Some years ago, I was introduced to a young woman through some mutual friends. She was a lovely person and had a lot of questions for me — I was the first Jew she’d met. Incidentally, too, she was a former white supremacist.
As I got to know her, she asked me many things that’d probably puzzle (or alienate) most Jews. I distinctly remember the first evening we met, sitting around an autumn bonfire, when she even asked if, perhaps, the word “Jew” itself was OK to say. In her circles, it’d always been a slur. In the end, the beautiful thing I learned in getting to know her was that she was a very good person; she was just a good person who got caught up in a social environment that espoused extreme hate.
Even in the case of this person, who had clearly fallen in with a bad crowd, there was still much good to be found—and she represented the far end of the “hate spectrum.” Those with more typical stories, who still are liable to engage in antisemitism, have good in them too. In the words of Eric Ward, that contradiction exists because antisemitism “is in the air we breathe and the water we drink.” Due to its long history and pervasive nature in the Western world, we shouldn’t be surprised to see antisemitism come even from well-meaning peers. This form of hate is almost unavoidable for most people. Plenty of us Jews have internalized certain aspects of it ourselves, too.
Given this reality, we’d do well to extend a little grace to those who stray unintentionally into antisemitic rhetoric. As someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about antisemitism and has many times engaged with those who espouse it, it has been my experience that most folks do not want to be antisemites. Nevertheless, their impact can be dangerous and destructive, and we all have an obligation to confront it.
In addressing Jew-hatred (big or small), we each must adopt a “lo alecha attitude” — it is not any of our individual duty to singlehandedly beat antisemitism, but none of us can consider ourselves free from the obligation to participate in countering it. We are much too small a minority (2.4% of American adults, per Pew) for any of us to sit out of this effort.
As the fall turns to winter, it is incumbent on us not to sit idly and let our community become further awash in hate. Our society will naturally gravitate in that direction, and inertia is powerful. However, with concerted action, I have the utmost confidence that we can overcome what is coming our way. After all, the Jewish people have been through a lot in the ~2500 years we’ve lived as a diaspora community. We will get through this too, provided we all work together to make it happen.
