many leftists to take antisemitism seriously as an independent force, woven into the fabric of our world, cannot be blamed solely on Zionism; it is often evidence of pure callousness, and of some funky, half-baked ideas about Jewish power. In other words, of antisemitism.

Today the crisis of Palestine & the rise of the global Right is catalyzing volatile forms of antisemitism. Israel’s genocide is obviously part of the fuel, but only part. Jews have more power than many apologists insist, yes, but far less than many critics imagine. The refusal by

at some moments in history. Every form of oppression varies in immediacy & intensity depending on context. But the thing about ideology, as any good Marxist will tell you, is that it can cohere into a material force. Narratives have power. They shape & reshape the world.

from the past, floating above politics, history & society? This is no way for the Left to think. We can do better! What you really mean is ‘Jews don’t face meaningful oppression as Jews in their daily lives’. That is probably true for some Jews, in some places,

antisemitism today is inseparable from the post-2008 polycrisis, in all its morbid forms. It has crystallized in a turbulent conjuncture which of course includes Gaza. What does it even mean to say that any form of oppression is ‘not systemic’? As if it’s some spectral holdover

crisis & collapse, when the old is dying & the new has yet to be born, when millions are suffering, desperate & grasping to make sense of a broken world. Its rise tracks alongside systemic crises in capitalism & the world system. Fascism surged after the Great Depression;

the majority are white. Antisemitism spreads primarily on the terrain of ideology, of narrative & sense-making. It claims to uncover the hidden heart of absolute domination & control. It is a false power analysis, & this is precisely why it is structural. It emerges in times of

One says ‘it’s everywhere’, the other, ‘it’s nowhere’. Neither offer a materialist analysis. Obviously antisemitism doesn’t currently manifest as straightforward economic or racial oppression. Jewish Americans earn on average relatively higher incomes, like Hindu Americans, &

‘Antisemitism isn’t systemic’ is the Left’s version of ‘the world’s oldest hatred’. An easy slogan that is in fact a sign of impoverished thought, a stubborn unwillingness to think critically & rigorously. One hyperbolizes, the other minimizes;

Both camps succumb to negative polarization & hyper-online brain rot. Of course, the issue of antisemitism is overdetermined today by Israel/Palestine. But at root this is a municipal hate crimes prevention strategy. Nobody benefits by obsessively reading it through the I/P prism

It's funny that one loud camp is (predictably) saying that Mamdani’s antisemitism plan is not Zionist enough, while another is claiming it's (somehow) too Zionist. What both overlook, because neither really care, is the project of fighting antisemitism in NYC on its own terms

Nearly half of ADL's 2025 Audit was tied to Israel. A new report from NCAR breaks down what's in that number, from Jews harassed or attacked over Israel's actions to public expressions of hostility toward Israel that ADL considers antisemitic, like 'From the River to the Sea.'

My latest on Substack- Specters of Balfour "Those who dismiss Piker’s warning as victim-blaming are thinking moralistically, not politically...the point is not to assign blame for antisemitism but to understand the conditions of its emergence"

Lipstadt & the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt are two anti-antisemitism 'experts' who once nominally championed a fuzzy civil rights liberalism, but took an increasingly hard-right turn post-10/7. When forced to choose between Israel advocacy & progressivism, their choice was easy