Each year during the 49 days of Sefirat Ha’omer, the oral count of the 49 days from Passover to Shavuot, we remember the sheaves of wheat that our ancestors joyfully harvested in our homeland, Israel. This year, it has felt like we, too, are unfortunately harvesting hatred.
Every day, terrible hypocrites attack Israel and the Jewish people. International organizations demonize Israeli democracy, while Western politicians criticize Israel and support Iran. Scholars seek to make Zionism dangerous as terrorists target our civilians and torture hostages from Gaza to Lebanon. Yet they boldly paint the poison in the rhetoric of human rights, recalling Taylor Swift’s warning that “this is a daydream nightmare.”
Historian Robert Wistrich has called Jew-hatred “the most enduring hatred.” It is the most plastic, the infinitely malleable, the always artificial, and sometimes harmful. And it is the most complete hatred, totalitarian and totalitarian. Our enemies seek to rob the Jewish people of our lives, our dignity, and our history. They deny the Holocaust or the October 7 rapes and murders — unless we say we deserved them or engineered them. Who dares to deny the enslavement of black Americans or the sexual abuse of Yazidi women by radical Islamic terrorists?
Our enemies deny everything about the Jewish people, from our trauma to our roots in our homeland. They call heroic hostage rescues “genocide.” No lie is too big or too small to be spread, justified, believed and mass-produced.
This nightmarish year has left many Jews fearing that their “Diaspora dream” may be over. I recently met with 25 former McGill University students. Most were born in Toronto, but some had moved to Toronto after studying at McGill in Montreal. I was struck by their first question. My host asked: “Is it time to leave now, and how do I know?”
That these questions even crossed their minds represents an unforgivable failure on the part of Justin Trudeau’s government, the City of Toronto and Canadian society.
My former students are not hysterical. They are well-educated, have deep roots in Toronto, and are proud to be Canadian. They all have friends who emigrated to the U.S. but chose to stay. They are wonderful, remarkably stable people raising children, running businesses, teaching, investing, practicing law, practicing medicine, and more.
But the global hate-fest since Hamas massacred 1,200 people makes them uneasy. Statistics that anti-Semitic hate crimes have doubled (a community that makes up 4% of Toronto’s population absorbs 37% of hate crimes) are too barren. Too many upstanding citizens’ children are harassed at school for being Jewish. Pro-Palestinian protesters chase them as they walk to synagogue. Self-righteous academics bully them on campus. Their businesses and institutions are vandalized and attacked by mobs.
What is most disappointing is the typical deafening silence from the general public. If more non-Jews would condemn these thug acts, these unpatriotic pro-Palestinian protests might end. And if more non-Jews stood up, their Jewish brethren would not feel abandoned and betrayed.
I asked five questions:
• First, is public opinion against you? Do you sense public hostility?
• Second, are the elites corrupted by Jew-hatred?
• Third, do you feel that the police and politicians support you?
• Fourth, do you ever feel scared at home or outside?
• Finally, are you concerned about your children’s identity and souls?
Most shook their heads “yes” to every question except when asked if they felt protected by authorities, in which case they nodded emphatically and answered “no.”
I’m a historian, not a prophet. I can’t predict the future. And North America is not Europe or the Arab world. Canada and the United States are more stable, decent, and secure than the Weimar Republic was before the Nazis overthrew Germany. So I resist flimsy analogies and hysterical warnings.
Something that stains the West
But there is a stain on the West today. Protesting for or against Israeli actions is legitimate and reflects the strength of democracy. But harassing individuals because they are Jewish or Zionist is unacceptable, un-American, un-Canadian, and anti-democratic. A billboard in California warns, “Rat poison also poisons wild animals.” Beware, Jew-hatred also poisons democracy.
This is not a battle between Israelis and Palestinians, it is a battle over democratic values. Jews should not bear the burden of fighting anti-Semitism, nor should they pay the cost. Jew-hatred is the disease of those who hate Jews, not the Jews themselves. Instead of Jewish organizations holding yet another head-scratching summit, let each organization reach out to like-minded non-Jewish organizations and work together to fight hatred.
We must fight bigotry broadly, but this surge must be targeted specifically because bigots are targeting Jewish people.
Jewish organizations now talk about “hardening targets” — tightening security at Jewish institutions. They’re hiring guards, installing cameras, reinforcing doors. Some synagogues are like walled buildings. These are warning signs of democratic decline.
Don’t narrow your targets, broaden them. If more citizens stand up against this hatred, it will threaten the haters, not the Jews. Every liberal democrat should wear a yellow hostage ribbon on his lapel, a Jewish star around his neck, and a sticker denouncing Jew-hatred. He should escort his Jewish neighbors to their synagogues and his Zionist students to class. Everyone can join counter-demonstrations and sign petitions.
Remember, “do unto others what you would like to be done unto you,” so if you are threatened by a hooligan, do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.
Constructive resistance would restore the spirit of democracy. Non-Jews should embrace their Jewish friends and neighbors. Even critics of Israel should reassure Jews that the civilized world maintains a commitment to peace, order, good government, and vigorous debate. We need righteous anger and effective policing.
All citizens should reject those who abuse their freedom of speech by seeking to harass, threaten, intimidate or offend Jews because they are Jewish and pro-Israel.
Meanwhile, Jews should use this Shavuot celebration of the giving of the Torah to remember that it is not Jew-haters that make the Jews. Jews make the Jews – and neither do Zionists.
The author is a distinguished scholar of North American history at McGill University, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at JPPI (Jewish Policy Institute), a researcher in American presidential history, and the editor of the three-volume set.Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, The inaugural issue of The Jewish Library (www.theljp.org).
