I’m lucky to have been born to two amazing parents. Part of what makes my parents so amazing is their commitment to my Jewish identity and my Jewish education. They bought a house within walking distance of a synagogue—a synagogue where I had a Simchat Bat, a baby naming service for a Jewish girl, where I went to preschool, where I had my Bat Mitzvah, where I’ve led services and read Torah, and where I have spent nearly every Jewish holiday for the past 22 years. They sent my younger brother and me to a Jewish day school from Kindergarten through the end of High School. I went to a Jewish summer camp for 14 years straight. We had a Shabbat dinner every Friday night, and more often than not, went to shul every Saturday. They sent me to college at Brandeis, an institution founded by and for American Jews, and watched me cross the stage last year at graduation. They are the biggest supporters of my role with The Nexus Project, the second of two Jewish advocacy organizations I’ve worked for.
Lately, we’ve seen a disturbing trend of leaders of important Jewish organizations and institutions sacrifice a core Jewish value out of fear, cruelty, or worse — political expediency. That value? Pluralism: the quest for a universalist ideal that provides protection and prosperity for all. The fight for the world we all deserve to live in. Giving up this fight in the name of a false choice between Jewish safety and the safety of all people goes against everything my parents raised me as a Jew to believe.
For generations, America has been a beacon of hope and safety for Jews. This does not mean antisemitism is not a real and pervasive hatred here. I don’t discount the way October 7th changed a lot of things for Jews all over the world, and the fact that many Jews are (validly and understandably) scared, as am I. At the same time, I know and believe above all else that the very survival of the Jewish people in this country could not have happened and may not be possible in the future without the opportunities afforded to us by our democracy and pluralistic society.
It’s devastating and deeply personal to me to witness the real fear of antisemitism weaponized and manipulated by those who seek to attack the democratic freedoms and civil liberties that have kept our community safe. I agree with institutional leaders, academics, advocates, and clergy who remind us that our strategies in the fight against antisemitism must adapt, just as antisemitism itself has.
But we cannot ignore that America’s role in Jewish history also means that the safety of American Jews is deeply bound to the safety of all other marginalized communities. Anti-immigration rhetoric is connected to antisemitic rhetoric about Jewish control and the Great Replacement theory that directly contributed to the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting. Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is connected to pervasive conspiracy theories that tie into antisemitism. Racist rhetoric dehumanizes and humiliates, just as antisemitism can. Misogyny has consistently been adapted to fit into antisemitic tropes, stereotyping and fetishizing Jewish women. Antisemitism slips through the cracks of any other hatred, because true and deep hate never stops with one people. There’s no such thing as a single-issue bigot. To truly fight antisemitism, we must fight it both wherever it exists and wherever it can take root.
Pluralism, the idea that our communities are best served by engagement from as many sectors of our society as possible, has always been a key tool of Jewish safety, survival, and flourishing. Pluralism is what allows all people—including Jews—to live freely and safely in this country. It’s a moral and strategic goal, not something to be dismissed from an unproductive, cynical, defeatist worldview. Pluralism is what our people have fought for for centuries. Pluralism is what my Jewish parents raised me on.
It’s also impossible, and irresponsible, for me to forget that some of the institutions and leaders who are pushing back on pluralism and universalist ideals didn’t have the same opposition to the Trump administration’s crackdown on universities. There are those who villainize student activists but refused to condemn a Nazi Salute by Elon Musk at Trump’s second inauguration. There are those who would rather force themselves into smaller and smaller ideological circles than truly reckon with where the Jewish community is today. These moral gymnastics are exhausting. There is a clearly selective application of our deeply held values as Jews while aligning with an administration that repeatedly weaponizes antisemitism to attack the very institutions that help us fight it. This approach does not make Jews safer. In fact, it alienates us from our historical partnerships in fighting hate in all its forms, making the real work of fighting antisemitism all the more difficult.
I write the following words as an American-Jewish woman, as the daughter of Jewish parents, as the graduate of a Jewish day school, as a graduate of Brandeis University, and as someone who has begun what will be a long and meaningful career in Jewish advocacy: I will happily spend every single day of my life fighting for the world I believe in, fighting for a universalist ideal, rather than waste a single second discounting what centuries of my people’s history has taught me. Jewish safety has never and will never stand on its own.
