By Rachel Avraham
Since the October 7th massacre, the United States of America has been flooded with public displays of antisemitism. However, antisemitism in America is nothing new; hatred of Jews has existed in the United States for many years. It existed since the arrival of the first Jewish settlers in America. Today, when being an outspoken antisemite is popular among certain celebrities seeking headlines at the expense of the lives of the Jewish people, it is crucial to remember and understand how it all began, and where we are headed if this trend of antisemitism does not cease.
The first Jewish settlers who arrived in the United States were primarily Spanish and Portuguese Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834). However, many Ashkenazi Jews from Germany later immigrated to America as well. Most Jews at that time settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam and were mainly involved in trade and real estate. American society then received Jews with great ambivalence: on the one hand, Jews indeed served in the U.S. Army, including in George Washington’s army, but on the other hand, there was still religious discrimination that prevented Jews from holding many positions in American civil administration. In some areas, Jews were forced to swear allegiance to Christianity to gain civil rights, and some public offices were reserved exclusively for Christians. In certain cities, Jews were forbidden from establishing Jewish cemeteries. In the American Constitution and the fundamental laws it enshrines, Jews are not discriminated against. In fact, the American Constitution strictly prohibits religious coercion in the United States. Furthermore, George Washington wrote a letter to the Jewish community in America, declaring that the United States had no tolerance for religious persecution.
At the end of the 19th century, another wave of immigration began, bringing about two million Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe (primarily from Russia, Poland, and the Ukraine). These Jews came from very poor societies and were mostly Orthodox Jews. Since Jews in Eastern Europe did not integrate that much with local society to protect themselves, they continued to live in self-contained communities. They had their own unique language (Yiddish is a Jewish language that combines German with Hebrew and is written in Hebrew letters), their own distinct appearance (Orthodox Jews adorned themselves with black top hats, long beards, and side locks), and unique customs. Therefore, in the eyes of Americans, these Jews were perceived as foreigners and were thus ostracized. As most Jews were engaged in commerce, Jews were perceived in American society, as in Europe, as “greedy”; many American newspapers even used this term for Jews. Additional epithets emerged for Jews during that period, including “un-American” and “spreaders of communist revolutions,” both because they came from Russia and other areas of Eastern Europe, and because of the antisemitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
This book was first published in Tsarist Russia, and it purports to be the minutes of a Jewish meeting planning global economic, political, media, and moral control. The book supposedly provided proof that conspiracy theories about Jews were true. The book “proved” that Jews indeed control the world’s banks, manipulate the media to corrupt societal values, and foment revolutions, like communism, to subvert the world order. The book essentially justified the hatred of Jews culturally and intellectually in broad circles.
The use of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in the United States was widespread, and one could say that the American population encountered its texts in various everyday places. Antisemitic books quoting the text became bestsellers in the 1920s and 1930s; clergymen would quote the book in their sermons to their congregations; and one of the most widespread disseminators of this antisemitic book was Henry Ford. Ford distributed the book through his newspaper, “The Dearborn Independent”, which was circulated to millions of Americans in schools, universities, churches, and libraries. With such widespread dissemination of this antisemitic content, it’s hard not to understand how American society supported the Immigration Act of 1924, which restricted immigration from Eastern Europe—laws that ultimately limited Jewish immigration to America on the grounds that Jews were considered inferior to Nordics.
In the years that followed, the persecution of Jews in America continued, and it seemed that Americans were not afraid to be openly antisemitic. A Catholic priest named Charles Coughlin, a popular radio broadcaster, regularly broadcast antisemitic propaganda to his 40 million listeners. Fascist groups like the “Silver Shirts” and pro-Nazi groups like the “German-American Bund” operated across the United States and called for the expulsion of Jews. But the peak of this hatred for Jews, which led the American government to dehumanize Jews, was at the beginning of the Holocaust. In 1939, the S.S. St. Louis, carrying 937 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, arrived off the coast of the United States but was denied permission to dock and was effectively refused entry to the United States and sent back to Europe. Most of the Jews on that ship were murdered during the Holocaust. During World War II, American public opinion was not particularly concerned with the fate of European Jews.
After World War II, and after Americans discovered what the Nazis had actually done to European Jews, there was a positive change in the general population’s attitude toward Jews. Nevertheless, antisemitism was far from disappearing. Until the late 1960s, prestigious universities continued to set quotas for the number of Jews who could study there, and social clubs, country clubs, and upscale residential areas did not accept Jews. Furthermore, with the awakening of the far-right in the United States, more extremist organizations emerged that opposed the existence of Jews. The Ku Klux Klan also spoke out against Jews (alongside Black people and Catholics), and threats against Jews and even pogroms in Jewish communities occurred across the United States, especially in the South.
With the advent of the internet and its transformation into an influential factor in human lives, antisemitic websites also began to appear online. Sites like Stormfront and Vanguard News Network spread the usual conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the world. These websites also disseminated content from “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” many years after it had already been proven that this book was a collection of fabricated and racist nonsense.
The United States is not immune to attacks against Jews, and in the 21st century, many attacks occurred across America. The largest antisemitic attack in the history of the United States was the attack on the “Tree of Life” synagogue in Pittsburgh, in which 11 people were massacred for the crime of being Jewish. After October 7, 2023, that cursed day when Hamas attacked unarmed and unprotected Israeli Jewish civilians, massacring some 1,200 people in one day, there was a dramatic increase in antisemitism. Many demonstrations against the Jewish population across America are rationalized as “anti-Zionist” rather than “antisemitic” protests.
In practice, Jews are afraid to openly declare their Judaism, to wear Jewish symbols like a kippah or a Star of David, and to be caught speaking Hebrew in public. Today, anyone can shout antisemitic content in the street and claim it’s merely criticism of what Israel is doing in Gaza, thus avoiding being accused of antisemitism. As for universities, it seems Americans have gone back several decades, as calls for boycotting Jewish and Israeli lecturers were heard on the campuses of Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford – even those who had no connection to Israel other than being Jewish. On the streets of America, anti-Jewish graffiti such as “Zionists = Nazis” and “Hitler was right” are sprayed on walls and sidewalks, and there has been a 400% increase in attacks on Jews since October 7th.
American society needs to wake up, and fast. It must not be allowed to return to its antisemitic days, when it showed no interest in what was happening in Europe during the Holocaust and refused entry to the S.S. St. Louis. But America probably doesn’t realize that, for many of its citizens, Jewish blood is considered less precious than Christian or Muslim blood. Perhaps because of this, the FBI has stated that the religious group most attacked in the United States is the Jews.
