According to recent polls, Jews in the U.S. are becoming increasingly alarmed about the numerous hostile currents in public life—and with good reason. Nevertheless, writes Gil Troy, America, although it is far from immune to anti-Semitism, has never succumbed to it the way European and Middle Eastern countries have at various points in their history. He takes as an example one of the lowest moments in American Jewish history: General U.S. Grant’s order, in the midst of the Civil War, to expel the Jews from Tennessee—an order swiftly overridden by President Lincoln:
As president, Grant repented for what his wife Julia called “that obnoxious order.” He appointed Jews to public office. He attended the dedication of the Adas Israel [synagogue in Washington, DC], becoming the first president to attend a synagogue service—heroically sitting through the entire three-hour ceremony. Grant also stood up for oppressed Jews in Russia and Romania. “Paradoxically,” the historian Jonathan Sarna argues, Grant’s “order expelling the Jews set the stage for their empowerment. . . . In America, hatred can be overcome.”
Far more Jews today learn about Henry Ford’s anti-Jewish rantings, than about Aaron Sapiro, who sued the automaker for spreading anti-Semitic libel. Embarrassed and eventually forced to apologize, Ford shuttered his hate-spewing Dearborn Independent in 1927. Also overlooked is how Ford’s grandson “Hank the Deuce,” shipped auto parts to Israel, donated generously to Israel, and even established a Ford assembly plant there.
To Troy, these examples suggest a general pattern, whereby anti-Semitism raises its head, and is then beaten back into the gutters. The current challenge, he argues, is that American Jews by and large are confident in combating hostility when it comes from the far right, but much less so when it comes from other quarters:
Fighting Islamist anti-Semitism is harder for American Jews. Many fear being tagged as Islamophobic. The anti-Semitism of the left, centered on American campuses, but now finding a welcoming home on the margins of the Democratic party and in many intellectual circles, further confuses. Stemming from a two-centuries-long addiction some leftists and Marxists have had to anti-Semitism, this Jew-hatred hides behind a critique of Israel and support for the Palestinian cause. Over the last 40 years, empowered by identity politics and the passions stirred by the Middle East impasse, these Jew-haters have turned increasingly self-righteous.
It is increasingly unfashionable to talk about American exceptionalism. And it is easy to lose one’s sense of proportion. [But] the indignant, democratic fury that presidents, politicians, and the people express whenever anti-Semitism turns dramatically violent all suggest that while far from perfect, America still remains an exceptional nation.
Read more on Quillette: https://quillette.com/2022/02/07/jew-hatred-in-america-not-as-bad-as-jews-think-not-as-good-as-it-could-be/