating his supposedly progressive movement. And he’s not alone.
The new head of Canada’s fiercely anti-Israel New Democrats, Avi Lewis, believes that he must “unlearn and unpack the Zionist myths” of his childhood while spouting the usual claims of genocide and apartheid. The U.K.’s Green Party, led by Jewish-born Zack Polanski, is filled with open anti-Semites and, as Spiked recently put it, has turned into “a vehicle for virulent hatred,” much of it directed at Britain’s Jews. And in Israel itself, author David Grossman and a coterie of left-wing Jewish activists have embraced the apartheid and genocide narratives as intrinsic to Israel’s policies.
Religious observance—wrapping tefillin, wearing kippahs, keeping kosher, or observing the sabbath—is not the measurement here. As Joseph Epstein has noted, many Jews are “Jew-ish,” meaning they identify with Judaism but at best sporadically practice its rituals and customs. What I’ll call UnJews should not be confused with those criticizing the Israeli government. Most Jews in America and Israel don’t approve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership. Longtime New York political consultant Hank Sheinkopf told me that “Netanyahu makes it more difficult” to defend Israel.
But dislike of Bibi does not excuse working with those who demonize Israel, a place central to Jewish identity. What makes such folks unJews is their knowingly embracing narratives about Jewish political, economic, and cultural power that have been the stock of anti-Semitism for centuries and are now hurled at Jews in public, even in former havens like Brooklyn.
Division among Jews is nothing new, of course. At the time of the Great Revolt against Rome, many prominent Jews backed the imperial power because they realized that nobody stood a chance against the dominant military of the day. The closest historical parallel to today’s unJews might be the backers of Stalin who embraced the Soviet State’s anti-religious views—even as Stalin’s fearsome secret police, the NKVD, hounded Jewish communities, closed synagogues, and tortured, imprisoned, and even killed rabbis.
Today’s unJews generally follow the Soviet line, defined by the theory of settler colonialism and charges of genocide. Like their Soviet predecessors, these anti-Israel firebrands employ graphic depictions of Jews that parallel those of the Nazis and the historic European far right. Steve Windmueller, an emeritus professor of Jewish Communal Studies at Hebrew Union College, told me that many of today’s unJews are “red diaper babies,” referring to people brought up by radical leftists. But Windmueller also detects an old Jewish tradition of “self-hate” as well as a desire for acceptance and “to be like everyone else.”
The prominence of the unJews belies their relatively small numbers. Roughly 88 percent of American Jews believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, but anti-Zionism has gained traction among younger, secular Jews. Forty-two percent of American Jewish adults under 35 believe Israel’s response to the October 7 pogrom was “unacceptable,” and nearly one-third (31 percent) think Hamas’s reasons for fighting Israel are valid.
The unJews have emerged in three critical fields in which Jews were once ascendant—politics, academia, and the media. The most obvious examples can be seen in Congress: Michigan’s Elissa Slotkin, California’s Adam Schiff, Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, and Hawaii’s Brian Schatz all recently backed Sanders’s drive to ban military sales to Israel. The most prominent Democrat defending Israel’s right to defend itself is the increasingly isolated—and not Jewish—Senator John Fetterman.
The widespread opposition to Israel among Democrats is driving many Jewish politicians to line up against the Jewish state. Some polls show Democratic support for Israel’s war against Hamas at below 10 percent. Among Democratic undergraduate students, according to one survey, only 5 percent support Israel.
The election of fervent anti-Zionist Zohran Mamdami as mayor of New York City reflected the growing power of unJews. He won one-third of Jewish voters and as much as two-thirds of those under 45, according to exit polls.
Even historically pro-Israel Jewish politicians like City Comptroller Brad Lander and Rep. Jerry Nadler endorsed Mamdani. Lander, running against Rep. Dan Goldman, has paid political consultants who have actively promoted numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, including the notion that Israel was behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the 9/11 attacks. Lander has also changed positions on arming Israel; he now calls for an end to U.S. defense aid.
In California—home to 1.3 million Jews—another leading Jewish politician and former co-chair of the legislature’s Jewish caucus, State Senator Scott Weiner, has allied with anti-Zionists in his race to replace former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Fearful of progressives’ wrath, he has embraced the canard of Israeli “genocide,” to the horror of many of his local supporters.
The long-term effects of these trends are evident in the appalling case of Santa Clara County DA Jeff Rosen, whom a judge recently barred from prosecuting anti-Semitic vandals because of his Jewish heritage. This is analogous to forbidding a black prosecutor from adjudicating a case against the Ku Klux Klan, but it follows the long-held narrative that Jews are burdened by dual loyalties.
A similarly distressing pattern is taking place within the media, which anti-Semites both right and left often claim is controlled by Jews and Israel. While many Jews hold high-ranking positions at newspapers like the New York Times—rescued from bankruptcy by the Jewish Sulzberger family’s patriarch in 1896—the paper has become consistently hostile to the Jewish state. This stance was exemplified with the publication of the absurdly sourced Nicholas Kristoff column suggesting systematic sexual atrocities committed by Israel.
Yet the greatest bastion of unJews, unsurprisingly, can be found in the universities and educational establishment. Anti-Semitism is now an everyday reality at many universities. The head of the Association of American University Professors, Todd Wolfson, though Jewish himself, favors boycotts of Israeli professors but seems untroubled by scholars hailing from authoritarian regimes like China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Qatar. Israel President Isaac Herzog recently had to bow out of a speech at the Jewish Theological Seminary due to protests from students alleging that he incited violence against Palestinians.
Even the left-wing Jewish organization J Street, which favors a two-state solution, faces protests at colleges like Sarah Lawrence. At my daughter Hannah’s recent graduation from that college, the student commencement speaker ended her address with, “Free Palestine!”
It is painful to how this effects Jewish students like my daughter today. She experienced a degree of anti-Semitism that I never could have imagined during my time at the University of California, Berkeley, half a century ago. Pro-Israel Jewish students like her are under constant attack on college campuses today.
Her experience is far from unique. At the University of Rochester, Jewish professors were depicted on “wanted” posters. Even some resolute progressives have been stunned. “Nothing has prepared me for the antisemitism I see on college campuses now,” said Irwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley School of Law.
Campus Jews who work with openly anti-Semitic groups provide ideal cover for those who demonize both Israel and “Jewish power.” One study found that up to 15 percent of Jewish college students don’t support the existence of Israel. These students are more likely to come from lower socioeconomic and less religious backgrounds, and a large percentage identify as LGBTQ—a remarkable fact, given Hamas’s violent persecution of LGBTQ Palestinians in Gaza.
The long-run future of the diaspora may increasingly replicate the European experience. Before World War II, Europe was home to over half of world Jewry and many of its most creative, dynamic communities; today, it barely contains 10 percent of Jews. At the end of World War II in 1945, there were 3.8 million Jews left on the continent. More than 80 years later, just 1.4 million reside there.
As is the case in the United States, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism in Europe draw heavily from the educated classes. One study found that 60 percent of German anti-Semitic messages came from well-educated people. As far back as 2018, only a narrow majority (54 percent) of Europeans thought Israel had the right to exist, according to a CNN poll. Public support for Israel in Western Europe has declined rapidly in the years since, with only around one-fifth holding a favorable opinion of the country recently.
Given the wealth and size of the U.S. Jewish community, notably in New York, California, and various urban areas, it may take decades for American Jews to follow the same trajectory as Europe. But as secular, younger Jews rapidly assimilate, French sociologist Georges Friedmann’s half-century-old prophecy of a disappearing diaspora could prove correct. The main exceptions may be the socially self-segregated orthodox. Already, almost two-thirds of Jewish children in New York City are Orthodox.
It’s increasingly likely that, even in New York and Los Angeles--the two main centers of diaspora life--Jewish identity will become essentially Israeli. As early as 2035, according to a report by the U.K.-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Israel will become the home to a majority of all Jews, for the first time since early antiquity.
The diminishment of the diaspora—and with it, the extraordinary journey of a dispersed people—could be the lasting legacy of today’s unJews.