The word “antisemitism” is being stretched so thin it’s starting to tear. Actual Jew-hatred is finding its way into congressional primaries and left-wing coalition politics. At the same time, the accusation keeps getting deployed against journalists, musicians, and anyone who questions Israeli policy.
These are not opposite problems. They feed each other. Every time the word gets used to silence legitimate speech, it creates exhaustion and cynicism that make it harder to confront the real thing. Every time real antisemitism gets laundered through political alliances, the confusion deepens. That cycle is where Nexus works.
The ADL released its 2025 audit. Total reported incidents fell 33 percent from the 2024 record. Physical assaults hit a new high of 203. Three people were killed in antisemitic attacks, the first such murders since 2019.
Aryeh Tuchman, who spent two decades at the ADL and now directs the Nexus Center for Antisemitism Research, was quoted across national coverage. He said that although the Audit data is crucial for tracking antisemitic activity in the U.S., it emerges from ADL’s particular approach to defining antisemitism and anti-Zionism. To really understand contemporary antisemitism, we need to use more nuanced understandings and deeper analysis.
The audit documents a real and violent surge in antisemitism. It also treats slogans like “from the river to the sea” as inherently antisemitic regardless of context or intent. When everything becomes antisemitism, the public stops recognizing actual antisemitism. Overclassification doesn’t strengthen the fight. It undermines credibility at the exact moment clarity matters most.
Nexus’s Ella Messler published a personal essay about being raised in a deeply Jewish home, building a career in Jewish advocacy, and watching a growing number of Jewish institutional leaders abandon pluralism out of fear or political convenience.
Her argument is direct: Jewish safety cannot be secured by walling off from every other community under attack. It never has been. When leaders cheer on the dismantling of universities, stay silent on a Nazi salute at a presidential inauguration, and reduce solidarity to a litmus test about Israel, they weaken the only system that has ever protected us.
Dan Bilzerian — the influencer who told Piers Morgan that “Jewish supremacy” is the greatest threat in the world, claimed Mossad killed JFK, and posted that Jews are a “parasitic nation” — filed to run for Florida’s 6th Congressional District. The Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng called him what he is: a “manosphere antisemite.”
Bilzerian is what the manosphere produces at scale. We laid out the pipeline in our explainer on the Netflix documentary Inside the Manosphere: self-improvement as the front door, Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories about Jewish power as the back room. Thirty million followers, a Republican primary slot, and open antisemitism now travel together without much friction.
In Texas, Maureen Galindo, a Democrat running in the state’s 35th District, has claimed that “the Jews who own Hollywood” use entertainment to manufacture reality, invoked the “synagogue of Satan” conspiracy, and said the Department of Homeland Security is based in Tel Aviv. When pressed, she doubled down: “billionaire Zionists and their puppet journalists are FAKE Jews.”
She finished first in the Democratic primary in March and faces a runoff on May 26. The pipeline here is different from Bilzerian’s, but the destination is the same: conspiracy theories about Jewish power treated as a credential rather than a disqualification.
AOC said she doesn’t trust Marjorie Taylor Greene — a documented bigot, antisemite, and Islamophobe — on what’s good for Jews or Palestinians. Glenn Greenwald and others attacked her for it, accusing her of siding with “the establishment.”
AOC named what’s happening correctly. A section of the left has decided that opposing Israel is worth aligning with white nationalists, Holocaust minimizers, and people who celebrate the murder of Jews. Greene promoted QAnon, blamed California wildfires on the Rothschilds, and appeared on stage with Nick Fuentes. These partnerships grant far-right agitators a larger, more diverse audience for white nationalist ideologies, with opposition to Israel as the entry point.
At a recent concert, Dave Matthews held up signs reading “Stop the Genocide” and “Stop Killing Children.” Michael Rapaport, who has millions of followers, called him an “AntiJewish clown.”
This is what the cycle described above looks like at street level. When a celebrity with a massive platform can brand any protest of the war in Gaza as anti-Jewish, the term loses the weight it needs to protect actual Jewish people from actual threats. It is the same dynamic as the ADL overclassifying protest chants, the Foreign Ministry calling journalism a “blood libel,” and institutional leaders treating all criticism of Israel as hatred. The word gets used until it stops working. And when it stops working, Jews are less safe.
Nexus was named as a grantee of the Open Society Foundations’ new $30 million commitment to groups fighting antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate. The three-year initiative, announced via the Associated Press, also includes the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. The AP noted that the grantee list suggests a more nuanced approach to defining antisemitism than the ADL’s.
Aryeh Tuchman was quoted in the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and dozens of syndicated outlets in coverage of the ADL’s 2025 antisemitism audit.
This is what we do: track real antisemitism, call out when it’s weaponized, and make clear the difference. If you’d like to support this work, you can donate here. We’d love to connect.
We’ll continue offering clear responses, frameworks, and resources as these stories develop.
Antisemitism is not a feeling, and fighting it is not a vibe. It is concrete work. It looks like enforcing a content policy you wrote.
Six months ago, the FBI cut ties with the ADL and Southern Poverty Law Center. This week, the Justice Department indicted the SPLC.
