Why demonization, delegitimization, and double standards applied to American Jews are driving the USA apart

America likes to imagine itself as a country fractured along predictable partisan lines, left versus right, red versus blue, yet still as a melting pot where toleration of differences exists. That framing misses something that’s more correct, corrosive and even more revealing about the populace. One of the clear fault lines running through American politics today is the treatment of Jews. How anti semitism is rationalized, excused or outright denied. Of course, the method depends on who is perpetrating it and who the perceived victims are. This is not a Jewish issue is a warning sign of democratic decay and a disease that is spreading across America. As the normalization of extremism on both sides increases.

Across the political spectrum, American Jews are being subjected to demonization, delegitimization and double standards, the three dynamics that create permission and acceptance for antisemitism. The left is factoring under the weight of ideological purity tests that are purposely designed to exclude Jews,  while the right is failing to confront its history and the present reality of anti-semitic violence. In the meantime, Jews are told to be quieter, to be more strategic, to be palatable. The idea that another ad campaign, another fellowship, another effort to turn the tide, will somehow fix this issue. That will prohibit more public relations to fix it. Yet we all know the truth that it will not.

On the left, anti-semitism presents itself as moral clarity. Placing itself in the correct position to hold. That Jewish........

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