A close and valued friend recently shared with me several deeply personal observations about his experiences with antisemitism. With his permission, I am sharing them because they raise questions that reach far beyond his individual experiences—and speak to a troubling reality that demands our attention.

His surname is D’Angelo. The name sounds Italian—which, in fact, it is—and gives little indication of his Jewish identity. To someone who does not already know him, there would be no reason to assume that he is Jewish.

That circumstance has occasionally placed him in a revealing position.

He has found himself in situations where someone, speaking privately or before a larger audience, has made an antisemitic remark. Sometimes it has taken the form of a sweeping generalization about Jews; at other times, an accusation directed at Israel or a particular Jewish individual.

It illuminates a particularly troubling aspect of antisemitism: the prejudice that emerges when Jews are presumed to be absent.

But he was present and his response was unequivocal:

The reaction is often immediate—and instructive.

Sometimes there is an apology. Sometimes an attempt at qualification: “But some of my best friends are Jewish,” or “I didn’t mean all Jews.”

The latter response is particularly revealing. It seems to suggest that prejudice becomes less objectionable when narrowly defined. But the moral character of an........

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