Antisemitism’s pincer movement

The mainstreaming of antisemitism on the right, in tandem with its rise on the left, may make American Jewish life unlivable.

My new book, Self Defense: A Jewish Manifesto, is now available at Amazon via Wicked Son Books and the Z3 Project.

Recently, I’ve had the terrible sense that American Jews are about to be trapped in a pincer movement.

The American left, as I’ve extensively written, has already fallen to antisemitism. It has formed an alliance with radical Islam, held innumerable antisemitic hate rallies, intimidated and attacked Jews, and gone so far as to murder both Jews and non-Jews.

This alone is threat enough. But it has become clear in recent weeks that the threat is also rising on the right. This is a danger in and of itself, but combined with the rise of antisemitism on the left, it could be an existential threat to the American Jewish community.

It has long been clear that there was antisemitism on the right, as there always has been. Historically, of course, the European right was a bastion of antisemitism, whose worst exponents hardly need mentioning. In the United States, this has held true at certain points, especially in the 1930s. Nonetheless, for the most part, over the past half-century, the right has beaten back the worst instincts of some of its members.