It's a Scary Time to Be a Jew in America

The US has seen two violent antisemitic attacks in two weeks—a fatal shooting in DC followed by the firebomb assault in Colorado. Sheila Katz, chief executive of the National Council of Jewish Women, takes note of the widespread condemnation of the assaults but finds fault with one aspect of it:

• "As a country, we Americans are practiced in calling out antisemitism when it appears in the form of bullets aimed at synagogues or neo-Nazis chanting 'Jews will not replace us,'" she writes. "But fighting hate means calling out antisemitism every time—long before speech turns violent—even when it comes from activists who otherwise share our values."

In that latter camp, Katz accuses feminist and LGBTQ groups—"movements that champion bodily autonomy"—of remaining silent when reports emerged that Hamas was using sexual violence as a weapon of war. "When antisemitism emerges within progressive spaces, cloaked in the language of justice, too often it is met with silence and discomfort, creating echo chambers where dangerous ideas are amplified rather than confronted." (Read the full essay, in which Katz writes of a sad truth for today's Jewish community: "We know where the exits are when we walk into Jewish spaces." (More antisemitism stories.)