Privilege & Vulnerability: Identity, Context, & Perceptions of Antisemitism in America

Aug 21

DANGER & SAFETY

Lilah Shapiro

Lilah Shapiro is Associate Professor of Instruction and Charles Deering McCormick Distinguished Professor of Instruction at the Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy.

On a brisk fall morning last academic year, I listened as my undergraduates enthusiastically explored the idea of plausibility structures, sociologist Peter Berger’s classic theory of how realities are constructed and maintained. The students were particularly intrigued by the ways that individuals and groups selectively seek out and take in information that allows them to uphold their realities and simultaneously filter out or reject ideas that threaten the foundational ideas and structures they hold sacred. Toward the end of class, a student explained and critiqued her Jewish roommate’s response to a recent incident on campus that many in the on-campus Jewish community experienced as antisemitic, offering it as an illustration of the process Berger describes. Her roommate, she said, was engaging in selective uptake, speaking only with other Jewish students who shared her viewpoint and categorically avoiding and rejecting evidence or perspectives challenging or threatening her reading of the situation. My student then openly and directly contested her roommate’s interpretation of events, insisting that what had transpired was not a case of antisemitism.

My student isn’t Jewish, and I was struck by her willingness not only to question, but to categorically reject her Jewish roommate’s self and group-expertise and her right to interpret and label her own experience. Undoubtedly, some would view this student’s rejection of her roommate’s view to be, itself, antisemitic. I quickly discovered that my student was not alone in critiquing her roommate’s perspective. Many other campus stakeholders, including other Jewish students, either saw the on-campus events with nuance or emphatically rejected the label of “antisemitism.” In the days and weeks following this classroom discussion, I found myself preoccupied by my student’s comments and the campus controversy and what they suggest about the complicated and complex nature of how, when, and why antisemitism is employed as an interpretive framework. Who gets to decide whether a given incident or experience is antisemitic and under what conditions?

The stakes of categorizing an incident as antisemitic or not has deep implications beyond any one given event, as it holds the power to define and contour reality for Jews and the broader population alike, ultimately affecting not only if and when we feel safe, but even more critically, ensuring that we are safe. Some noted authorities claim that debates over definitions detract from the real issue of combatting antisemitism. I argue, however, that it is challenging to combat any ill, big or small, without a substantive understanding of the social processes generating and perpetuating the problem, and the ways in which the issue is being experienced and used by various stakeholders. Crafting a single, perfect definition is neither possible nor productive. However, understanding how and why various groups approach the question of antisemitism differently sheds light on the problem in a way that a definition alone cannot do, creating broad opportunities for enhanced inter- and intra-group dialogue, renewed education, and new forms of mitigation.

The most prominent voices claiming an active public role in crafting how we identify antisemitism are Jewish organizations, lobbying groups, and public figures. Their voices are helpful, and they are generally granted authority. But those claiming authority are not always entirely in agreement, and at times it can be difficult to untangle their leadership on this issue from their other agendas and concerns. These conflicts were evident in the White House’s recent efforts to produce the nation’s first formal National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism. The committee’s report, published in May, does not explicitly choose among competing definitions put forward by different groups over the last several years.

Many agree that they “know antisemitism when they see it,” but what people see is contingent on their constructed realities—their past lived experiences and what is important to them—or, in other words, their plausibility structures. People, even ostensibly highly similar people, don’t always “see” the same thing. This can lead to conflict and lack of understanding among individuals trying to make sense of extremely fraught and potentially high-stakes situations, like determining whether a particular event is antisemitic. Below, I offer a possible explanation as to why some see antisemitism where others do not and consider the sociocultural implications of these debates for Jewish identity and the everyday experiences of Jewish lives.

One possible factor shaping why individuals may see events differently is less about Jewish-specific needs and more a result of seeking the cognitive and even physical certainty that all people crave. Antisemitism as an interpretive framework, ironically, can offer a sort of comfort. It is a reliable and plausible schema that explains irrational behavior and otherwise terrifyingly random acts, anchoring them within a known pattern and giving them predictability and meaning (albeit horrifying). Circumstantial evidence frequently makes this framework easy to use. Oftentimes attackers and/or speakers publicly identify with right-wing extremist groups, their ideologies branded onto their skin, displayed on their clothing, performed via their rituals, and explicitly articulated in their words. Extremist ideology, and white supremacy in particular, is about hate, and Jews are among those most commonly assigned blame for the disenfranchisement and sense of threat that these groups feel. Antisemitism within these groups and people affiliated with them is, most definitely, a problem. But at the same time, it isn’t clear that every violent act undertaken by people who happen to hate Jews or who offer social critique involving Jews is an act of antisemitism.

Below, I begin by describing the larger picture of antisemitism in America today. I consider three types of scenarios in which antisemitism is employed as an interpretive framework, with varying degrees of agreement and controversy. First, I consider acts of explicit antisemitism, where perpetrators’ motivations are unambiguous and generally uncontestable. Second, I analyze situations for which there is potential evidence of antisemitism but for which others, both Jews and non-Jews, offer equally plausible alternate explanations. Finally, I discuss events where there is either minimal, strictly circumstantial, or no evidence of antisemitism but about which many (most typically Jews) vehemently assert that hatred and bigotry are at play.

I argue that differing interpretations of specific incidents result from the relative importance and viability of three related and often competing plausibility structures, the myth of the American Dream, Jewish privilege, and Jewish vulnerability. I further argue that the last may, ironically, offer American Jews the greatest sense of security.

There is little question that the numbers of documented antisemitic incidents in the US is on the rise. According to the US Department of Justice, anti-Jewish hate crimes made up 51.4 percent of all religion-related hate crime incidents in 2022, for a total of 817 confirmed incidents.[1] This represents a 20 percent increase over the previous year. The number cited by the FBI is markedly lower than the nearly 3000 antisemitic incidents in 2022 counted in recent findings by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).[2] A 2021 report by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) found that the vast percentage of American Jews who identify as having been the target of antisemitism fail to report the events to law enforcement or government authorities.[3] Coupled with what AJC describes as deep flaws in the FBI reporting and counting system, this suggests the possibility of a profound undercounting of recent antisemitic incidents.

These differing numbers reflect variations in reporting and definition, making meaningful year-to-year and cross-measure comparisons challenging. Nevertheless, the documented trends suggest that there has been a significant uptick in antisemitic incidents and beliefs since at least 2016. A report recently published by the ADL argues that antisemitic sentiment in the U.S. has increased dramatically over the last four years, as measured by the number of survey respondents agreeing with statements that invoke stereotypes of varying degrees of severity and who would endorse “classic” antisemitic tropes and discrimination under a range of conditions.[4] Surveys of this type coupled with the previously mentioned measures seem to indicate sharply rising antisemitism.

Mainstream media also undoubtedly plays a role in how we understand the rise of antisemitism today. Journalists tend to gloss over nuance when reporting on studies of antisemitism, and often point to a “Jewish factor” motivating incidents of violence before it is clear whether a victim’s identity influenced the perpetrator’s actions.

Despite seemingly abundant evidence, however, neither the research community nor the mainstream press has been able to conclusively determine whether there has truly been a marked increase in anti-Jewish sentiment, or whether the various data we have reflect a combination of other factors, including fuzzy and/or expanding personal and institutional definitions, and shifting individual and group identities interacting with long-existing prejudices that are increasingly manifesting in more public proclamations and behaviors. Antisemitic acts are, to some degree, on the rise, but also, our collective plausibility structures have become less shared and less stable as the population (Jewish and not) has grown more diverse and diffuse. Together, these factors yield an enhanced and a more diversified perception of persecution, with the result that many American Jews are experiencing an increasing sense of vulnerability.

Part of the ambiguity emerges from communal disagreements about whether certain events of the last few years were antisemitic. Taking a step back, we can sort these events into three categories, each defined by the evidence available and how it was interpreted.

Unambiguously Antisemitic Acts

The past several years have been marked by a series of incidents in which the beliefs and intents of the perpetrators were sufficiently clear that the events must be understood as acts of anti-Jewish hate. When these types of incidents occur, they may result in considerable second-hand trauma for the broader American Jewish community and validate a shared sense of heightened risk.

In 2017, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA was populated by self-identified members of many alt-right hate groups. Though it was not exclusively an anti-Jewish event—there were multiple targets of participants’ hate—marchers included large numbers of neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan groups. Nazi and Nazi-adjacent symbols and other antisemitic propaganda made clear the marchers’ focus and meaning, as they explicitly blamed Jews and other marginalized populations for what they saw as abundant social ills and cultural decay and called for a purification of American society. Marchers’ chants of “Jews will not replace us” were a clear articulation of Replacement Theory, which sees a grand plan for Jews (and in more recent iterations, non-white immigrant groups whose entry to the US they see as facilitated by Jews) to supplant and steal status, position, and power from white men.

In addition to the violence that ensued on the streets of the march, the rally inspired further action on the part of participants and sympathizers, including threats and attacks against Jewish sites and individuals. One year after the Unite the Right rally, Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue was attacked, resulting in a massacre that the ADL has identified as “the deadliest attack on Jews in US history.”[5] While broad analysis of the Pittsburgh shooter’s social media showed his adherence to a range of extremist ideologies and widespread hate, his motivation in this attack was explicit. His online presence included repetition of the core tenets and language of Replacement Theory, including the expression of worries about “white genocide” at the hands of Jews. The shooter articulated his desire to target a Jewish space and Jewish people, and he screamed the words “all Jews must die,” while shooting. This was unambiguously an antisemitic attack.

The past years have seen a proliferation of other lower profile incidents that are also unambiguously antisemitic. These types of events, thankfully, don’t involve body counts but nevertheless carry with them a threat of violence that can instill fear. Desecrations of Jewish cemeteries seem to suggest a particularly profound message of hatred and disrespect, as though saying that even in death Jews are to be oppressed and wiped away. Nazi or neo-Nazi iconography graffitied onto the sides of buildings claim public spaces for the cause of hate and send the message to Jews that this place is not your place. These types of markings are intended to push Jews out of the public sphere and undermine belonging and security. Even private spaces have been pressed into the service of threat. Leaflets distributed on cars and around neighborhoods, or, just recently, swastikas taped onto a garbage can in a residential neighborhood in my hometown, invade the sanctity of home, disrupting the illusion of ownership and shattering a sense of safety.

Such incidents are deeply distressing but uncomplicated. The intent and impact are both clear, and I argue that there is no other reasonable way to interpret them: These are acts of antisemitism.

Acts with Antisemitic Elements

For every clear and unmitigated incident of antisemitism, there are myriad others where the picture is murky, debated, or contested. Where some see a clear case of targeted hatred, others see complexity, nuance, and mitigating factors. Some reject claims of antisemitism as inappropriate, or as the result of misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

In October 2022, recording artist and fashion/media mogul Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, posted a series of erratic, vitriolic, and conspiracy theory filled rants on social media. His posts targeted several groups and organizations, including Jews. The content repeated common tropes around Jewish wealth, influence, and control of resources. Ye accused Jews of exploiting and appropriating Black labor and talents in the music and media industries, expressed pro-Hitler and pro-Nazi sentiment, and used Nazi iconography. His pronouncements seemed to some a straightforward manifestation of bigotry and antisemitism, and many individuals and organizations, both Jewish and non-Jewish, quickly condemned his words and disassociated themselves from him.

Others, however, either ignored his statements or explicitly excused his behavior on the grounds of Ye’s documented mental illness. Those who adopted this rationale pointed to, among other things, Ye’s indictments of the Black Lives Matter movement in his posts, as evidence that his words were reflective not of intentional and calculated hatred but rather of marked psychological instability, and they suggested that he should not be held accountable for his words or actions on those grounds. Evidence of earlier, less public antisemitic statements on Ye’s part, prior to his (at least more public) mental health struggles, undermined this proposed absolution.[6] However, the debate about Ye’s remarks introduces the consideration of intent and motivation, on the one hand, versus interpretation and impact on the other, when categorizing ideas as antisemitic or not.

Scholars who study intergroup contact/conflict and racism often argue that while intent and motivation are of course important, lack of intent to do harm does not necessarily absolve a person whose attitudes or acts hurt others. Inadvertent and ignorance-driven slights, such as the everyday verbal and behavioral attacks perpetrated via microaggressions or the repetitions of slurs without awareness of meaning and origin nevertheless can cause considerable damage. Ye’s apparent intent was to accuse and do violence to Jewish and other communities, and some members of these communities did experience hurt. However, if he were truly cognitively compromised, it might be reasonable to question the legitimacy of his motivation and, for some, to at least consider whether his unquestionably antisemitic words should be taken seriously or “count” as genuine antisemitism. In this instance, and others like it, the behavior could be downplayed or dismissed due to extenuating circumstances. While events of this type are evidence for some of an increasingly unsafe and unwelcoming world, others invoke these alternate explanations, enabling a minimizing of the event and re-establishing a sense of security.

Speech that some experience as harmful or hateful can also be explained by ignorance. Politicians, for example, often make inadvertent or unknowing slights. This may be in the form of statements drawing upon classic antisemitic tropes, as in the case of Representative Ilhan Omar suggesting that Jewish money fuels US foreign policy in the Middle East, which many found to be antisemitic. Omar immediately apologized for her statement, explaining she was unaware that the framework she had invoked was antisemitic. Those in power have also sometimes been accused of manipulating and appropriating Jewish suffering to serve political means. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced these claims for likening Trump-era ICE detention centers to Nazi concentration camps. AOC’s comparison was highly criticized by some segments of the Jewish community as perpetuating anti-Jewish sentiment by minimizing Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

In these cases, and others like them, the politicians and public figures involved explain their statements as the product of insufficient knowledge and emphatically assert that they intended no harm. There is little agreement as to whether such ignorance should be seen as evidence of latent or implicit prejudice or should excuse problematic behaviors, and, accordingly, there is often a lack of agreement as to whether these types of incidents should also “count” as antisemitism. Regardless of intent (or lack thereof), however, many feel that in these cases, both immediate and potentially future harm is still done.

The picture grows even more complicated when individuals or groups introduce concepts and frameworks that they know to be controversial or offensive but do so with the expressed intent of offering critique or generating meaningful dialogue. Shortly after the incidents with Ye, comedian Dave Chapelle took the stage on Saturday Night Live (SNL), where he performed a monologue that simultaneously criticized Ye and took up, considered, and potentially reinforced some of Ye’s core claims about Jewish privilege and power. In response to accusations of antisemitism then leveled at Chapelle, Jewish comedian Jon Stewart offered a defense, stating that his own and others’ comedy is often derived from the exploitation of stereotypes, and that comics “rely on … prejudices” to drive conversation.[7] While not explicitly defending Chapelle, Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld also seemed to offer space for a justification of the act, indicating that Chapelle’s approach was worthy of discussion. There was considerable public outcry after Chapelle’s appearance on SNL, though there were also many people who concurred with Stewart and Seinfeld, questioning whether Chapelle’s performance could or should be labeled as antisemitic if his (apparent) intent was to provoke as a means of inspiring dialogue.

In each of these examples where the reading of an event as antisemitic is contested, there are competing plausibility structures. The conflict between interpretations reflects, in part, a struggle to claim and maintain control of the constitutive narratives. For some American Jews, the rejection or denial of antisemitism undermines self-authority and yields a sense of frustration, or more commonly, considerable anxiety and a sense of instability. For others, rejection of the categorization affirms self-concept and status and minimizes anxiety and instability. Selective uptake and interpretation of evidence could hypothetically support either interpretation, antisemitic or not.

Acts with Circumstantial or No Evidence of Antisemitism

The battles for narrative control, coupled with frequent reminders in the media and from Jewish organizations of the prevalence of antisemitism, can lead to a sense of pervasive threat and the reading of any situation involving Jewish or quasi-Jewish bodies and spaces as indications and manifestations of antisemitism regardless of evidence, and sometimes in spite of explicit evidence to the contrary.

On July 4, 2022, a young, white male unleashed a cascade of bullets on the Independence Day Parade in Highland Park, IL, my hometown. Immortalized in Marshall Sklare’s classic “Lakeville” study, Highland Park has long been marked as the archetypal Jewish suburb. Depending on the source, the town’s current population may be either 30 percent or nearly 60 percent Jewish. During the ensuing manhunt, the roar of hovering helicopters and wailing sirens piercing the air, conjectures and proclamations of antisemitism rapidly rang out; Highland Park is Jewish, therefore, this must have been an anti-Jewish hate crime.

Media coverage encouraged this view, accentuating the Jewish nature of the town and spreading this interpretation far and wide. One outlet emphasized that a klezmer band had played along the route; while this is true, the public high school marching band was the musical group in the line of fire, not the klezmer musicians. Once he was identified, the physical appearance of the tattooed perpetrator seemed, at least superficially and according to stereotype, to affirm the validity of an anti-Jewish hate crime lens.

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And yet, law enforcement and politicians alike have consistently avoided making this assertion. In the days and weeks following the attack, many outraged area residents engaged in a campaign to make the case for antisemitism, scouring the social media footprint of the shooter, a non-Jewish Highland Park native. People documented evidence of extreme right-wing ideology and posts echoing common white supremacist tropes, including some limited anti-Jewish statements. But official investigators—who interrogated the suspect directly and had access to a greater array of evidence—constructed a more convoluted story, and he has not been charged with a hate crime.

Oftentimes those who become radicalized are individuals who have struggled with a sense of being an outsider or having been left behind. The turn to extremism is an attempt to invert existing hierarchies and (re)claim what they perceive as stolen status and power. According to the accounts of childhood teachers, former classmates, and neighbors, the July 4th shooter was an individual who had been largely marginalized in his affluent, high achieving, predominantly Jewish community. There is a high probability that the perpetrator harbored feelings of antisemitism.

And yet, while it may be difficult to untangle the shooter’s antagonism towards his community’s affluence and broad progressivism from its largely Jewish identity, no evidence has yet been presented by local law enforcement or the FBI suggesting he was motivated by antisemitism. Perhaps most compellingly, the shooter himself has denied that his act was one of anti-Jewish hate, and such denials are not typical in cases when hate acts as motivator. Terrorists motivated primarily by hate more typically assert their bigotry emphatically. Law enforcement’s choice not to charge the shooter with a hate crime continues to be debated by some on local social media and news outlets, with a vocal minority refusing to accept that the shooter was not primarily motivated by anti-Jewish hate and accusing law enforcement of ignorance, negligence, and implicitly furthering an antisemitic agenda.

Following the shooting, makeshift memorials sprang up overnight along the parade route, populated by tokens left to mourn the dead. Most locals felt a sense of unity and solidarity and interpreted the displays as evidence of support from and for the community, but some residents saw the items and actions at the memorials as more antisemitism manifesting on the streets. Some of the items left in dedication resembled tiny wooden churches. Some markers bore what appeared to be the Ichthys symbol. Evangelical Christian groups appeared in town to offer comfort. Some residents read the Christian iconography, symbols, and presence at the memorial sites as an erasure of the Jewish victims’ identities, an attempt to claim victims for other purposes, and a willful ignoring of and disservice to some people's lingering questions of whether the victims’ Jewish identities led to their deaths. Of note, there was minimal conversation regarding the implications of Jewish symbols left beside the memorial photographs of the two non-Jewish victims.

This pattern of reactions echoed what emerged in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. According to local news sources, only 5 of the 17 victims in Parkland were Jewish, but the surrounding community is demographically similar to Highland Park, with a large, affluent, and high-profile Jewish population. As in the Highland Park incident, while there is no question that the Parkland shooter was a racist, there is little-to-no compelling evidence that he was explicitly motivated by antisemitism, or that he was intentionally targeting Jews on his rampage through the school. Nevertheless, Jewish-affiliated publications at the time repeatedly invoked antisemitism and strongly suggested or even stated outright that the massacre was specifically anti-Jewish, generally ignoring the fact that the majority of victims were gentile.

Psychology research shows that repetition breeds believability and, ultimately, certainty. As we are repeatedly exposed to an idea, regardless of quality of evidence (or lack thereof) and credibility of sources, it seeps in, takes root, and can become, if not “reality,” at least a major factor in shaping perception. The Parkland shooter was charged with murder, but not a hate crime, and the ADL, which has at times asserted antisemitism even in cases where law enforcement rejects the framework, also does not consider the Parkland attack to be an act of anti-Jewish hate, or any type of hate crime. Regardless, even recent publications marking the anniversaries of the attack continue to call attention to the Jewish identities of victims and weave the attack into a larger narrative of Jewish vulnerability and pervasive antisemitism.

Privilege and Vulnerability

Rarely does a one-size-fits-all approach to social analysis prove useful. Context matters and universals gloss over complexity. For these good reasons, there is no single agreed-upon definition of antisemitism, even at the scholarly level. The varying strains of academic work about antisemitism tend to operate largely at high altitude levels of political theory, isolated from the lived experiences and everyday interpretations of the majority of the population.

Theoretical frameworks may help to guide governmental policies and rhetoric, but they do not always align with what more vocal Jewish-affiliated or identifying organizations and lobbying groups understand and label as antisemitic (or not) in practice. In practical terms, I find that these abstract academic conversations do little to aid in the resolution of real-world uncertainty and debate. Further, as reflected in their dialogues and writings, academics are willing to accept and often even to encourage an ambiguity that many others are unable to tolerate.

Existing academic definitions and frameworks often fall short in providing individuals with the tools to satisfactorily interpret their own everyday lives. Similarly, definitions and categories offered by more accessible non-academic “experts,” politicians, and organizational stakeholders are not always helpful to individuals seeking to understand or explain their lived experiences. These approaches can have a political element to them, often integrating important big-picture geopolitical concerns, but with less attention to pragmatic experience and their individual implications. For these reasons, theoretical frameworks and academic definitions have proven limited in their utility in helping to build on-the-ground consensus or for clarifying whether any given incident is antisemitic when the evidence is limited, convoluted, or circumstantial.

Certainly violence, verbal or otherwise, not being motivated by a targeted religio-ethnic hatred is a good thing. Why then the frequent insistence? I would argue that the claiming of many acts as antisemitic serves important psychosocial functions for the American Jewish community. The interpretive debates reflected in the examples above, and others like them, manifest three intertwined plausibility structures, each key to contemporary American Jewish identity, and often fundamentally in tension with one another.

First, there is the plausibility structure of the myth/promise of the American Dream and its ideals of equality, success, and safety, which persists despite of abundant evidence that some groups are seen as fundamentally un-meltable and face perpetual structural and cultural discrimination. Emma Lazarus’s words enshrined on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the symbolic embodiment of the myth, are a mantra to which many current and former immigrant groups, especially Jews, hold fast. Jews as the “ideal type” immigrant and embodiment of the American Dream is a powerful schema held by both Jews and non-Jews. It is central to collective and individual level American Jewish identity and their understanding of “America.” Adherence to this schema tells us that assimilation, integration, and acceptance are not only possible but a promise. American Jews’ status in the socio-cultural hierarchy, fundamental sense of security, and even faith in the nation are contingent on their continuing belief in this myth.

The American Dream plausibility structure gives rise to and enables the second plausibility structure at play: Jewish privilege. The plausibility structure of Jewish privilege is a relatively recent phenomenon in Jewish history but has become a bedrock of contemporary American Jewish life. The “privilege” plausibility structure is an essential element of many prejudicial stereotypes and, as in the cases of Ye and Chapelle, has been repeatedly invoked to accuse, indict, and incite anti-Jewish sentiment since the early 20th Century. This enduring schema, first emerging with the Russian Revolution and European assimilation and widely popularized in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903), evince a particular strain of antisemitism that sees and fears Jews as wielding disproportionate global wealth and power. The ideas are often invoked in the service of anti-Jewish propaganda and paranoia. However, it is not only a weapon used by outsiders. The “privilege” plausibility structure is also of great importance to many American Jews themselves, forming an integral component of American Jewish identity and constructed reality. Deep commitment to the “privilege” plausibility structure can cause an enhanced sense of safety and invulnerability in spite of evidence to the contrary, and/or a rejection or minimization of threat because of an unconscious (or semi-conscious) drive to maintain the integrity of this identity and protect a self-image of privilege.

Finally, there is the centuries-old plausibility structure of pervasive antisemitism and Jewish vulnerability, powerfully legitimized in contemporary memory by the Holocaust and reinforced by every unambiguously antisemitic incident. We can observe the influence of this plausibility structure at play each time someone—Jewish or not—assumes a Jewish victim of violence was targeted because of their Jewishness, regardless of whether there is adequate evidence to support that assumption.

When a plausibility structure is threatened, individuals and groups take steps to defend it. The more sacred or the more tenuous the plausibility structure, the greater the need for defense. Attacks on the “privilege” plausibility structure can yield a doubling down on faith in Jewish privilege. Strictest adherence to this set of ideas can lead individuals to, intentionally or otherwise, ignore or reinterpret discrimination because it undermines individual and group self-concept and schemas associated with Jewish status and security.

Public debates around what constitutes antisemitism have rendered the plausibility structure of vulnerability particularly unstable, leading to an increased sense of urgency for some to make antisemitism a recognized, omnipresent reality. Vulnerability is an unfortunate but real and tenet of Jewish identity, the defense of which can result in individuals experiencing antisemitism where no or only questionable prejudice exists. Interpretive ambiguity, even among Jews, can serve to undermine Jews’ authority on the subject, further compounding a sense of vulnerability. In this way, the Jewish Vulnerability plausibility structure becomes insulated and self-perpetuating.

Perceiving the world primarily via a vulnerability plausibility structure, regardless of at-times minimal or disconfirming evidence, risks a trek into the perilous land of the boy-who-cried-wolf. However, antisemitism is real, and for some, greater is the unspoken, and perhaps even unconscious, worry that if the framework of antisemitism is ignored or rejected some of the time (even when there is good cause for rejection), there is no guarantee that it won’t be disregarded at all times. Whenever antisemitism is affirmed, the vulnerability plausibility structure is legitimized and high levels of risk, danger, and potential powerlessness are rendered “real.” However, ironically, this confirmation of vulnerability also offers protection and strength, serving to enhance a sense of stability and security by placing identity and reality on known, firm, and, importantly, predictable ground.

In-group debates over whether a given incident is antisemitic reflect points of tension in American Jews’ constructed realities and sense of identity. Whether or if a given individual or group sees “antisemitism” or not may ultimately depend less on the identities of the victims and perpetrators and the specifics of an incident, and more on which plausibility structure, Jewish privilege or Jewish vulnerability, is more dominant or at risk, more supported by the surrounding communities, and most central to their core identities. Constructing a universally accepted definition of antisemitism is likely futile and potentially dangerous. However, examining the ways in which various stakeholders experience and use the framework of antisemitism to make meaning and negotiate place can help us to better understand how and when antisemitism happens, its impact on lived experiences, and, ultimately, how best to mount a response and maximize both perceived and real safety.

Endnotes

[1]“FBI Releases Supplement to the 2021 Hate Crime Statistics,” Updated 2021 Hate Crime Statistics, The United States Department of Justice, https://www.justice.gov/crs/highlights/2021-hate-crime-statistics.

[2]“ADL Audit Finds Antisemitic Incidents in United States Reached All-Time High in 2021,” Anti-Defamation League, April 25, 2022, https://www.adl.org/resources/press-release/adl-audit-finds-antisemitic-incidents-united-states-reached-all-time-high.

[3]“The State of Antisemitism in America 2021: AJC’s Survey of American Jews,” AJC Global Voice, American Jewish Committee, https://www.ajc.org/AntisemitismReport2021/AmericanJews.

[4]“Antisemitic Attitudes in America: Topline Findings,” Center for Antisemitism Research, Anti-Defamation League, January 12, 2023, https://www.adl.org/resources/report/antisemitic-attitudes-america-topline-findings.

[5]“The Decade’s Top 10 Incidents of Hate,” Anti-Defamation League, December 19, 2019, https://www.adl.org/resources/report/decades-top-10-incidents-hate.

[6]“Unpacking Kanye West’s Antisemitic Remarks,” Anti-Defamation League, last updated October 31, 2022, https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/unpacking-kanye-wests-antisemitic-remarks.

[7] Quoted in Savannah Walsh, “Jon Stewart Defends Dave Chappelle’s Controversial SNL Monologue,” Vanity Fair, November 16, 2022, https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/11/jon-stewart-defends-dave-chappelle-controversial-snl-monologue.