Antisemitism: How We Arrived Here & Where To Go Now Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Elad Israeli: Good afternoon to all those joining me here, just outside of Washington DC, good morning to those joining us on the West Coast and the heartland, and good evening to those joining from overseas. My name is Elad Israeli, and I serve as EMET’s Director of Legislative Affairs. Today, our webinar will touch on a matter which has greatly disturbed all of us in recent years, rising antisemitism. While this has been a subject of much discussion, in particular since October 7th, it does seem that in recent weeks, the line of physical violence has been crossed once again, sounding alarm bells and making this issue all the more pressing. Our webinar today with our distinguished speakers will work to unravel key aspects of the world’s oldest hate, deepen our understanding of it, and help us pivot the conversation towards courses of action.

Why are Jews hated? What are the elements of Jew hatred today? Why does this hate persist now reaching record highs? What should we do about it? These central questions are addressed in the presentation, antisemitism and the nature of Jew hate from the Confronting Antisemitism Network, or CAN. Their presentation is designed to educate and open minds to understanding the world’s oldest hate in the belief that we can’t hope to stop it if we don’t understand it first. CAN’s presentation is unlike traditional ones on this subject. It’s not about the Holocaust or ancient history. It offers both a model of how hate evolves, as well as practical steps to sanction hateful acts in order to modify the hater’s behaviors and get them to stop.

Before I introduce our speakers, I’d like to say a few personal words. The topic which we’re about to discuss today, has struck all too close to home in recent days and weeks. Just last week, Molotov cocktails were thrown into a crowd of peaceful marchers in Boulder, Colorado.
They were marching with pictures of hostages held by the terrorist organization, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip since October 7th, 2023. In this incident, several marchers were injured and lives were put at risk. Two weeks ago today, right here in the heart of our nation’s capital a gunman took the lives of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Laschinsky, two employees of the Embassy of Israel. They were shot outside the DC Jewish Museum just as they were leaving an event dedicated to supporting humanitarian efforts in global conflicts. Yaron and Sarah were my friends, and I worked together with them at the embassy before coming to serve at EMET.

I had welcomed Yaron to DC when he first arrived from Israel less than three years ago, and we kept in touch even as I had moved on from my previous job. We would often correspond about the most recent developments in the DC political scene and share our thoughts on global events. Two weeks before their assassination, I met the two of them for what had turned out to be the last time. They shared with me their plans to get married and asked about my own experiences as a spouse in an international marriage. I could not have been happier to see their love grow and mature and was excited to watch their story unfold. That story was cut short. I miss them and think of them every day, and their photo sits by me today as a reminder of the real life implications of the subject matter we’ll be discussing.

In both of these violent incidents, we saw how hateful speech spread around freely over years has morphed into acts of physical violence. Excuses are made for these murderous acts with explanations rooted in geopolitical developments. Some will argue for free speech that is free from all impediments. However, we know all too well that when it comes to hate speech, physically violent acts will always follow. That is why we must work to address the issue of anti-Semitic speech before it turns into physical acts of harm. EMET is committed to this fight and works at it each and every day in the halls of government. If you’d like to support our work, please visit our website at www.emetonline.org. Your contributions go a long way. To discuss this matter today, I’m honored to be joined by two colleagues and friends.

Tony Katz is a Jewish civil rights activist and advocate. During his 45-year career, he supported causes and issues in Washington DC and New York City at the executive leadership levels in the strategic communications and reputation management industry for respected client institutions, industry trade associations, and Fortune 500 companies. In 2020, he founded CAN to help in the fight against antisemitism. Avi Goldwasser has been an activist on college campuses for over 20 years. He co-founded the David Project, a pro-Israel advocacy group on campus. He also served on the Boston Boards of the American Jewish Committee and the JCRC. He currently works with the Jewish Leadership Project and National Grassroots Group working to develop strong Jewish leaders. As a filmmaker, he produced several award-winning pieces, including the Forgotten Refugees, the J Street Challenge, Hate Spaces, and Columbia Unbecoming. If you haven’t watched them, go watch them right after this webinar. Avi is also a co-author of Betrayal, a book about the failure of American Jewish leadership. Tony, Avi, I’ll now hand the mic over to you and I look forward to viewing your presentation.

Tony Katz: Thank you, Elad, and good afternoon to you all. Thanks for viewing CAN’s presentation entitled Antisemitism and the Nature of Jew Hate. We’ve been showing this presentation for the past three plus years to companies, international, national and local groups, schools, institutions, national law firms, and have planted the seed for better understanding. Talking about planting the seed, the idea for this activity and for CAN was planted in me about 62 years ago when I was a first year student in the eighth grade at a private school outside of Washington, DC to where my parents had just moved the family. You see, I was a chubby new kid from New York City in a grade where many of the kids had been together for five plus years. I only tell you this as it relates to fitting in. So I was a bit challenged and even more so because of one stark fact, and that was unbeknownst to my parents. I was the first and only Jew in the history of my class.

So as a result, I became the silent, yet quite ashamed victim of pernicious, sustained anti-Semitic bullying from a cadre of classmates every day, many times a day for the first seven months of the year. These classmates had their favorite name for me. What do you think that was? Well, I’ll tell you, it was Dirty Jew, which inconceivably they thought was hilarious. Back then, I didn’t know what to say or what to do, and didn’t have any idea of what I may have done wrong to have such hate directed at me until I finally broke my silence with my father, who resolved it with the headmaster in the spring of that year. But I can tell you hate takes a toll on people. What does it feel like to be the target of hate? I felt ashamed. I felt scared and less of a person. It had a chilling effect on what little confidence I had in eighth grade, and I avoided extracurricular activities at school all the way through high school, out of fear of being ridiculed. But that was then, let’s talk about now.

This presentation, as Elad said, is not about ancient history or the Holocaust, and it’s not designed to convince the invincible haters. Next slide, please. Rather, it’s designed to raise awareness and sensitivity because antisemitism is not well understood or sufficiently covered like so many other hates. A prime purpose of this presentation is to expose antisemitism as a key example of too many of us failing to make room for the differences all of us have. Perhaps most importantly, today, it’s designed to create for decision and policy activist and influencers like all of you, the context for urgency of action, and more about this specific action at the end of the presentation.

Next slide. So, let’s look quickly at how antisemitism has exploded in alarming numbers, demonstrating that we, Jews are a beleaguered minority. We’re 60% roughly of the hate crimes in the United States, three times more than any other group, though were only 2% of the population. Since October 7th, through the end of 2024, there were 10,000 incidents highest ever in history. Since October 7th, 1200 incidences on campus. What’s interesting about that is large numbers of incidences go unreported because only about 50% of students avoid reporting out of fear of retaliation. Nearly 50% of Jewish Americans changed their conduct in public, and for those of you who follow congress, anti-Semitic comments directed at the 30 Jewish members of Congress are up 500% percent since February reaching nearly 30 incidences a day. So antisemitism in a nutshell has increased tenfold in the last 10 years.

So these stats raise two points. Why does antisemitism continue and persist, and why is it ignored? There are two reasons. One, since the beginning of time, humans have had a tribal evolutionary nature where we resent or are suspicious of those who are different and in another group, more about this in a moment. Secondly, why it exists. There’s lack of awareness and political pressure on decision makers to act. One reason is media under reporting of anti-Semitic religious hate crimes versus Jews, they report up to three times more hate crimes versus other minorities than Jews, even though we’re about 60%. So now we come to three big questions of antisemitism. Next slide, please. The first one is, what are Jews? Many people have a simplistic, limiting and wrong way to regard Jews that we’re just members of a religious minority, and that it’s only a religious bigotry, but here is reality. The second bullet shows that we’re a people, we’re diverse, we’re a cultural community and a religion and not all of us are white Europeans, as you can see from the Ethiopian Jews. So our identities are expressed through a number of features and values of us, but sadly, virtually all these values and features have been weaponized in contemporary antisemitism, everyone.

Next slide. Second big question. What is Jew hatred? The answer provides the hate model of myriad forms of other hates, so it’s kind of universal. It takes the form of so many aspects, hostility, hatred, prejudice, and now violence, including hatred of Israel. It’s a form of racism. It includes all the points from stereotyping to promoting the elimination of Jewish people. So it’s a story of lies and myths. More specifics again in a minute. But the point is that these forms, all the forms you see on this slide are directly related to evils, starting with defamation, followed by diminishment, dehumanization, delegitimization, marginalization, and silencing. These are the steps to genocide. So Jew hatred isn’t merely about where Jews live, it’s about the audacity that Jews live at all. Next slide please.

Next slide. Thank you. Please go back. So here’s the biggest question. Why does it exist and persist? I’m going to take a minute on this slide because it’s really important, and it goes to the root of what’s behind Jew hatred. You see four reasons here. The first reason is our evolutionary tribalism, and it’s the heart of mankind’s hatred and has led to identity politics. Antisemitism is a form of racism. Let me make the point that hatred is a primary expression of our tribalism. Back when we competed for food and resources and shelter and mates and safety, we rooted for us and we demonized and hated the others who were competing with us. Group affiliation has always been at the center of our sense for self. Most strikingly about this tribalism is the enmity and derision and irrational contempt for those not in our group, think of how people regard us. These are our basis impulses, driving antisemitism and other hates.

We’ve got to first understand these, so we may then seek to modify and dampen these impulses, and then resentment or the second reason for Jews and Jewish success in society, supporting, which supports the perception that we are controlling and privileged, frankly. Third reason is the view that is based on scapegoating, blaming others for your failures. Arnold Schwartzenegger said in a recent video something very important. Let me quote it for you. He said, “It’s easier to make excuses that the Jewish people conspired to hold you back than it is to admit that you just needed to work harder.” He said, “For the haters, it’s easier to hate than it is to learn.”

So lastly, this is born out of fear and shows up as conspiracies that we are seeking to control. We have long sought the fight, the irrational tribalism and hate resulting in antisemitism through rational means, facts and logic. But fighting irrational hate through facts and rational means has not worked. Just look at the ADL numbers every year historic highs, what’s needed to modify our tribalism, our evolution, and these behaviors are painful consequences on the haters via enforcement of lawful sanctions and social ostracism. This is how to restrain our most fundamental tribalist[?] behaviors. Please remember this slide. Next slide, please. It may surprise you that there’s always and has been a singular common goal behind all forms of Jew hate, and that is elimination, to eliminate us. First by conversion, then by industrialized mass murder through the Nazis, and now the elimination of the state of Israel. Next slide.

So not coincidentally the goal of elimination has been supported and facilitated by hateful symbols around the world throughout history, starting with demonization. Think of Goebbels’ pictures, characters of Jews as rats. Here we’re depicted as devil looking octopuses controlling the world more demonization, clearly. Next slide. These symbols of Jew hate have been falsely buttressed with historic anti-Semitic tropes throughout history. Some of the most common ones are these so that you can recognize them when you see them and push back tropes about our power, our wealth, and our privilege that we are money oriented and control finances and the media. That we’re responsible for society’s disasters and we commit blood libels. The most recent one, my wife and I experienced from former neighbors when we lived in Naples who were non-Jews, they told us that you guys are favorite Jews. I’m sure I don’t need to tell each and every one of you that these are deeply insulting, demeaning and hurtful to all of us. Avi.

Avi Goldwasser: Okay. Well, as many of you I’m sure are familiar with, there’s a long and ugly history of Jew hatred which always starts with some demonization of Jews. It’s a way of inciting people to eliminate demons and eliminate what they perceive as evil. Next slide, please. So it started with Christianity once they broke off from the Jewish community. The accusation against Jews was that they were Christ killers, they killed God. It became a political tool to turn the public away from their current problems by focusing on a demon that is responsible for whatever goes bad in a society. The demonization always leads to some sort of massacre of Jews. What you see here is some of the historical events of how Jews were demonized to incite massacre of Jews, or in some cases, the burning of Jews.

Next slide, please. The same is true in Islamic country. It’s not as extensive as it was in Christianity, but it was still there. Both Islam and Christianity competed with Judaism for the attention of the people. So you demonize your competitor, you demonize your enemy to eliminate that competitor, that threat. So we can see the impact of that throughout history. So Jew hatred has shifted from Christian countries to Muslim countries. It’s always a convenient political tool to deflect the public’s anger at the regime that’s in power by blaming whatever shortfall, whatever issues occur in society, blame it on the Jews as the cause of it. Next, please.

So keep in mind that the key to successful Jew hatred has always been lies based on demonization of Jews and it continues today. You see it in UN reports, you see it how Jew hatred will use whatever has gone wrong to blame Jews. That’s a major motivator for action against Jews. When people feel threatened they need to blame someone, they need to have an answer and Jews have been a convenient answer and it’s been a successful political ploy by the authorities, both in Christian countries and in Muslim countries. Today a lot of the assault on Jews is based on ideology. Atrocities, claims of atrocities committed by the Jewish state are always brought up as a way to motivate action against Jews. What we see today is individual action in the US and in western Europe, which Jews are blamed for societal problems.

As Tony mentioned, a lot of the ideological warfare against Jews is based on Jewish success. That is used as a reason to incite, envy, resentment, and ultimately some violence against Jews. So the ideological warfare today is the most prominent feature of the demonization process which is why the state of Israel is rejected. Jewish self-determination is rejected, is viewed as evil. Another aspect that makes Jew hatred appealing is it often appeals to human rights, social justice. If you look at what’s going on on American campuses, a lot of it is weaponizing moral values, social justice against the Jewish state and against Jews. The most dangerous part in many ways is when politics is organized against Jews. I’m a child of Holocaust survivors, spent a lot of time with my parents to try to understand what happened and why and a key element was the organized politics against Jews. I was born in Poland after the war, and there was a key feature of Polish society before the war, and even after the war. So we have to be very careful whenever politics is organized against Jews. I’m sure you know that in Congress today, there are several congress people who are demonizing Jews and using politics as a means of doing that, and that’s very dangerous.

Next slide, please. This is a short video which identifies the different flavors of Jew hatred today. Go ahead. Can’t hear it. Can’t hear the sound.

Male Speaker 4: Anti-termite.

Reporter: Shocking video shows kids in Philadelphia, in America, at an Islamic center appearing to vow to chop off heads and sacrifice their lives all in the name of Allah. Watch.

Child: [Foreign words]

Male Speaker 6: We will chop off their heads.

Male Speaker 7: Some days in class I would not wear my Jewish star necklace because it was easier to not be identified as a Jewish student.

Male Speaker 8: [Foreign words]

Audience: [Foreign words]

Male Speaker 8: [Foreign words]

Audience: [Foreign words]

Male Speaker 8: Thank you.

Avi: It’s a very short step from chanting on campus or on the streets to some people taking action and actually trying to kill Jews, as we’ve seen in recent months. But if you think about it, what’s the underlying motive here? What would cause someone to kill someone? This is a short video by Thomas Sowell, an economist who talks about what motivates this sort of behavior. Go ahead.

Thomas Sowell: So the question is why these particular kinds of people are the targets of so much us, venomous hatred. I think the answer is that they not only succeed, they succeed in a way which is the threat to the egos of other people. You can envy a Rockefeller, but he’s no threat to your ego because you say, listen, anybody can be rich if he’s born a Rockefeller, but the guy who comes here, let’s say from Vietnam or Korea, and arrives here with little more than the clothes in his back, and a few words of broken English and a decade later, he has his own little business. You see his son a few years after that, getting ready to go off to Harvard or MIT, you got to ask yourself, you’ve got to hate yourself or saying, my God, I’ve been stagnating. This guy was nothing, and now he’s risen up, or you’re going to have to hate him. Most people, when they have a choice between hating others and hating themselves, they hate others. One official of one of the Jewish organizations in New York asked me, “Well, what can Jews themselves do in order to minimize the hostility they face?” I gave them a one word answer, fail, because as long as you succeed, you’re going to be hated.

Avi: Next slide, please.

Male Speaker 8: My understanding of antisemitism is the following. Antisemitism is not simply hating the other the Jew as the other. antisemitism works a little bit differently. What antisemitism does is turn the Jew, into the symbol of whatever it is that a given civilization defines as its most loathsome qualities. So under Christianity, before the Holocaust and Vatican II, the Jew was the Christ killer. His blood be upon our heads and upon our children. That’s forever. Under communism, the Jew was the capitalist. Under Nazim the Jew was the race polluter, the ultimate race polluter. Now we live in a different civilization. Now we live in the civilization where the most loathsome qualities are racism, colonialism, apartheid. Lo and behold, the greatest offender in the world today with all the beautiful countries of the world is the Jewish state. The Jewish state is the symbol of the genocidal, racist, apartheid state. That’s Israel, that’s the Jewish state. Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism. Criticism of Israel’s existence, denying Israel the right to exist, calling Israel the Zionist entity, that is antisemitism, that is a classical continuity of thousands of years of symbolizing the Jew. So using that kind of language, places you in very uncomfortable company. That kind of language can come today from the far left. It can come from white supremacists, it can come from Islamist extremists, it can come from many sources. But all of those groups converge on one idea, the Jew remains humanity’s. Great problem.

Avi: Next slide please. So anti Zionism hatred of the Jewish state has replaced antisemitism which was tainted by the Nazi genocide of Jews, but it has the same goals, and it is just a matter of replacing the Jew in society with Israel as the Jew among the nations. In that sense, nothing’s changed. There’s a long history of singling out Jews, Jewish state, and that’s what we see today, and it’s all done, “Under the cover of human rights, under the cover of ending colonialism.” Whatever semantics are needed, they’re quickly invented. People don’t understand, refuse to understand or find very convenient to continue to demonize Jews by demonizing the state of Israel. Next, please.

Sadly, this kind of poison has emerged in Congress. I think you’re all familiar with those congressmen, with its Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib or some other congressman who find it politically convenient to demonize the Jewish state and indirectly or directly Jews. It doesn’t take much to trigger certain people to convert that demonization into action. Look how many killers in the last month have called for free Palestine after they kill Jews or tried to kill Jews. The irony is when they say free Palestine, what they don’t say is free to do what? What’s the reason to free Palestine, whatever that means. The only reason one can speculate on is to kill Jews. That’s what happens.

Next one, please. So, recognizing Jew hatred. I think Tony touched upon the old reason, the traditional reason, which has to do with money, success. Now you’ve got oppression, colonialists, white supremacists, whatever is deemed to be most loathsome. The Jewish state is easy to demonize today. No state is perfect, so you can always find something. That’s been the major driver of what we’re seeing in the world today in terms of demonizing Jews, hating Jews, and taking action to kill Jews. Next. So how to respond to Jew hatred. In America, it’s quite simple. We’ve done a very good job of protecting minorities and to some extent, the way to respond to Jew hatred is to give Jews the same protection as any other minority in America. It seems so obvious yet that’s not what’s happening. Jews have been labeled as privilege, as oppresses. They’re singled out for different treatment than other minorities and that needs to change. Next.

To be consistent with what we’ve done for almost all minorities in America, is to teach the respect required in recognition of the diversity of humanity. We need to be tolerant of group differences. Learn how to be anti-bigots, anti-haters, speak out against any demonization of human being. Seek human dignity for all in group harmony. That’s not exactly what’s happening when it comes to Jews and you have to ask yourself why are Jews treated differently? Why aren’t they afforded the same benefits for protection and decency as other minorities? Tony.

Tony: Next slide, please. So, to produce the missing protections for the Jewish minority in the US, it’s necessary we believe to no longer be on defense. We must turn the tables on the haters and go on offense. So here are a handful of steps we recommend you guys consider to protect Jews. All of us can take these. One, support efforts to pass legislation like the Antisemitism Awareness Act, making campuses safer, imposing severe lawful consequences on the haters in order to modify and dampen their tribal behaviors, including enforcing civil rights, criminal hate speech laws, and including the elements of arrest, prosecution, sentencing for the hateful words and acts that occur. These take the forms of, it’s important to remember, threats, intimidation, assaults, harassment, trespass, and or blocking access to education of Jews, or creating a hostile environment of Jews.

Also withholding and sanctioning withholding federal funds and sanctioning institutions that failed to protect Jews. Lastly, calling out local and national TV, media, print sources to encourage fairer reported. So the sum of this is education, a new type to support our to restrain our tribal impulses and the painful lawful sanctions as a means to modify haters behaviors. I’ll close with this. If we do these things, then maybe just maybe the next young man or young woman who faces antisemitism won’t have to suffer in silence or shame. Elie Wiesel said very clearly our objective in fighting antisemitism all of our objectives, “What hurts the victim most is not merely the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.” lastly, let me conclude with what Anne Frank said, a simple but powerful quote, she said, then “Even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager within their own small ways, they can turn on a small light in a dark room.” Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Avi: Let me just add one thing, if I may. I think that a lot of what was done to counter Jew hatred in the last 70 years since the Holocaust has been through education. There was this belief that we can educate people to be sensitive to discrimination, Jew hatred and so forth. Sadly, we’d like to believe that education can solve these problems, but in reality, there’s little evidence that education can change hatred for most people. I think you have to look at what does modify behavior. We’re mammals, we’re tribal, and throughout history, inflicting pain on people tends to modify their behavior. If there’s no pain inflicted on Jew hatred, they’ll continue to do it. Education is not going to change it. The Nazis, many of the Nazis were professors in university, highly educated and because it’s innate in human nature to hate for all the reasons that were mentioned, pain is a big motivator. That’s just the way things work. Unless we inflict pain on the haters they’ll continue to get away with it. Keep doing it. Thank you.

Elad: Tony, Avi, thank you so much for this presentation. As you were speaking, we did receive some questions from our viewing audience. So I’d like to read out a few select ones and hear your thoughts. First, what basis is CAN active in? Who do you guys usually talk to? Who else views this presentation?

Tony: So we’ve talked to over the last three and a half years, many, many people leadership of major corporations, major Jewish organizations, major Jewish groups, the largest youth serving club in the world with 80,000 staff and 5 million members, national law firms, and schools. So we’ve tried to reach people who can make a difference. I should say one thing; the world can be circular. Two years ago, I returned to that school where this all started, the hate and gave our presentation to 200 faculty members.

Elad: How do the two of you perceive the current state of education, I guess particularly in America education on subjects such as antisemitism and the history of the Holocaust as well, specifically?

Tony: Avi?

Avi: Yeah. So from my experience, and I work with public school teachers in Miami which Florida mandates one day being devoted in schools to teach about the Holocaust. It was not encouraging. They don’t think talking about the Holocaust is making any difference. Obviously, there’s no evidence that it makes any difference. It’s not as relevant to today’s youth. So I don’t think it’s as simple as education. Some people are susceptible to being influenced by education. Others may not be. But if you look at statistics, Jew hatred has only increased despite all the good efforts by ADL and others to educate the public. So I don’t think education is simply the answer.

Tony: My wife and I were asked last week to speak before a group of 100 middle schoolers, private school and teachers about the Holocaust. It was to them, my observation, ancient history.

Elad: Alright. Do you anticipate that the recent wave of antisemitism will wind down? What does the history of post-World War II antisemitism and the United States teach us?

Avi: I don’t think there’s evidence that it would wind out. As we mentioned earlier, it’s part of human nature to hate people who are different. So you’re doing something that’s quite embedded in the human mind. We’re tribal. It’s always us versus them. Also, humans are people who prefer not to take responsibility for their situation and rather blame someone for their misfortune or whatever the problem. So I think there has to be a more fundamental kind of education about tribalism, why people hate. It’s interesting that all the organizations who are fighting Jew hatred including ADL, for example, never deal with why are Jews hated. What motivates Jew hatred? Unless you get to the root cause of a problem, you’re not going to solve it. Because some of it is just built into the human psyche, it’s a difficult problem.

People are not gonna blame themselves for their failures, and they look for excuses. So unless you deal with the fundamental of human nature and the nature of tribalism and the fact that instead people are educated to resent success, and that’s a real problem. If someone pointed out to me, if you truly believe that all people are equal, why do the Jews always excel? Why do Jews wind up on top Nobel Prize winner? Look at any academic field, certainly not so much sports. So you conclude that if truly people are equal, the only way Jews can exceed and excel is because they cheat or they’re demonized. They’re demons. There’s no logical explanation under a certain, let’s say, Marxist view of human nature to have one group be successful. But unless you deal with that, you’re avoiding the issue as to why Jews succeed. If they succeed more than others, they’ll be resented.

Tony: There were a number of articles this week that said the golden age of Jews in America is over, and that there is no cavalry coming for us. Avi and I have repeatedly harped on the point of there have to be consequences, there have to start to be consequences on the haters who are assaulting, threatening, blocking Jews on campus and in the schools, legal lawful consequences. We have to, number two, get rid of the teachings that Jews are occupiers, colonialists, and oppressors if the younger generation is to ever have a different view.

Elad: Thank you. I think this next question is addressed to me. How has EMET been active and countering antisemitism? Well, most of the EMET’s work is political work. when we think about political work, what we end up seeing on the news or on C-SPAN that’s not the real event. That’s just the end result. What comes before that is days and weeks and months and years of behind the scenes work that is done in the halls of Congress in particular, far, far away from the spotlight. It requires relentless advocacy. Fortunately, relentless advocacy is what EMET is here for, precisely what we’re here for. Currently, we’re talking about the 119th Congress. It’s been in session for about five months now. There are already several legislations that touch exactly on the concerns that were discussed in today’s presentation.

Some of them are the stop antisemitism on College Campuses Act, the Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons Act. If I can elaborate on just one of them in this answer, it will be actually one that was also mentioned in Tony and Avi’s presentation, and that is the Antisemitism Awareness Act. I suppose much of our viewing audiences already heard about this bill, whether hearing about it from us at EMET, or also seeing information about it on the news. I know it’s been the subject quite a bit of media coverage. The Antisemitism Awareness Act is a bill that EMET, has been behind for many, many years nearly a decade at this point. It works to address the issue of antisemitism on our college campuses. We have seen just how pressing of an issue this has become in the past year and a half since October 7th and just how urgent it is to treat this matter in a very, very diligent way.

The Antisemitism Awareness Act as some of you know, has seen somewhat of a rocky road, but those who are active behind the scenes like us still have a cause for some optimism. We are holding discussions about it with our partners on Capitol Hill. We do so just about every day. We’re going to do some of this work later today, tomorrow. and in the days and weeks to come. So we’re very hopeful about that. I’m actually heading to Capitol Hill myself just as soon as this webinar ends. I will be doing some of that advocacy for this bill and for others. Tony and Avi, do you see a connection between rising antisemitism and other concerning social trends? Or does hatred of Jews exist independently of these?

Avi: Well, historically it’s been independent of anything good times, bad times. It’s a convenience scapegoat and a simplistic explanation of how the world works. Somebody’s responsible and choose on the natural target. The other thing I wanted to mention, which is becoming more obvious, is the concept of collective guilt. So all people are being fire bombed, if you wish, in Colorado because of something Israel has done. What’s the connection here? Think of any other group that is experiencing collective guilt. Jews are still targeted because they’re accused of killing Christ. This kind of collective guilt to a problem is amazing. That still goes on, on college campuses as if the Jewish students on campus are responsible for what happens in Gaza.

Elad: We do have time for one more question. this question is actually from me to you, Tony and Avi, if our viewers take with them just one thought from this webinar, what should that thought be?

Tony: Well, if you permit me, Elad, three points. One, remember the four points of why Jews are hated so that you can push back when you see, hear, or encounter them. Number two, Jews are a minority like any other, deserving of the same protections. Number three, it’s not up to some faceless crowd to solve this. Respectfully, it’s up to each and every one of us. So ask your own networks if we can present this presentation to them so more people will be engaged to stand up to hate.

Avi: If I may just point out that if you think about what motivates any kind of hatred, then you think about why any of the individuals who resort to violence because of Jew hatred, and what’s their reaction from your friends, from your leaders about turning to violence? A lot of it has to do with just plain prejudice. It has to do with collective guilt and collective punishment. It’s astounding. Imagine any other minority. We’d collective guilt in World War II, the Japanese American were rounded up, but today I don’t see any Chinese or Russians or Ukrainians are being punished in America for what’s happening in Russia or Ukraine or China. Why isn’t there such an obvious thing for leaders to talk about, we’re all Americans?

Tony: Can I just make one last point? If we don’t stop the hate speech and the hate acts of violence, we can only assume that the speech will lead to more violence. It must be stopped now.

Elad: Tony, Avi, thank you so much for sharing your presentation with us today. We had known for a long time how important the fight against antisemitism is. However, when we conceived this webinar a few weeks back, I certainly did not imagine that it would strike in such a painful way. CAN and its affiliates do such important work in educating Americans about the nature of antisemitism and when coupled with our work at EMET towards political action in the fight against antisemitism, we make a real difference. Again, thank you.

Tony: Thank you.

Elad: Our viewers can also take their own steps to advocate for our shared beliefs. I mentioned earlier the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which is currently being circulated in two bills in Congress, H.R.1077 and S558. Please write to your respective representatives and senators in Congress, ask them to support this bill and see that it gets passed. I’d like to remind our audience that a recorded version of this webinar will soon be made available for viewing on YouTube and other platforms. Please share it with your friends and colleagues and ask them to support EMET’s work on this and on many other matters by making a contribution on our website at www.emetonline.org. Thank you all so much for joining us today. I look forward to being in touch, and I wish you a great and productive day. Goodbye.

Tony: Thank you.

Avi: Thank you, everyone.

Tony: Thank you.

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