For decades, Jewish organizations, civil rights groups, philanthropists, educators, and elected officials have poured billions of dollars, countless hours, and enormous institutional energy into fighting antisemitism.
Conferences, task forces, security grants, Holocaust education mandates, interfaith dialogues, campus trainings, corporate diversity seminars, social media campaigns, and public statements of solidarity have formed an effort that is vast, sincere, and often heroic.
And yet antisemitism is not receding. It is accelerating. It is getting worse, not better.
The Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2024, the highest number ever tracked.
Anti-Jewish hate crimes now account for an overwhelming majority of religion-based hate crimes in America.
Across Europe, the trend is the same: historic highs, vandalized synagogues, Jewish schools under armed guard, and Jewish students harassed and threatened on university campuses.
This isn't anecdotal. It's systemic.
So here is the uncomfortable question, "If all the money, awareness campaigns, and good intentions were working, why are things getting worse?"
At some point we must cease confusing activity with effectiveness.
Albert Einstein probably never said that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.
Misattributed or not, the warning applies.
If outcomes are deteriorating, repeating the same playbook isn't perseverance. It is denial.
We built a response infrastructure designed for antisemitism as it existed a generation ago. But the virus has mutated.
Today's antisemitism isn't confined to one political camp:
—It's not just tiki torches on the far right, though that still exists.
—It's not just radical campus activism on the far left, though that has exploded.
—It's not just online conspiracy culture, though algorithms now amplify it at an industrial scale.
—It's all of it.
—It shapeshifts.
On the right, Jews are cast as global puppet masters.
On the left, Jews are recast as colonial oppressors.
In conspiracist subcultures, Jews become the hidden explanation for everything from finance to foreign policy.
The costumes change. The target does not.
And here’s the strategic failure: much of our response still assumes antisemitism can be shamed back into the margins.
That worked in a different America.
There was a time when public exposure ended careers, when media gatekeepers mattered, and when cultural consensus enforced moral boundaries.
That world is gone.
We now live in an era where outrage is monetized, polarization is rewarded, and victimhood is weaponized.
Calling out antisemitism remains necessary, but it is no longer sufficient.
In some circles, being antisemitic is worn as a badge of honor.
So — what are we not doing?
We are not aggressively contesting the moral narrative.
Antisemitism thrives when Jews are reduced to abstractions such as symbols of power, privilege, or oppression.
The antidote is not endless defensive statements.
It's reclaiming the human story of Jewish identity and its deep roots in the moral foundations of Western civilization.
We have allowed the battlefield to move online without confronting it as infrastructure warfare. Social platforms are not neutral town squares.
They are accelerants. Hatred scales because the system rewards it.
Until amplification systems are addressed, outrage will always outrun truth.
We have mistaken coalition press releases for coalition power.
Real alliances require mutual risk and mutual defense.
When Jews are targeted, it is not a Jewish issue. It's a civic issue.
Reciprocity builds resilience. Isolation invites vulnerability.
But the real battlefield is not in policy papers or press conferences.
It's in hearts and minds.
That battle must be fought at the grassroots level, in every church and synagogue, every classroom, and most importantly, in every living room.
Cultural attitudes are shaped at dinner tables, from pulpits, in classrooms, and through everyday conversations.
If antisemitism is becoming socially normalized, respect and shared civic identity must be normalized locally.
We must also admit an uncomfortable truth.
Some institutions have become more invested in managing the problem than solving it.
Bureaucracies expand. Budgets grow. Yet measurable cultural impact remains elusive.
If programs exist because they have always existed, that is not strategy. It's inertia.
Winning this fight is not about eliminating every hateful individual.
That will never happen.
It's about making antisemitism culturally disqualifying again, socially radioactive, morally indefensible, and politically costly.
This is not a Jewish fight alone.
It's a test of whether a free society still has the will to defend its moral foundation.
America is now ground-zero in this battle.
The enemy is inside the gate. This is the moment for moral clarity and national courage.
Christians and Jews, joined by all people of good faith, must stand shoulder to shoulder not as interest groups, but as guardians of a shared moral inheritance.
Silence is no longer neutrality.
Indifference is surrender. Looking away is complicity.
If we do not draw the line now, we will not merely watch hatred spread.
We will watch the guardrails of civilization give way.
When those guardrails fail, history does not record a policy mistake or a cultural disagreement. It records the moment a society lost the will to defend what's right, and it's right to exist.
(A related op-ed may be found here.)
Robert Chernin is a business leader, political adviser, and podcast host. He's been a consultant on presidential, senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial races. Read more Robert Chernin Insider articles — Click Here Now.
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