The world has read extensively about the flawed Israeli konceptzia (prevailing world view), which paved the way for the October 7 surprise attack. Far less has been written about a simultaneous breakdown occurring within American Jewry.
While one relates to the horrors of kinetic warfare, the other concerns the true position and stability of the Diaspora. For decades, American Jews operated under their own flawed konceptzia, regarding their status in society, assumptions that have been exposed by the surge of Jew hatred since the October 7 massacre.
In both cases, this misdiagnosis of reality led to huge lapses in judgment and planning.
While the Israeli konceptzia led to a physical battle for survival that the state has countered with military force, the crisis facing American Jewry is of a different, less tangible nature.
Israel has largely managed to pivot from an existential threat back toward regional dominance through hard power. However, for American Jews, the dilemma is sociopolitical rather than military.
Because the issues are woven into the fabric of American cultural life, the solutions are not nearly as straightforward, leading some to argue that the Diaspora’s ideological reckoning may be more difficult to navigate than Israel’s tactical recovery.
At the core of the current Diaspora crisis lies the shattering of a long-held understanding: the belief that American Jewry had achieved a permanent, “insider” status that rendered it immune to the historical cycles of antisemitic blowback.
For decades, many in the American community operated under the conviction that their civic and political contributions would be received through a universalist lens – as the actions of “ordinary Americans” rather than through a specifically Jewish one.
This strategic miscalculation led to three catastrophic policy shifts within the Jewish mainstream that have now converged to create hostility from both the mainstream Left and the extreme Right.
Firstly, Mainstream Jewish institutions spent the last few decades leaning heavily into “woke” ideologies that reordered society into a rigid hierarchy of the oppressed.
By validating a system that judges individuals based on group identity rather than character, this fueled a populist resentment on the extreme Right while providing the Left with the tools to categorize Jews as “white oppressors.”
Secondly, perhaps critically, the decision to allow – and sometimes even lead – the takeover of liberal spaces by radical anti-Zionists and genuine antisemites. Under the guise of “intersectionality,” Jewish activists often pushed for the inclusion of voices that were openly hostile to Jewish self-determination, operating under the naive assumption that other social justice goals were simply more “urgent.”
There is ample evidence that these institutions treated antisemitism as a secondary concern, a relic of the past that could be managed with enough “dialogue.”
Instead, they effectively subsidized the infrastructure that is now used to de-platform Jewish students and harass Jewish businesses. They also played an integral role in advocating for the immigration of people from Muslim countries, many of whom have very strong anti-Jewish sentiment
Thirdly, while busy fixing the world, the Jewish establishment failed in its most fundamental duty: the education of its own children. By prioritizing universalist values over Jewish particularism, a generation was raised without the historical education or the foundational pride necessary to defend themselves.
Young Jews are unprepared to counter propoganda
We are now witnessing the result: young Jews who lack the intellectual fortitude to counter vitriolic propaganda on campus, on social media, and beyond. Without a strong sense of Am Yisrael (the People of Israel), many have either retreated in fear or, worse, joined the ranks of those calling for their own community’s marginalization.
The connective tissue between these three failures was the arrogant assumption of immunity. The belief was that the American Jewish experience was fundamentally different – that we were too integrated and too successful to be scapegoated.
Today, mistakes have been revealed. The Left views the Jew as the ultimate beneficiary of “whiteness,” while the radical Right views the Jew as the architect of the very progressive policies that threaten their way of life. When you combine these two extremes with the perennial human tendency for scapegoating, the result is a perfect storm of animosity.
While it is never fair to blame the victim for the malice of the perpetrator, it is essential to acknowledge the strategic blunders that contributed to the current situation.
Only through reflection can the mistakes be fixed. If there is one lesson to be drawn from the current crisis, it is the necessity of endurance.
Just as the Israeli spirit has relied on a unique brand of national tenacity to overcome existential threats, so too must the Diaspora find its own resolve.
The mistakes of the past – while difficult to unwind – do not define the end of the story. The task now is to rebuild a Jewish identity that is unapologetic, confident, and self-reliant.
The writer is the chairman and co-founder of IMPACT a 501c3 dedicated to organizing, empowering and mobilizing individuals to combat Jew hatred on social media and beyond. He is a regular contributor to The Jerusalem Post, JNS, Algemeiner, and other publications. Follow them at @joinimpact.app
Source:
www.jpost.com
