Reducing American antisemitism requires more than condemning opposition to Israel and targeting elite universities

This was tragically obvious in two recent events – the June 1, 2025, attack using Molotov cocktails to burn participants in a Boulder, Colorado, march supporting Israeli hostages in Gaza, and the murders of two Israeli embassy staffers, an American Jew and an Israeli, on May 21, 2025, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. American Jews perceive antisemitism as rising since 2016, largely because, as one study put it, “people who hold anti-Semitic views now feel more free to express them.” But the current federal fight against antisemitism in the U.S. may have more to do with the agendas of members of the American and Israeli governments than with the concerns of most American Jews. However, characterizing antisemitism in the U.S. mostly in terms of speech and activism against the Israeli government augments the Trump administration’s neglect of dangerous right-wing antisemitism.

Author: David Mednicoff, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Public Policy, UMass Amherst

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