'The Left Isn't Against Jews—Just Israel!' 'The Right Is Worse!' 'Jews Were an Oppressed Minority!' - Answering My Critics

A response to what I believe will be the most common objections to THE JEWS AND THE LEFT, which comes out on Tuesday.

In two days, my new book, The Jews and the Left, comes out. It’s about why the majority of America’s Jews became staunch Democrats 100 years ago, and why most still back the Democrats, even though the Left turned on the Jews.

As part of my quest to answer to these questions, I uncovered 300 years of forgotten Jewish American history. I discovered that from the moment they stepped foot on American soil, Jews were seen not as an oppressed minority or immigrant group but as cherished partners in the creation of this great nation. It’s as if the soil itself rejected the Jew hate that seeped out of every cobblestone of the Old Country. It’s my hope that once known, this history will create a paradigm shift.

I know there will be pushback.

Progressives will say the Left isn’t antisemitic, just anti-Israel.

Others will claim that our history here was one of an oppressed minority.

And of course, people will say the Right is where the real antisemitism is.

They are wrong on all three fronts.

Here are my answers to what I predict will be the most common objection to The Jew and the Left.

The Left hasn’t turned on Jews—just Israel

One objection I expect to hear extensively to the argument I make in my book will come from progressives who insist that the Left hasn’t turned on the Jews—only Israel. They will say that Israel has committed a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, that Israel killed 70,000 women, children, and babies, and has thus forfeited its right to exist, if it ever had one. Certainly, Israel has forfeited its right to support from members in good standing on the Left, which believes in universal values like human rights. Leftists say Israel is a colonial apartheid rogue state that oppresses its neighbors and demands regional dominance. Zionism, they say, is racism. As proof that they are not opposed to Jews but only Israel, they insist that Jews who agree with them are welcome.

That last part is true: Jews willing to bend the knee and denounce the vast majority of their fellow Jews, willing to denounce Zionism and the existence of the State of Israel, are indeed welcome on the Left. But everything else is simply false.

Israel did not commit a genocide; it waged a defensive war against a genocidal terror group that mass murdered, mass raped, kidnapped babies and the elderly, and sexually assaulted little girls in captivity. To claim that Israel’s attempt to eradicate the threat of another October 7 is “genocide” is simply Holocaust envy, a common plague on the Left. There weren’t 70,000 civilian casualties in Gaza, there were 70,000 total casualties, of which between one third and one half were Hamas terrorists. The achievement of the civilian to combatant ratio of Israel’s war in Gaza was unheard of in urban warfare. Of course, Israel isn’t a colonial enterprise, because Jews are indigenous to the land. And Israel’s desire for regional dominance is for defensive purposes, not expansionist ones, which you know because Israel has zero interest in occupying Jordan, or Iran, or Egypt.

I and many other pro-Israel Americans (and Israelis!) certainly have our criticisms of Israel, how it waged the war against Hamas, and its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank. I like many other pro-Israel people (including Benjamin Netanyahu himself!) don’t believe we should be giving military aid to Israel.

But those are not views that get you entré into the Left. To be a member in good standing on the Left, you have to believe things that are not true about the Jewish State, or at least, proclaim them loudly. You have to desire the elimination of the homeland of half of the world’s Jews, and desire that rather than live under their own sovereignty in a Jewish State, that they submit their fate to live under Muslim rule.

It’s not inherently antisemitic to have been convinced of lies about Israel or to think Jews should give Sharia law a chance. But it is antisemitic to demand that Jews—and Jews alone—cosign a lie about their fellow Jews if they are to be members in good standing on the Left. It is antisemitic to make blatant, easily disprovable lies about the world’s only Jewish state—and of that state alone—the price of entry. It is antisemitic to call people racist if they think that maybe the Jews won’t be so well off under Muslim rule, given how that went last time around.

It’s common to hear from anti-Israel Muslim politicians that they “revere” the Jewish faith—they just oppose Israel. But for the majority of American Jews, their Jewish faith is inseparable from their spiritual, ethnic, and historical connection to the land of Israel, its history, and its people. Most American Jews are not religious. What they have instead is a deep identification with their fellow Jews worldwide—which naturally includes Israelis. The vast majority of Jews—over 80%—are Zionists. They are proud that America and Israel are such good allies.

Making them abandon that spiritual attachment to belong to the Left—and making them alone do so—is in fact evidence that the Left does not want proud Jews in their ranks. Except, of course, those willing to humiliate themselves by denouncing pro-Israel Jews.

American Jews were an oppressed minority who faced antisemitism throughout our history here

Another objection to my thesis that I anticipate is that Jews were an oppressed minority in America, an immigrant community that faced antisemitism, so it makes sense that they threw their lot in with the Left. This is a narrative many American Jews believe. But it’s not true.

The truth is, there has never been an America without Jews. We arrived here in 1654 and never left. We were viewed by the Founding Fathers as a core and integral part of the United States, founding partners in the creation of this great nation.

It’s true that there has been antisemitism in America, but it’s almost never been state sponsored; the opposite: It was easier to be a Jew than a Catholic or a Mormon. And it was never close to the racial animus Blacks faced. In a country with a racial binary of white vs. Black, Jews were seen by and large as white.

What antisemitism did exist was relegated to the elites. There were anti-Jewish quotas at top universities and in some professions. There were restricted country clubs and gated communities. But these were few and far between.

That’s what I uncovered while researching my book: Even the worst episodes of antisemitism in America were often mitigated by an outpouring of love for Jews from their Christian neighbors. In the weeks before Leo Frank was lynched, hundreds of thousands of letters poured in from across the nation begging the judge for leniency and deploring the conditions of his trial. Henry Ford had to apologize for his antisemitic publication, The Dearborn Independent, when he wanted to run for office, because it was well known that you couldn’t go full antisemite and expect to succeed politically in America. (When Ford’s candidacy failed, he went right back to publishing it.) Throughout the South, Jews were so precious to their Christian neighbors that when the Klan came for the Jews, the South turned on the Klan.

It’s this deep dive into American Jewish history that you will find in The Jews and the Left. It shocked me to learn how wrong our view of our history is.

The real antisemitism is on the Right

Many, including many liberal Jews, will object to my thesis by insisting that it is the Right that is responsible for the worst antisemitism. As I was finishing The Jews and the Left, a small cadre of podcasters seemed intent on proving them right. These podcasters—people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens and Alex Jones—had previously been associated with the Right, yet they started to make increasingly anti-Israel and even antisemitic comments. The unabashed antisemite Nick Fuentes started making appearances on other Right-wing podcasts, including Carlson’s, and his ideas seemed to be spreading.

Sure, there are some folks on the Left who don’t like Israel, but have you seen the Right? I imagined people saying while reading my book.

But while a few outspoken antisemites certainly exist on the Right, there has been a massive effort by Republicans and conservatives to cleanse their ranks of these bottom feeders. These efforts have been totalizing, starting with the President of the United States. Trump himself basically kicked Carlson, Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Thomas Massie out of the party. When Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation came out in support of Tucker Carlson interviewing Nick Fuentes, he faced a massive revolt from within his own organization, with mass resignations following soon after. On my NewsNation show “Batya!” I’ve had Republican congressmen, senators, and members of the President’s cabinet come out in full force against any and all efforts to mainstream antisemitism on the Right—naming and shaming the podcasters they find anathema.

It’s not just influencers. Since October 7, Republican voters have become more supportive of Israel—while support for Israel has cratered on the Left. The Right just has no appetite for this—while the Left has made it the main course.

On the Left, people hostile to Jews and Jewish interests are being embraced, campaigned with, and celebrated, even elevated to celebrity status. An antisemite like Hasan Piker is praised, mainstreamed, campaigned with, and sanitized. Someone who doesn’t believe Israel should exist as a Jewish state like Zohran Mamdani is lauded as the future of the Democratic Party. Accusing Israel of genocide has become the cost of entry. Being pro-Israel, as the vast majority of Jews are, is a non-starter on the Left. The word Zionist has become a slur.

How did we get here?

That’s the story The Jews and the Left tells. You can read all about it on June 2.

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