WHAT IS ANTISEMITISM?
Antisemitism is hatred, hostility, or discrimination against Jews. It is a form of racism that specifically targets Jews. It often appears as hostility toward Israel or conspiracy theories that portray Jews as uniquely dangerous, manipulative, disloyal, or undeserving of safety.
Antisemitism has existed for thousands of years. It mutates with the times. Sometimes it is religious. Sometimes racial. Sometimes political. Today, it is often disguised as activism or “anti-Zionism.” The form changes. The target does not.
Antisemitism is currently surging in the United States and Europe, including physical violence, harassment, intimidation, and open justification for harming Jews.
WHAT DOES ANTISEMITISM LOOK LIKE TODAY?
- Blaming Jews everywhere for the actions of Jews anywhere
- Holding Jews or Israel to moral standards not applied to anyone else
- Denying Jewish history, peoplehood, or trauma
- Excusing, minimizing, or justifying violence against Jews
- Telling Jews they are overreacting, playing the victim, or weaponizing antisemitism
- Deciding which Jews are “acceptable” based on their politics
Antisemitism appears on the far right, the far left, and within religious and political movements across the spectrum. No ideology is immune.
A quick stat
As of 2023, Jews made up about 2.2% of the U.S. population but were the targets of roughly 60–70% of all religion-based hate crimes.
Jews are the most targeted religious group in America. That is not a coincidence. That is antisemitism.
WHAT IS ZIONISM?
Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination – the ability to control their own safety and destiny – in their ancestral homeland.
That’s it. Period.
Zionism does not mean:
• Support for every Israeli government policy
• Opposition to Palestinian rights
• Endorsement of war
Zionism means Jews deserve the same right to safety and sovereignty as every other people.
Jews are not a monolith, and Jewish identity does not require agreement with any government, political party, or policy.
Criticizing Israeli policies is not antisemitic. Denying Jews the right to any state at all is.
When Jews are told they alone do not deserve a homeland, that is discrimination against Jews.
a simple test
Criticism of Israel crosses into antisemitism when it:
• Denies Israel’s right to exist
• Applies standards demanded of no other country
• Uses classic antisemitic tropes
• Spills over onto Jews who have nothing to do with Israeli policy
Classic antisemitic tropes include claims that Jews secretly control governments, media, finance, or institutions, manipulate events for hidden gain, are uniquely bloodthirsty or evil, or are disloyal to the countries where they live.
This is not about silencing criticism. It is about recognizing double standards.
JEWS ARE INDIGENOUS TO ISRAEL
Jews are not foreign colonizers.
Jewish history, language, religion, and culture originated in the land of Israel thousands of years ago. There has been a continuous Jewish presence in the land long before modern nation-states existed. And guess what? There’s archaeological proof of this, from ancient coins cast with Hebrew on them to the undeniable remains of the Second Temple complex (the Kotel, aka the Western Wall).
Denying Jewish indigeneity and ancestral heritage while affirming everyone else’s is historical erasure.
WHAT HAPPENED ON OCTOBER 7, 2023
On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists launched a coordinated attack on southern Israel.
They attacked the Nova Music Festival, multiple kibbutzim, and surrounding areas in Israel, murdering 1,200 people, including babies, children, and the elderly. The terrorists raped and gruesomely mutilated women, beheaded babies, and kidnapped 240 civilians of all ages (from ten months to 85 years old) and ethnicities into Gaza, many of whom died in captivity. Hostages have reported being physically, mentally, and sexually tortured.
All hostages are now accounted for. Some were released alive after months in captivity. Others were murdered by Hamas or died while being held. The remains of the final captive were recovered and returned to Israel in January 2026.
October 7 was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
To put it in perspective: 1,200 Israelis murdered in a single day is equivalent to nearly 43,000 Americans murdered in one day. If that’s hard to read, imagine living it.
WHAT IS HAMAS?
Hamas is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, also designated by the European Union, Canada, and others. Hamas is largely supported by the Iranian theocracy: an anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-Western regime. Iran and its sidekicks like Hamas (and ISIS, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc.) hate America, democracy, the LGBTQ+ community, women’s rights, and Jews everywhere.
Hamas is not a resistance movement. Its stated goal is the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews. This is written into its charter and repeatedly affirmed by its leaders.
Hamas does not protect Palestinians. It embeds military operations in schools, hospitals, mosques, and apartment buildings, using civilians as human shields. That is a war crime.
Billions of dollars in aid intended for Gaza have been diverted to weapons, tunnels, and terrorism. Many Palestinians oppose Hamas but cannot speak freely. Gaza is run as a violent police state.
There is nothing progressive about rape, kidnapping, or mass murder. Excusing these acts is not activism. It is moral failure.
COLLECTIVE BLAME, A CORE ANTISEMITIC TROPE
Antisemitism uniquely treats Jews as a single global entity.
When Jewish students, synagogues, businesses, or neighborhoods are attacked for actions taken by a government thousands of miles away, that is collective punishment.
No other group is treated this way. This is a defining feature of antisemitism.
WHY DO JEWS NEED ISRAEL?
For Jews, statelessness has never been theoretical. It has been lethal.
For centuries, Jews lived as minorities without political protection, dependent on the goodwill of others. When that goodwill vanished, as it repeatedly did due to scapegoating, Jews were expelled, persecuted, or killed. From Spain to Russia, from Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, Jews were pushed out, stripped of rights, or massacred. When violence came, there was nowhere to flee as Jews.
This is why Zionism was not optional. It was not a luxury, a colonial project, or a political experiment. It was a response to a simple historical reality: a people without a state cannot guarantee their own safety.
After the Holocaust, this truth became undeniable. Millions of Jews were murdered while the world closed its borders. Survivors often had no homes, no citizenship, and no country willing to take them in. Israel did.
Israel exists first and foremost as a refuge: a place where Jews are not guests, not conditional citizens, and not dependent on anyone else’s tolerance for their survival. Like all nations, Israel is political and imperfect. But its foundational purpose is not politics. It is protection.
Denying Jews the right to that refuge, after centuries of expulsion and extermination, is not a neutral position. It is the demand that Jews return to a status that history has proven is dangerous.
WHAT THEY SAY VS
WHAT THEY MEAN
Protests erupted across the United States following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Surprisingly, not in support of the Israelis kidnapped and murdered, but for the Palestinians living in Gaza. What began as “humanitarian” efforts (we’re about to explain why it was never about genocide) has since revealed its true colors: a global antisemitic campaign that shows up on college campuses, Jewish places of worship, and anywhere Jews – unrelated to what’s going on in the Middle East – congregate. How do we know it’s antisemitic? They’re shouting it from the protest lines!
What they say: “Globalize the Intifada.”
What they mean: Between 1987 and 2005, in two terrorist uprisings, Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza attacked Israel using stones, bombs, guns, and suicide bombers. Over 1,000 Israeli civilians were murdered. Intifada isn’t the shaking off of oppression. It’s the murder of innocent Jews.
What they say: “Free Palestine.”
What they mean: An incitement to violence, this phrase was yelled out by attackers before three Jews were murdered in two separate incidents in the United States. It’s been used to justify vandalism, harassment, and hostage-taking on American soil. Let’s stop pretending this is about the liberation of Palestinians when it’s led to the murder of American Jews.
What they say: “From the river to the sea.”
What they mean: The full phrase is “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and it implies the eradication of Israel in place of a “free Palestine.” For some people, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea, but this is also implying the eradication of the Jews in this new state. Do you still believe that Jews could continue to live in Palestine? Look at the dwindling population of Jews in the surrounding Arab countries before you make this assumption. Or better yet, look at what happens to Jews who accidentally wander into the West Bank (Google the Ramallah lynching, Yaniv brothers, Hamra junction shooting, and so on, and so on) and justify a Palestinian state that is safe for Jews. Still on the fence? “From the river to the sea” is from a 2017 Hamas publication called A Document on General Principles and Policies that quotes “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.” Backed by the 1988 Hamas charter that explicitly calls for the death of Jews with “The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims will kill them,” THAT is a call for an actual genocide.
ANTISEMITIC MYTHS,
FACT-CHECKED
Protests erupted across the United States following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Surprisingly, not in support of the Israelis kidnapped and murdered, but for the Palestinians living in Gaza. What began as “humanitarian” efforts (we’re about to explain why it was never about genocide) has since revealed its true colors: a global antisemitic campaign that shows up on college campuses, Jewish places of worship, and anywhere Jews – unrelated to what’s going on in the Middle East – congregate. How do we know it’s antisemitic? They’re shouting it from the protest lines!
MYTH: Israel is an apartheid state
FACT: Arab citizens of Israel vote, serve in parliament, sit on the Supreme Court, and lead hospitals. Apartheid is racial segregation by law. That does not exist in Israel.
MYTH: Israel is “occupying” Gaza
FACT: Israel fully withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas took control in 2007. There has been no Israeli civilian presence in Gaza for nearly two decades.
MYTH: All Jews are white, rich, and powerful
FACT: Jews come from every racial background. More than half of Israeli Jews are from the Middle East and North Africa. Many Jews live below the poverty line. Jews do not hold collective power.
MYTH: Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism
FACT: Anti-Zionism says Jews alone do not deserve self-determination. That double standard is antisemitism.
MYTH: Israel is committing genocide or war crimes
FACT: Israel is responding to a mass-casualty terrorist attack. Urban warfare against an enemy that embeds itself among civilians is tragic, but Israel has reduced civilian casualties by notifying civilians of plans in advance. Tragedy is not the same as genocide.
WHY ANTISEMITISM IS DIFFERENT
Antisemitism is not just prejudice.
It is built on conspiracy theories that portray Jews as secretly powerful, disloyal, or dangerous.
This is why Jews are accused of being both weak victims and global puppet masters. The contradiction is the point. It allows antisemitism to justify violence in any direction.
Antisemitism often hides behind coded language and euphemisms, which allows it to spread while denying responsibility.
WHY THIS MATTERS TO EVERYONE
Antisemitism is an early warning sign.
Societies that normalize hatred of Jews do not stop with Jews. When antisemitism spreads, democracy weakens, truth erodes, and violence follows.
Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem. It is a societal failure.
CONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE: THE “GOOD JEW”
Jews are often accepted only if they:
- Denounce Israel
- Minimize their response to antisemitism
- Distance themselves from other Jews
Acceptance that requires Jews to disavow their own people is not allyship.
WHAT REAL ALLYSHIP LOOKS LIKE
Real allyship means:
- Listening to Jews when they name antisemitism
- Calling it out, even when it’s uncomfortable
- Rejecting double standards
- Refusing to excuse violence
- Letting Jews define their own identity
No qualifiers.
No purity tests.
No exceptions.
