Ideas Don’t Kill People; People Do:

Why We Need to Stop Fighting Antisemitism and Start Fighting Antisemites

In Loving Memory of Yaron and Sarah, and all of the other innocent lives taken by the Free Palestine Movement

Antisemitism, like every other –ism, does not exist – it is just a theoretical lens through which we try to understand the world.

But Antisemitism, like racism, sexism, and capitalism, is only a theory, and theories cannot be fought – they can only be explained.

We, as Jews, have long made the mistake of fighting against these theoretical frameworks instead of fighting the theoreticians themselves.

There is an aversion to fighting individuals which betrays the beautiful, albeit naive, belief that so many Jews have, the belief that our enemies do not really hate us, they just do not understand us.

If they understood us, this belief goes, if they were not so consumed by the theoretical framework of antisemitism that surrounds them, they wouldn’t hate us.

Therefore, goes this logic, we need not fight against antisemites themselves – we need only fight against their ideas.

But this belief is wrong.

Our enemies understand us plenty, sometimes even better than we understand ourselves.

They attack us on our holidays, they march through our neighborhoods, and they take advantage of our life-loving nature.

Every campaign designed to fight antisemitism and promote Jewish security in our homes trips over the same stumbling block – antisemitism does not exist in reality, only in theory.

And you cannot fight a theory.

We have shouted ourselves blue in the face trying to convince our neighbors that chanting “from the river to the sea,” and “Intifada, Intifada,” outside of our homes is antisemitic, but they don’t believe us.

They don’t care.

Our theory is that chanting these things is antisemitic; their theory is that chanting them is anticolonialist.

“So, nu?” Says the antisemite, “you have your theory, and I have mine.”

Until we, as Jews, accept that people, not ideas, hate us, we will continue to stumble.

Antisemitism does not burn down synagogues – antisemites do.

If we want to know how effective our anti-antisemitism campaigns could be, we need only ask, how successful has antiracism been in eradicating racism and racist violence?

Has the situation for people of color materially improved in the 10 years since antiracism’s rise to social prominence?

I find it very hard to believe that any racists have changed their minds since reading, or being told to read, Ibrahim X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

Or has antiracism just given them new terminology with which to express their hate.

First, racists discriminated against people of color by not hiring them.

Then, racists discriminated against people of color by calling them affirmative-action hires.

Now, racists discriminate against people of color by calling them DEI hires.

Do we think that antiracism has achieved its goals?

If not, then why are we using the same strategy against antisemitism?

The only material benefit from either of these theories is the number of books sold by its theoreticians.

And I am sure these books are all very good and very well-written, but, I have to ask, are these the kinds of books we should be writing? And are they the kinds of books we want people to be reading?

As someone who writes in this space and has been talking about these issues for years, I am no less guilty of this mistake than anyone else.

I have long wanted to “win the argument” against antisemitism.

I suppose I have been dreaming of an opportunity to debate our enemies publicly and prove the foolishness and ridiculousness of their ideas loudly, proudly, and in public.

But so what?

That’s what a rabbi said to me a week or two ago.

So what if you win the argument? So what if your reasons are better than theirs? Who cares? They certainly don’t.

And it’s true – antisemites couldn’t care less about what a Jew thinks about anything.

So I am proposing an alternative strategy.

What if, instead of trying to prove that we have a right to live and peacefully go about our days, what if we just did?

What if we just lived our lives as if no one ever told us otherwise?

What if we just lived as proud Jewish people who were unconcerned with the fact that so many people think that we don’t even have the right to live?

I am not saying that we should be blase or pollyanna about the massive amount of antisemitism in the world – I am just saying we should not let it be our primary concern.

Our primary concern should be living as righteous Jews – whatever that means to you.

Our enemies are not afraid that we will one day defeat them – our enemies are afraid that we will one day stop defeating ourselves.

In every generation, they come to kill us, and, in every generation, they fail.

Those of us who grew up in the saccharine shimmer of the post-war peace were naive enough to think that we would be the generation of Jews who could finally erase these words from the Haggadah.

How wrong we were.

But, since October 7th, we have been equally wrong to expend so much of our energy on their hatred.

This line, this eternal truism, that in every generation they have tried to kill us, is only one page of the Haggadah – the rest of it is devoted to the celebration of our freedom and our existence as Jews.

We will outlive this generation of antisemites – both the ones who attack us with guns and the ones who attack us with words.

But will we live out our lives as we are supposed to, as free men?

As individual freedom wanes across the world, the Jewish nation stands at a crossroads – will we continue to live according to the vicissitudes of the other nations, or will we live according to our covenantal will?

As we approach Pesach, the celebration of our great liberation, I cannot help but think about the Jews who chose to stay in Egypt because they were too scared to cross the sea and conquer the land.

While Pesach is an almost entirely G-d-focused holiday, it is important to remember the incredible bravery and courage of our ancestors.

They did not have to leave Egypt, and many of their neighbors, their friends, and their family members did not.

The Jews who left Egypt were the brave ones, the ones we are all descended from.

The Jews who stayed were the comfortable ones, the ones who were willing to live a life beneath the dignity of free men, and they’re all gone now.

It is a commandment that every Jew remember the exodus from Egypt everyday – it is a central part of our liturgy.

But why?

Why remember it at all if we are not willing to live by its lessons?

The lesson of the exodus is that the only thing that is guaranteed in life is that things don’t change until you do.

Until you become a free person in your own mind, who has every right to live and do as you see fit, you will never become a free person in the world.

This year, these past 18 months, Jews around the world have been enslaved to the roaring tide of antisemitism.

There are Jews who have fought it directly, who have fought it indirectly, who have tried to ignore it, and even those who have aided and abetted it in the hope that their national betrayal will provide them with personal security.

But all of us have been under siege.

Like the Israelites at the Sea of Reeds, we are trapped between an uncertain future and a certainly painful past.

There are only two options before us: remain in Egypt with the discomfort to which we are accustomed, or cross into the wilderness of a future we know nothing about.

The only thing that is guaranteed is that the way we have been fighting antisemitism thus far has not been working and, if we continue to operate within this framework, nothing will change going forward.

We may not succeed if we try a new strategy. We may need to try many new things before something works.

But I would rather take a chance on a better future than a guaranteed continuation of the present situation.

~

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai