Opinion: What’s at the root of local antisemitism?

On Jan. 11, I attended a meeting of the Palo Alto Human Relations Commission. The main agenda item was “Voices of Our Community: Local Jewish Experiences in the Face of Rising Anti‐Semitism.” About 45 people spoke, a record for an HRC meeting.

I was stunned. I never expected to hear what I heard, not in Palo Alto! Speaker after speaker testified about their newfound fear of being a Jew in Palo Alto or at Stanford. Many described how, after the events of Oct. 7, they had been verbally assaulted with antisemitic slurs, harassed on social media and ostracized by some of their friends. 

These attacks were not even triggered by disagreements about the origins of the conflict; they were caused by one thing only, the fact that the aggressors knew they were encountering Jewish people. Other participants talked about their profound distress in discovering local antisemitic acts in Palo Alto such as swastikas displayed in public places or bomb threats targeting local synagogues.

The numerous testimonies concerning the antisemitism experienced by Jewish students from Palo Alto schools and Stanford University were particularly disturbing.

Palo Alto and Stanford are supposed to be beacons of enlightenment, places where people are highly educated and therefore, so I thought, much less likely to descend into the abyss of antisemitism.

Therefore, one critical question begs a response: What caused some seemingly smart, nice and socially conscious young people that may have never engaged in antisemitism before Oct. 7 to suddenly behave in such abhorrent ways towards their Jewish classmates? To be clear, it is not known how many students were involved in these acts and whether it is a vocal minority or the problem is more pervasive.

So what might have caused this unexpected turn of events? I believe that three distinct root causes combined to prompt it: extreme wokeness, ignorance and latent antisemitism in society.

Extreme wokeness

I believe that much of this new phenomenon is due to wokeness having progressively gone out of control, especially among a few young people. These people are probably, for the most part, well-intentioned and might have accomplished many positive things in their lives, but some aspects of their personality are causing their new antisemitism.

Some of the young people on the radical left are obsessed with the concepts of identity and victimhood. They want to combat racism against African Americans, fight for LGBTQ+ causes, defend Native Americans’ rights, improve the fate of immigrants — all worthwhile causes, of course. But sometimes good intentions can be pushed so far out that they progressively cross into a domain paved with a lack of judgment and a form of extremism. 

I have then heard idiotic pronouncements such as “Defund the police” and “Abolish borders.” The oppressive language policing also kicks in: Do not say “homeless” anymore, say “unhoused”; do not say “pregnant women,” say “pregnant people,” and please note that nobody is “illegal.”

In the 21st century, there are not that many idealistic causes left standing that are worth fighting for when you are young and want to put your energy to good use. Socialism, communism — all of the “isms” are pretty much dead in the Western world. The only important idealistic causes left are identity/victimhood and climate change, causes which happen to go very well together since poor people are often the first victims of climate change.

Ignorance

Students who commit antisemitic acts may in fact be ignorant of the extreme complexity of Middle Eastern history and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They may not understand the very long and convoluted chain of events that led to the present situation. If their knowledge of other important world events from the past is limited, it would be no surprise that their critical thinking skills when applied to Middle East matters are mediocre.

For them, things may seem easy to understand; they could view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Manichean terms: good guys vs. bad guys. They may even assume Israelis and therefore all Jews (ignoring that important distinction between the two) are the oppressors. They may see Jews as members of the dominant and oppressive white race; assuming they are affluent, capitalists, colonizers, etc.; and the darker-skinned and poor Palestinians the obvious victims. I doubt that these students even know that many Jews around the world, as well as many Israelis, are appalled by the extreme policies of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Latent antisemitism in society

Therefore, the mission for these students may now seem obvious: Condemn, vilify and attack the despicable oppressors and defend the oppressed. The latent antisemitism that has always existed in our society, sometimes half-asleep, is thus re-awakened and provides all the ammunition that they may feel they need.

Stunningly, these genuine anti-racists are now turning into antisemites. Moreover, these people are also confusing belonging with identity, which leads to racism. People belonging to the Jewish faith are being reduced to that one and only fact of their identity. They are just Jews and nothing else, and in these antisemites’ hideous logic, all Jews are perpetrators who need to be dealt with.

The task now at hand is complex and time-consuming. It involves responding to the root causes of this deplorable situation by pushing back against extreme wokeism, improving the teaching of world history as well as of critical thinking skills in schools and fighting antisemitism wherever it raises its ugly head.

Claude Ezran is a resident of Palo Alto, the founder of Palo Alto World Music Day, and a former chair of the Palo Alto Human Relations Commission. He can be reached at cezran@gmail.com.