Many friends have asked me, in one form or another, “How have we, as Jewish Americans, come to the current state of affairs?” This essay is my attempt to answer that question. But I think the question is larger than the condition of American Jews alone. Historically, Jews have often been a kind of canary in the coal mine: hostility toward Jews can be an early warning that a society is losing confidence in its own liberal values, its commitment to pluralism, and its willingness to defend equal citizenship. So the question is not only how American Jews got here, but how America itself got here and what that may tell us about where the country is heading.

Jews have enjoyed extraordinary acceptance and success in America, but history warns us never to assume that our security is permanent. October 7 exposed several converging dangers: the explicitly antisemitic ideology of Hamas and Hezbollah; Iran’s threats against Israel and America and its support for terrorist proxies; and the remarkable success of a pro-Palestinian information campaign that transformed Israel, in much of public opinion, from the victim of a horrific terrorist attack into an alleged perpetrator of genocide.

There is bitter irony in that accusation. Genocide requires not only civilian casualties or the horrors of war but, critically, the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group. Many reputable authorities and scholars reject or strongly dispute characterizing Israel’s war against Hamas as genocide. I believe they are right. Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. Whether Israel’s conduct meets the legal standard for genocide remains fiercely disputed, but the critical question is intent. Israel says its objective is to destroy Hamas, not the Palestinian people.  By contrast, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Iranian proxies have repeatedly advocated eliminating Israel and have frequently accompanied those objectives with explicitly antisemitic rhetoric; Iran has coupled calls for Israel’s destruction with state-sponsored antisemitism and Holocaust denial. The distinction between the horrors of war and an ideology of genocidal annihilation has been largely lost in the information war.

Zionism is something Jews should proudly explain and celebrate, not apologize for. Zionism is the joyous realization of a 2,000-year-old Jewish longing for national self-determination in our ancestral homeland and is deeply intertwined with Jewish history, religion, culture, and identity. It does not require supporting every Israeli government or policy; Israelis and Zionists vigorously disagree among themselves. Anti-Zionism goes much further than criticizing Netanyahu, settlements, or the Gaza war: at its core it rejects Jewish national self-determination  and denies Israel’s right to continue to exist as a Jewish state. Criticizing what Israel does is political argument; denying Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish state is fundamentally an antisemitic proposition.

The Islamist challenge is not merely a Jewish or Israeli problem. It is a challenge to Western civilization and its values: religious pluralism, individual liberty, equality before the........

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