American Jews have always been optimists about antisemitism. From the very beginning, our country has embraced Jews; George Washington, shortly after assuming the presidency, wrote a letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport that the United States will give “bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
Quoting the prophet Micah, he offered this wish:
“May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”
Our community took Washington’s words to heart. We have long dreamt of a time when democracy finally triumphs over antisemitism and we can live without persecution and discrimination.
On February 1, Bret Stephens declared that this dream is over. In an address to the 92nd Street Y, he explained that there is no end to antisemitism, because “for as long as there have been Jews, there have been Jew haters. And for as long as there will be Jews, there will be Jew haters. What’s been going on for over 3,000 years is not about to end anytime soon.”
Stephens explained that it’s a fool’s task to spend money on schemes to educate non-Jews on how not to be antisemites; instead we should invest that money in educating young Jews on how to be Jews.
A controversy has since ensued. Organizations devoted to fighting antisemitism criticized his speech. Editorial writers tagged the speech as simplistic, offering a “false choice.”
There is now a Jewish debate about fighting antisemitism. And we need to consider what exactly we are arguing about when we argue about it.
Stephens’s thesis might seem provocative now, but it wouldn’t shock medieval Jews. Avraham Grossman points out that Rashi often depicts the nations of the world as “lying in wait to attack and devour the Jewish people.” Grossman writes that this is not surprising, considering that the renowned medieval commentator’s community was massacred during the First Crusade, and endured multiple anti-Jewish edicts.
In his commentary on the Torah, Rashi quotes the phrase from the Midrash saying that “it is a rule that Esau hates Jacob.” This means that antisemitism is a metaphysical reality; the spiritual heirs of Esau will always hate the descendants of Jacob. Antisemitism will never end.
Rashi’s attitude to antisemitism remains influential today. In 1977, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein based a halachic (Jewish legal) ruling on this phrase. He told the British Jewish community not to sue their government in court for day school subsidies because Esau (the non-Jewish government) can easily be provoked to hate Jacob.
A few years earlier, he wrote two letters about the outburst of Jewish-Catholic camaraderie and dialogue in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. In them, Feinstein was even more forthright with his pessimism: to him, religious dialogue is simply antisemitism by other means, an attempt by the Catholic Church to lure Jews into conversion.
Feinstein’s pessimism is also a product of life experience; he had spent the first 40 years of his life living in Russia under the czars and the communists. But many in the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community continue to hold this very same view, a legacy of the ghetto years.
From medieval fatalism to modern emancipation
Jews at home in the wider world roundly rejected the idea that “Esau hates Jacob” as being preposterous. The 19th-century emancipation of the Jews was seen as a transformative event. Some, like Reform Rabbi Samuel Holdheim, claimed that these changes indicated that the world had entered the Messianic Age.
Even more traditional thinkers agreed that history had changed course, and modernity would finally allow the Jews to be free of their former disabilities. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch blessed emancipation, and wrote that instead of eternal hatred, “Esau too, will gradually lay down his sword; more and more he will make room for humaneness.” The old rule of “Esau hates Jacob” was gone.
History seemed to reach a final chapter filled with peace – and with it, there would be an end to antisemitism. Even if this moment of redemption was slow in coming, Jews could help bring it along with advocacy and education.
But one acculturated Jew saw things differently.
Theoder Herzl was neither religious nor a messianist. But he had seen the crowds roar in support of Karl Lueger, the viciously antisemitic mayor of Vienna; he had seen bystanders chant “death to the Jews” when the French military paraded Alfred Dreyfus through the streets of Paris. He noted bitterly in his diary that “everything tends, in fact, to one and the same conclusion, which is clearly enunciated in that classic Berlin phrase: ‘Juden Raus! (Out with the Jews!).’
“I shall now put the question in the briefest possible form: Are we to ‘get out’ now, and where to?” Herzl realized, well before anyone else, that the Jews needed to escape the antisemitism of Europe immediately; he advocated for a Jewish state because he recognized there was no other choice.
Herzl was attacked for disturbing the beautiful dream of Jewish equality – but he was right. It was a mistake for Jews to put their faith in the newly democratic states of Europe. They needed their own state.
Our current debate about antisemitism bears an uncanny resemblance to the argument between Herzl and his contemporaries. We are arguing whether emancipation will eventually end antisemitism.
Some have criticized Stephens regarding details in his speech. In a follow-up interview, he clarified that organizations like the ADL do critical work in gathering intelligence on potential threats and advocating for better legislation.
But this criticism misses the larger point. Stephens’s speech is a call for Jews to wake up. We need to stop imagining that there is a magic solution for antisemitism, that a few consultant-designed curriculums and commercials will neutralize an insane hatred that has lasted for 2,000 years.
The larger lesson is that we have to be prepared for the possibility that democracy will fail the Jews. And we also have to be prepared for the possibility that democracy can fail, period. Democracy is a very noble idea, but noble ideas carry very little weight in an age of anxiety and polarization.
Stephens is offering a disturbing new, but old, view of antisemitism. And it is up to us to listen and stop dreaming.
The writer is the rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and author of Despite Everything: A Chronicle of Jewish Resilience in the Aftermath of October 7th and On the Broken Path: The Torah of October 8th.