I Stand with the Jews. Part Two of Two Parts

 

"I Stand with the Jews"

What does that mean?

Second of two parts

A canopy of oaks and maples rose overhead. Green understory surrounded me: pinxter azaleas and thorny Japanese barberry. Bluets – tiny wildflowers – blossomed underfoot. Up ahead, Marc approached me with his typically hale and hearty, "Hello, Danusha!"

I shoved my rosary in my pocket and removed my headphones. I had been cheating. I should have been focusing, with the binoculars around my neck, on the migrating spring warblers that make Garret Mountain famous among birders. Instead I was listening to Gregorian chant and praying the rosary as I hiked. "Hello, Marc," I said, as I migrated from internal contemplation of the eternal to external society and the ingeniously plumaged sprites zipping around us.

"Look at that color!" Marc exclaimed.

I pointed my binoculars in the direction Marc indicated. He had spotted a purple finch.

"I can see," I said, "Why Roger Tory Peterson called them 'a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice.'"

Marc is, by many estimates, the best birder in the state. Of course we are all, in our own ways, the "best" birdwatcher in compliance with our own needs and desires, but Marc racks up awesome numbers of the species he sees annually.

Marc's surname harkens back to Chelm, a city in Poland once famous among Jews as a site of folkloric fools. My favorite Chelm story: the local wise men declared that if you drop a buttered slice of bread, it will always fall on the buttered side. This conclusion reflects the pessimistic worldview typical of both Jews and non-Jews in Eastern Europe. Of course, eventually, someone dropped a buttered piece of bread and it fell buttered side up. The wise men of Chelm debated this astounding event and determined that the slice had been buttered on the wrong side. Chelm stories arose from a culture that valued scholarship enough that it could spoof scholarly folly.

Mindful of Marc's identity as someone other than our state's best birdwatcher, I wondered if I should say something.

I had told myself, if the opportunity arises, I will say something.

Was this the moment, though, to say something?

I felt timid, but also determined. If we keep waiting for the perfect moment, we never say anything.

"Marc," I ventured. "I want to say something about something other than birds."

"Yes?" Marc said, turning his attention from the purple finch to a streamlet that might be playing host to a Louisiana waterthrush.

"There's been a rise in antisemitism."

"You think?" Marc said, his voice rising, in an atypical, for him, sarcastic comment.

"Yes, and I just want you to know that I'm not Jewish…" said the woman who had been praying the rosary and listening to Gregorian chant. "But I want to be an ally. I'm on your side."

I'm glad I said something. If the moment arises when Marc could use some support from someone like me, he knows I'm here.

***

A 1986 self-help bestseller was titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. I'm a slow learner. High school taught me how the rest of life would go. One of the lessons: I learned that an average bystander can take significant action.

"Liz" was tall -- taller than I, and I'm tall. She had big muscles and big bones, and was violent. Liz had a posse of shorter, weaker, equally vicious followers. For once in their pimply, insufficiently human lives, they had Liz to empower and applaud their worst impulses.

Studious, bespectacled Polina was one of the meekest human beings I've ever come across. I had heard through the grapevine that Polina's father had been a Soviet POW concentration camp survivor, and that he was ill-tempered and abusive. No wonder Polina always looked as if she were cringing and scurrying away from a feared blow. Rather than using a backpack, Polina clasped books to her chest as if they were a shield.

Liz sniffed Polina's weakness and isolation.

I could have done what hundreds of other kids were doing and just pretended not to see. Come to think of it, given how self-absorbed teenagers tend to be, as they learn to navigate new bodies and incipient adulthood, maybe they weren't pretending not to see Liz repeatedly smashing Polina's face into the dirt. Maybe they really were oblivious.

I had no posse, and I recognized Liz's superior might. But one day, I spoke up. "Liz you [expletive deleted], you [expletive deleted], if you touch Polina again, I will kill you."

Liz's bullying of Polina stopped on that day.

I was no hero. I had often played the do-nothing bystander. With unquenchable shame and regret, I must confess that during a different high school year, I bullied a weaker girl. And I was often bullied myself. Even imperfect people can take steps towards a better world.

***

The following account is found in a July 1, 2025 legal document. The Nysmith School is located in Herndon, Virginia. An 11-year-old Jewish girl formerly attended the school. According to this document, the girl's classmates accused her of being a "baby killer." They told her that everyone hated her because she is Jewish, and that they were glad that her uncle was murdered in the October 7 terror attack on Israel, although he did not die in that attack. Students placed pro-Palestine stickers around the classroom, pointing them out to her, and telling her how much she was hated. Asked to produce an image of a "strong historical leader," students drew an image of Hitler, an image that was shared with the entire school. In the midst of this harassment, according to the above-linked document, the school principal canceled a scheduled talk by a Holocaust survivor and raised a Palestinian flag. Bullies pointed to the flag and insisted to the girl, "Everyone hates Jews," "We won," "Nobody likes you," and that the flag proved it.

Harassment of this little Jewish girl was so severe that a classmate asked his mother to contact the girl's father -- for her protection. After the girl's father was alerted and he conferred with his daughter, the little girl broke down in tears. The "popular" kids were bullying her for being Jewish and she was afraid she would be an outcast if she complained. After the girl's parents met with the principal in an attempt to protect their daughter, the principal expelled, effectively immediately, all three of the family's Jewish children.

The girl was scheduled to accept an award for a science fair project. She was not allowed to receive the award. The school kept the children's possessions on school grounds for two months and would not allow the parents to retrieve them. The abrupt expulsion meant that the children had to study online at home, and could not apply for comparable schools.

***

"The antisemitism we've seen recently puts everyone at risk," says Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Ms Jillian Segal, in a June, 2026 report. Antisemitism in Australian healthcare, according to the report, has affected patients, staff, and medical professionals. It "erodes trust, creates fear and exclusion, and can prevent people from seeking or receiving care."

"Jewish Doctors and Nurses are Experiencing Hatred," reports the Sydney Morning Herald. The Australian reports that both patients and health care providers are told, "Don't say you're Jewish." Otherwise, patients have been subjected to unnecessary pain, and denied pain relief medication. Professionals have been harassed. Two Australian nurses, Ahmad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, bragged on video that they would kill or had already killed patients just because those patients were Israeli. These nurses recently scored a victory in court; see here.

"People are scared, scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish, even to use our NHS," said UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in an April, 2026 address.

On April 29, 2026, a Somali-born Muslim man stabbed two Jewish men. The attacker's goal was to stab anyone "visibly Jewish."

Seventy-six-year-old Moshe Shine was stabbed in the neck. Iranian-born Ashkan Asadian witnessed the attack. Asadian rushed forward to "save a life." In slightly broken English, Asadian said, "I just tried to keep him busy, get the knife." Asadian "tried a few times to catch the knife ... I try to kick his arm, maybe he drop the knife, but I find out is quite dangerous." Asadian's jacket was cut. "Religion, it doesn't matter," he said. "Jewish or non Jewish, just human."

Who are you in these incidents? Are you the bully, are you the one being bullied, are you the one who confronts the bully, or are you the bystander who does nothing? Are you the boy who witnesses an eleven-year-old girl being bullied so badly he recognizes that she is not safe in the sixth-grade classroom of an elite American school? Or are you the school principal who, allegedly, adds to the girl's torment by sharing an image of Hitler, canceling a Holocaust speaker, and raising a Palestinian flag that triggers more bullying? Are you the judge who makes it easier for antisemitic nurses to brag online of murdering Jews just because they are Jews? Are you Ashkan Asadian, who risks his life to save a seventy-six-year-old man?

To me, Asadian is a hero and a role model. I stand with the Jews.

***

There are many theories as to why antisemitism persists. Two theories work best for me: Edna Bonacich's work on middleman minorities, and Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein's work on the impact of literacy. Jews are human beings just like everyone else. There is no racial difference in Jews that justifies antisemitism. There is no cultural feature in Judaism that justifies antisemitism. Jews are not hated or cursed by God. There are historical factors that make outbreaks of antisemitism more likely. Understanding these factors contributes to combating antisemitism.

In 1973, sociologist Edna Bonacich, the daughter of a rabbi, published "A Theory of Middleman Minorities." Her article describes minorities that, in primitive economies, occupy a middle ground between the lowest classes and the elite. Middleman minorities are distinct from both. These minorities often speak a different language, use a different alphabet, wear different clothing, eat different foods, and do not intermarry outside of their group. Middleman minorities perform jobs such as tax collection, estate management, liquor sales, grain merchandising, import / export, shop keeping, and, as economies advance, as doctors, farm and factory owners, journalists, scholars, and lawyers.

Jews, especially in the territory of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Chinese in East Asia, Japanese in Peru and Brazil, Tamil in Sri Lanka, Lebanese, Syrians, Indians, and Pakistanis in Africa, Greeks and Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, and Koreans in American slums have all played similar roles. Middleman minority populations have been the targets of hostility. Turks committed a genocide against Armenians in 1915-23. Malays and Indonesians committed hideous atrocities against Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia in 1969 and 1998. Koreans in American cities have been targeted with boycotts and threats of violence by African Americans. Note that members of the world's major belief systems -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and syncretic versions of Confucianism / Buddhism / Taoism -- have played the role of middleman minority.

That neither Jewish identity nor Christian identity is the root cause of typical middleman minority tensions is evidenced by relations between black Africans and Lebanese middlemen, with the Ivory Coast serving as an example. As in the Poland of the feudal era (c. Middle Ages -- 1864), African populations often consist of poor people engaged in subsistence agriculture. Both regions had resources, but the masses lacked the freedom, sophistication, cultural traditions, or capital necessary to exploit those resources. In Poland, serfdom retarded peasant advancement. In Africa, the slave trade retarded growth. Polish lords might call "their" peasants "bydlo," that is, "cattle." Colonial powers might express similar contempt for Africans. Both wanted a "buffer" class between themselves and those they ruled. Enter the middleman.

In Africa, Lebanese middlemen came from a more advanced economy, with a business tradition. Lebanese, like Jews, were escaping persecution -- this time from the Ottoman Empire. Like Jews, they started small. "Deep in the interior the only available soap, sugar or bread would be in a shop in a remote village operated by a Lebanese, the only white face for hundreds of miles around," The LA Times reported in 1990. Similarly, Jews often operated the only shop in remote Polish villages. Lebanese help Africa by cultivating resources, but many Africans feel locked out of economic activity and thus develop resentments. Accusations against and tensions involving Lebanese middleman minorities in Africa are comparable to accusations against and tensions involving Jews in Poland.

Internet posts in 2025-26 criticize the "Liboul," a derogatory slang term for Lebanese in Ivory Coast. Posts allege that Lebanese are not "real" Ivorians, should not be allowed to run for office unless black Ivorians can run for office in Lebanon, and that they treat Ivorians like slaves. "Arabs," posts allege, are terrorists. Ivorians accuse Lebanese of forcing a "Great Replacement," or "Grands Remplacement" that is replacing black Ivorians with Arabs.

The Ivory Coast is a plurality-Muslim nation. Lebanese middlemen are majority Muslim. In the Ivory Coast, these mostly Muslim middlemen "face a surge of hostility and resentment from the people whose countries they have helped to build," according to the L.A. Times. One such middleman responded as Jews have often responded to criticism, "When you are successful, you make people jealous." In Ivory Coast, according to the 1990 article, "Lebanese own 175 of the largest industrial enterprises ... Lebanese traders ... control as much as 60% of the retail economy ... merchants’ success depends on family connections that give importers and store owners access to suppliers in Europe and the Far East."

Ivorians complain that Lebanese control of the economy "keeps Ivorians from profiting" and "the biggest swindlers are the Arabs." For their part, the Lebanese respond, "There isn't an Ivorian who invests in his own country ... only the Lebanese who are still investing here." There have been incidences of black Ivorians smashing the windows of Lebanese-owned shops. Scholar Didier Bigo writes that some Ivorians succumb to "full-blown popular paranoia." They "scapegoat" Lebanese. They stereotype Lebanese as a "corrupt," "overbearing, domineering" "fifth column" that wants to "lebanize" the Ivory Coast through their "mafia-like solidarity."

Every aspect of the description, above, of the Lebanese middleman minority in the Ivory Coast could be applied to Polish-Jewish relations in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. These similarities suggest that it is an economic profile, rather than some essential aspect of either Judaism or Christianity, that sparks tensions between middleman minorities and others.

The recent work of two scholars helps to "historicize" Jews' position as middleman minorities. "To historicize" means to explicate the changing and changeable historical factors that bring about conditions. These two scholars address the question, how did Jews come to play the role of middleman minority?

Jewish tradition holds that Abraham was the first to hear the call from God that began the Jewish people, and that Abraham lived about four thousand years ago. Historians debate the historicity of Abraham, but still grant that Judaism is thousands of years old. The earliest Jews many of us assume to have been real, historical figures were not middleman minorities. Abraham was a herdsman. David was a shepherd, as was Moses after he left Egypt. Joshua was a warrior. The Jews we know from the New Testament were also not middleman minorities. Jesus was a carpenter. Peter was a fisherman. Paul was a tent maker, as was Priscilla. Lydia sold textiles. Dorcas was a seamstress. John the Baptist, an ascetic, lived in the wilderness, wore a rough camel-hair garment, and ate locusts and wild honey. Most of Jesus' parables revolve around subsistence farming, fishing, and herding. How did these people become middleman minorities?

Zvi Eckstein is an Israeli economics professor emeritus. Maristella Botticini is an Italian economics professor. In 2003, they previewed work that would become the scholarly article, "From Farmers to Merchants, Conversions and Diaspora: Human Capital and Jewish History." The authors followed up with the 2012 book, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492.

In 70 AD, Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. This presented a real problem to the continuity of Judaism. Jews had been required to travel to Jerusalem to perform religious sacrifice. "In antiquity, sacrifice was the primary way of worshiping God," writes scholar Rachel Scheinerman. How could Judaism survive the disruption of this ancient method of worship?

According to Botticini and Eckstein, a new way of being Jewish was devised. Every father would teach sons to read, write, and study Torah. Historians estimate that perhaps one to ten percent of the population of the ancient world could read and write, and perhaps only five percent was numerate, that is, could handle mathematics. The religious reform mandated by the destruction of the Temple changed the world. An unintended side effect of the new way of being Jewish was that Jews suddenly had necessary skills shared by few other groups. They could perform jobs for elites that few others could perform. Jews, all of whom claim a genetic or religious descent from Abraham, were a closely-knit group that shared a language and a culture. They spread throughout the Greco-Roman, and, then, the Islamic world, but kept in touch via international networks. 

Botticini and Eckstein itemize beliefs that many hold about Jews, beliefs that might not be true at all. People believe that "Jews are not farmers because their ancestors were prohibited from owning land in the Middle Ages;" "They became moneylenders, bankers, and financiers because during the medieval period Christians were banned from lending money at interest, so the Jews filled in that role;" "The Jewish population dispersed worldwide and declined in numbers as a result of endless massacres."

Botticini and Eckstein say, no, all these commonly held beliefs are false. For example, it was in the newly Islamic empires that "Jews became a population of [majority urban] craftsmen, traders, shopkeepers, bankers, scholars, and physicians ... at a time in which there were no legal restrictions on Jewish land ownership ... there was no economic pressure to convert" from better-paying urban professions back to agricultural labor. Jews dispersed internationally to meet the necessary but limited need in each location for the kind of jobs Jews were now performing. Primitive economies require some, but only a minority of literate and numerate workers. "Jews in medieval Europe voluntarily entered and later specialized in money-lending and banking" -- keyword here is "voluntarily" -- not because of strictures imposed by Christians.

Botticini and Eckstein's work performs a very important function in addressing antisemitism. Antisemitic conspiracy theorists have, for centuries, insisted on two false claims. One claim is that banking and markets are inherently "exploitative." In fact economies require banking and markets to function. The second false claim is that there is something inherently "exploitative" about Jewish people. Antisemites might claim that Jews are biologically prone to exploiting others, or they might claim that the Talmud teaches Jews to exploit others. In fact neither of these assertions is true. Again, for thousands of years before the destruction of the Temple, Jews were, like most people, majority illiterate, and they made a subsistence living from the land. Botticini and Eckstein historicize their transition to middleman minority status.

Some attribute antisemitism to religion, specifically either to Judaism itself or Christianity. Rabbi and Professor Shaul Magid outlines a Jewish concept that sees antisemitism as God's will. "Esau hates Jacob," Magid quotes proponents of this idea. All non-Jews are analogous to the Biblical Esau and his competition with his brother Jacob, who is analogous to all Jews. In this understanding, "Antisemitism is a constitutive part of Israel’s covenant with God, and thus defines their relationship with the non-Jewish peoples ... It is even considered an illustration of Israel’s chosenness ... [in this belief antisemitism] should never be solved until the end-time."

Many write off antisemitism as an invention and exclusive feature of Christianity. Antisemitism is "a two-thousand-year-old hatred," they claim. Jesus lived two thousand years ago, so this formulation is a clear condemnation of Christianity. It's also inaccurate. Jews faced persecutions long before Jesus was born. The first recorded non-Biblical mention of Jews is found on the Merneptah stele, an Egyptian inscription that is over three thousand years old. A pharaoh brags, "Israel is laid waste; its seed is no more." The Assyrians scattered the "Ten Lost Tribes" in 722 BC. In 586 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II invaded Israel, destroyed the First Temple, and exiled Jews. In 167 BC, Greek Emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes banned Jewish religious practices, and dedicated the Second Temple to Zeus. There were at least three expulsions of Jews from Rome from 139 BC to 49 AD. And of course the Pagan Romans destroyed the Second Temple, reduced Jerusalem to ruins, killed tens of thousands of Jews and drove others into slavery. In 135 AD, Roman Emperor Hadrian forbade Jews from living in or even entering Jerusalem. The antisemites who racked up the highest body count, the Nazis, followed not only a non-Christian belief system, they followed an anti-Christian belief system.

Christianity didn't invent antisemitism but Christians have committed terrible crimes against Jews. An easy, frequently cited "explanation" for antisemitism is verse 27:25 in the Christian New Testament Gospel according to Matthew. In this verse, some Jerusalem Jews say, of Jesus' crucifixion, "Let his blood be on us and our children." This verse has been and is still used – wrongly – to justify prejudice and violence against Jews.

The Second Vatican Council declares, "Neither all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. . . the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture." The Christian theologians who reject this verse as support for antisemitism cite the following reasons for doing so. The author of the book of Matthew was Jewish himself. He was, then, familiar with Jewish idioms, and this is a Jewish idiom. See Joshua 2:19 and 2 Samuel 1:16. This verse is unique to Matthew's Gospel -- it does not appear in Mark, Luke, or John. Any idea that all Jews are perpetually or uniquely responsible for Jesus' death is contrary to the overall message of the entire New Testament. The Bible repeatedly states that Jesus' death was a sacrifice, according to God's definite plan and foreknowledge, (Acts 2:22-23) to make salvation available to the entire human race (1 John 2:2; Hebrews 2:9; 1 Timothy 2:4-6; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

Jesus was, of course, a Jewish man. Jesus himself says, "Salvation is from the Jews." Paul was a Jew and wrote beautifully of his heritage. "God did not reject his people … God's gifts [to the Jews, his chosen people] are irrevocable … Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the Temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen." Paul writes in Romans 11 and 9.

The New Testament consistently preaches love, and never argues for violence against non-Christians. Matthew's Gospel teaches readers to  "love your enemies," "turn the other cheek," "do good to those who hate you," and "bless those who persecute you." It is undeniable that antisemites in the past and today cite the New Testament as support for their hatred and violence. These antisemites are wrong, and Christians have long said so.

In discussions of Christian antisemitism, some version of the following phrase is often repeated: "The Catholic Church taught hatred of Jews but that changed with Vatican II." Atheists go on to argue that Christianity only changed because of "modernization" and "secularization" that "taught" the Church that hate is wrong. 

I adduce the following facts to prove incorrect the Christophobic idea that Christianity required secular Atheists to "teach" it that hate and violence are wrong. Multiple popes condemned violence and other abuse against Jews. Pope Gregory I (590–604) laid out how Catholics must treat Jews, including in the letter Sicut Judaeis; Pope Alexander II (1061 - 1073) authored Letters to Narbonne and Benevento; Pope Calixtus II (1119 - 1124) issued the papal bull Sicut Judaeis -- this document was reaffirmed at least twenty-one times throughout the Middle Ages; Pope Gregory IX (1227 - 1241) has a mixed record. He issued anti-Jewish decrees but also issued Etsi Judaeorum that demanded that Jews be treated as Christians would want to be treated; Pope Innocent IV (1243 - 1254) initially argued for confiscation of the Talmud on grounds that contains anti-Christian material; he later reversed course and choose the previous path of papal tolerance; he also issued the papal bull condemning blood libel and persecutions of Jews Lachrymabilem Judaeorum; Pope Gregory X (1271 - 1276) insisted on the papal duty of protection of Jews and explicitly condemned blood libel; Pope Clement VI (1342 - 1352) issued Quamvis Perfidiam arguing against attributing the plague to Jewish people, saying

"It does not seem credible that the Jews on this occasion are responsible for the crime nor that they caused it, because this nearly universal pestilence ... has afflicted and continues to afflict the Jews themselves, as well as many other races who had never been known to live alongside them, throughout the various regions of the world. We order all of you by apostolic writing ... to warn your subjects, both the clergy and the people, during the service of the mass in your churches, and to expressly enjoin them on pain of excommunication, which you may then inflict on those who transgress, that they are not to presume to seize, strike, wound, or kill Jews, no matter what the occasion or by what authority (more likely their own rashness), or to demand of them forced labor."

Pope Eugene IV (1431 -1447) began and ended in a tolerant place, but went through an intolerant period in response to contemporary politics.

The sixteenth-century Council of Trent taught that all humanity, but especially Christians, was responsible for Jesus' death. "Our sins consigned Christ the Lord to the death of the cross ... This guilt seems more enormous in us than in the Jews, since  ... while we ... professing to know Him, yet denying Him by our actions, seem in some sort to lay violent hands on him."

Inevitably, someone will say that any mention of popes who protested persecutions amounts to "whitewashing" the papacy, Christianity, or the Catholic Church. No. Rather, mention that popes of over a thousand years ago, or in the Middle Ages, denounced hatred, preached the real Gospel of love and tolerance, ordered the excommunication of violent antisemites, and were smart enough to figure out that Jews didn't cause the plague is one tiny voice crying in the wilderness. The power narrative today is that it was only after modern, secular Atheists educated Christians that they figured any of this stuff out. Americans have a Monty Python and the Holy Grail misunderstanding of their own history. So yes however small an effort to counterbalance that skewed understanding is necessary, but, alas, never sufficient.

That the popes had to repeatedly preach against blood libel and insist that Christians not harm Jews is a sign of how often Christians did disseminate blood libel and did harm Jews. If the New Testament doesn't justify this hatred and violence, and if the leaders of the Church protested against this violence, what accounts for this violence?

Part of the answer is of course human nature. Christians massacred other Christians during the two-hundred-year-long "Wars of Religion" on the European continent; estimates of the death toll range between six and eleven million people. In one event, the St. Bartholomew's day massacre, Catholics murdered between five and thirty thousand Protestants. Nothing in in the New Testament or any papal decree supports that carnage.

One rational explanation for the persistence of antisemitism in majority Christian populations in the West is the lingering stereotypes associated with the middleman minority theory. Popes themselves attributed violence to financial, not theological, issues. In 1233, Pope Gregory IX in Etsi Judaeorum, attributed Christian attacks on Jews to Christian greed. As Pope Clement VI wrote in Quamvis Perfidium, "Some of these Christians" who are abusing Jews "are chasing after their own profit and are blinded by greed in getting rid of the Jews, because they owe great sums of money to them."

The West is becoming less Christian. Antisemitism is on the rise. Some antisemites can be classified as the usual suspects, that is, white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Their stereotypes of Jews tend to follow the stereotypes of the middleman minority, along with the biological racism so typical of Nazism.

There is another source of antisemitism in the West. It is embodied not in neo-Nazis, who are rightfully vilified and locked out of mainstream media. Rather, this source of antisemitism springs from young, attractive, charismatic public figures who are embraced and celebrated in mainstream media, and virtually never asked any difficult questions. Ilhan Omar, Zohran Mamdani, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Nerdeen Kiswani, and Hasan Piker exemplify this trend.

There is a religion whose foundational texts, texts that must never be questioned on pain of death, teach overt antisemitism, and it isn't Christianity. Islamic texts and history are rife with deadly and sadistic antisemitism, often twinned with Christophobia. For example, Koran 5:60 alleges that Allah turned Jews into monkeys and pigs. Verse 5:82 says that Jews are the most hostile to Muslims. Verse 9:29 demands that Jews and Christians be fought, be economically fleeced, and be humiliated. Mohammad said, "May Allah’s Curse be on the Jews and the Christians." Allah is so hostile to Jews and Christians that he sends them to Hell to take the place of  sinful Muslims. Mohammad was able to hear Jews suffering in Hell. The end of the world will come when Muslims fight Jews. Even trees and rocks will talk to Muslims to tell them where Jews are hiding. (Sahih Bukhari 4:56:660; Sahih Muslim 37:6666; Sahih Muslim 37:6668; Sahih Muslim 40:6861. Sahih Muslim: Hadith No. 2922. There are many more such statements here.) Devout Muslims repeat the Al-Fatihah seventeen times daily. This text alleges that Christians "go astray" and that Jews "anger God." And of course, Mohammad, very much unlike Jesus, committed, by mass decapitation, a genocide of a Jewish tribe, tortured a Jewish man to death, and then claimed that Jewish man's widow, the daughter of a man he had previously killed, as his own "wife."

According to Dr. Bill Warner, 64% of the Koran and 81% of Mohammad's biography concern the kafir, the hated non-Muslim. The Dome of the Rock is possibly the first religious structure to be built by a Muslim ruler. It was built in 685, only fifty-three years after the death of Mohammad. The inscription of the Dome of the Rock is, bizarrely, a lengthy, repetitive attack on Christianity. It condemns the Christian concept of the trinity. It insists that Jesus was not the son of God. It states these assertions over and over. This obsession, in ostensibly religious texts, with hatred for Christians and Jews, that is, those outside the religion, is remarkable. No comparable percentage can be found in the sacred scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Roman Paganism, or Buddhism.

Judaism is known for the phrase, "Hear oh Israel, the lord, our God, is one." Christianity is known for the phrase, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have eternal life." Hinduism is known for "All is one," and "You are that." Buddhism is known for "Om mani padme hum," that is, compassion plus wisdom leads to enlightenment and transcendence. Islam is known for "Allahu akbar," which means that the Muslim god is greater than all the other gods. "Islam is victorious and superior" to those defeated by the jihadi crying "Allahu akbar," explains scholar Robert Spencer.

There is a popular misunderstanding that Islam has treated Jews well. Scholar Bernard Lewis explains that this myth "was invented by Jews in 19th-century Europe as a reproach to Christians—and taken up by Muslims in our own time as a reproach to Jews."

Those who would be successful allies to Jews must recognize the reality of Islamic antisemitism. This reality transcends any given Israeli policy position. Jihadis who vow, often in public statements, to murder every Jew in Israel do not base their desire for genocide on any given thing Israel does. Rather, they foster murderous designs because of what Israel is -- a Jewish state that cannot be allowed to exist because it is Jewish. These jihadis cite as support the kind of quotes from the Koran and the hadith found above. "Islam will obliterate" Israel, states the 1988 Hamas covenant.

To state these simple facts is not anti-Muslim. Muslims, like Jews, like Christians, are human beings. It is not anti-Muslim to cite violent quotes from Islamic sources any more than it is anti-Catholic to quote Matthew 27:25 or to mention the Rhineland Massacres of Jews. When Catholics speak publicly about antisemitism, we are subjected to intense questioning. We should be subjected to intense questioning. All Christians, for all time, should be queried about the dark sins of our co-religionists, and how we differentiate our thoughts, our hearts, and our actions from those co-religionists, and what we are doing to make amends. The very same procedure should be applied to Muslims. Alas, that is not happening. And people like Omar, Chevalier, Piker, and Mamdani are given a free pass to disseminate hatred that destroys lives. As haters have learned throughout history, it is not just the target that is damaged by hate. It is also the source of the hatred who damages him or herself. To demand that Muslims confront the teachings they hold sacred does Muslims a service, no less than anyone else.

A word about Israel. I believe that Israel has a right to exist within defensible borders. I said why I support this in the 2014 American Thinker article, "Coming Out As Pro-Israel on Facebook." Nachum Kaplan's July 7, 2026 piece, "The People Who Know Nothing Know Everything" reflects my point of view.

Danusha V. Goska is the author of God through Binoculars: A Hitchhiker at a Monastery