Combating anti-Jewish hatred in America

Antisemitic incidents in America have surged 10X over the last 10 years. The incidents are increasingly violent. An arsonist tried to burn down the home of the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania on Passover. Two young Israeli Embassy staffers, soon to be engaged, were shot dead in the nation’s capital after leaving a Jewish event. A terrorist lit Jews on fire in Boulder. Each attacker justified himself using the language of the anti-Zionist Left.

Both the extreme right and the hard left shoulder blame for mainstreaming antisemitism. Whenever politicians or activists mine grievance for power, Jews will be scapegoated. Tucker Carlson platforms Holocaust deniers. The overly online Left roots for Hamas. And both ends of the horseshoe traffic in conspiracies about Jewish money and media influence, the newest edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Everyone in between these extremes – Republican, Democrat, or independent – is responsible for confronting those who push anti-Jewish hate. We must all keep the promise that George Washington made to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island: “everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

For Democrats, keeping this promise requires immediate, medium, and long-term changes. Immediately, Democrats must reject antisemitic rhetoric and incitement from within the Party. A recent example: James Carville just told Jews who have criticized Democrats for antisemitism that “you just want your f*cking tax cut.” I don’t care whose campaign you ran thirty years ago, that’s unacceptable.

In the medium term, Democrats must confront the role of social media corporations in amplifying hate. They have a corrosive effect on civil discourse, including inciting hatred to Jews, usually through the double-speak of anti-Zionism. Democrats must stop pretending that the online Left’s demonization of ‘Zionists’ is anything other than harassment of ‘Jews’. And the social media platforms must stop hiding behind their Section 230 immunity from liability. They owe a duty of care regarding harassment, defamation, incitement, and children’s programming, just like print, radio, and TV media uphold – all consistent with the First Amendment.

I led three bills last term to begin curbing social media’s immunity, including one (TikTok’s forced divestment) that has already become law. I am continuing the fight this Congress, including directed inquiries to the corporations regarding how they platform content that glorifies the killing of Jews.

In the long term, education is the best antidote. Not just education about the Holocaust, although that’s critical. But also an intentional, patriotic civics education on the American Creed: the commitment that the circumstances of your birth should not determine the condition of your life. That each human is endowed with unbounded dignity and freedom as a “self-evident” birthright. It’s a narrative of heroism, with the envelope of freedom expanding to ever more Americans. Both politically, through school boards and other state & local avenues, and legally, through federal Title VI civil rights enforcement, Democrats should insist upon history, civics, and social studies curriculum that trains thoughtful citizens, not performative activists.

Antisemitism is not liberal. Anti-Zionism is not progressive. To be true to the values we have always championed, Democrats must re-commit to Jews, again in the words of Washington, that our Party “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”