Q: My daughter told me that, as she’s been walking around campus, she’s overheard people saying that Kamala lost because she was too afraid of upsetting the Jews and refused to say she would stop giving arms to Israel. No one’s been antisemitic to any Jewish students on campus, but she’s rightfully worried that singling out or blaming the Jews for our problems is one of the warning signs of antisemitism. I don’t want her to get into a verbal altercation with anyone, but how can I help her fight back against this kind of rhetoric?
A: We should start with the facts. Exit polls differ and their methodologies can be shaky, but while a sizable portion of Jews voted for Trump, a statistically significant margin broke for Harris. Donald Trump won due to a massive shift right and turnout increase among rural counties across America. The margins gained there far outstrip any damage done by the pet issues people have been pointing to as reason for Harris’ loss, be it a reluctance to announce an arms embargo against Israel or not breaking with Biden’s border policies early in the campaign. Additionally, Jews make up 2.4% of the country’s adult population. Not an insignificant portion of the electorate, but not one that made or broke the election in 2024.
These facts don’t stop people from picking all manner of grievances in the blame game. Some blame Harris for going too far left, others for going too far right. Some blame her VP pick, others blame picking her at all. Some blame the media for holding a double standard between the candidates, others blame Republican mega donors, or foreign interference from the likes of Russia. We’ve blamed just about everybody but ourselves.
It’s important to recognize that not every blame session is productive — sometimes, we’re just airing grievances. We can all relate, sometimes we blame traffic for the reason we were late when, in reality, it was because we left the house later than we should have. Of course, though, we, as Jews, do not have the luxury of ignoring when people choose the Jews as their source of problems. It’s the oldest trick in the book, blame the Jews when things get bad. Your daughter may be right that nothing that she’s observing is overtly antisemitic, but she also knows that she does not have the luxury of ignoring this kind of rhetoric — too often, it is the precursor to more insidious antisemitism.
Right now, we Jews are particularly sensitive, our antennas are up. It is wise to begin with the most generous interpretation of another person’s actions or comments. In this case, the person just may be wantonly expressing anger. They could be misinformed, spend some time on the cesspool of misinformation that is the open internet and you might be tricked into believing that Harris lost due to a massive, organized movement of disaffected college voters and Arab-Americans. For Jews, being in the public eye (we tout having so many professors and CEOs, actors and comedians and musicians) comes with a price, and that is extra scrutiny and attention. We are also fearing global realignment. For Jews, a change in order is particularly threatening. Global peace has been good for the Jews. Will a coming realignment enhance or detract from peace?
In some ways, your daughter is wise to have her ears perk up when she hears an antisemitic trope. But, not all comments said in anger are truly anti-semitic. We can have a discussion about whether the appearance of anti-Jewish tropes when something goes wrong indicates some kind of internalized antisemitism, but we can’t spend all of our time educating others and coercing self-reflection. As a Jewish adult, your daughter will have to learn to walk the line that all of us who share the kind of generational trauma borne out of a history of antisemitism must walk: Is what we just observed the product of hatred, misinformation, or just our own anxiety.
You might help your daughter recognize when someone wants to engage and when they just want to vent. Any discussion requires both parties to be willing to listen and change their opinions when confronted with new information, this goes for her as well.
It’s also important to acknowledge that, for all the discussions that we might have, more people voted for Donald Trump, and thus his domestic and foreign policies, than voted against. It would be more fruitful for us to dedicate some discussion to why those policies are appealing and what alternatives her side may be able to offer rather than just focusing on grievances.
One way she might discuss her reservations with others is to point out how dangerous it is to single out any minority group to blame for all of our problems. Whether it’s the 1% of the country that is trans or the 2.4% that is Jewish, any Democrat that has decried the Trump campaign for singling out illegal immigrants needs to ensure that they don’t turn to the same blame tactics when faced with defeat and disarray. The immigrant issue is particularly problematic for Jews. Lest we forget that many of our immigrant forefathers who came through Ellis Island illegally in an effort to escape persecution and annihilation in Europe.
Some people can be mad at the results of the election. Infighting is the logical result of any defeat that befalls a party with a big tent. But for those who are discontented with the current direction of the country, regardless of political affiliation, playing the blame game will not bring about the change you may want to see. Better to be open to new ideas than to cast aspersions.