Noam
Hey everyone. Welcome to Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam. And I’m Noam and this podcast is our way of trying to unpack those really big questions being asked in the world today about Israel, about Judaism and about the Jewish experience.
Mijal
This episode is sponsored in memory of Leo Bernstein. Today, we have some big questions about the past and future of anti-Semitism in America. And here to help us answer them is Professor Jonathan Sarna. Professor Sarna is the professor of American Jewish history emeritus at Brandeis University and the author of several books, including American Judaism.
Mijal
I’ll just say beyond Professor Sarna’s extensive bio and all of the works that he’s done. Professor, I never got to learn under you in Brandeis and really attend your classes. But is it OK if I call myself your student as someone who is?
not only read your books, but I’ll just say that I’ve emailed you when I was very junior and you didn’t know me out of nowhere and you were so generous every time I reached out and offered advice and guidance and scholarships. So I’m really excited and grateful to have you here.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
Well, nice to be here and your work is wonderful and I contributed that I’m very proud to have been able to to do that and, you glad to be with you this afternoon. Yeah.
Noam
And while I never emailed back and forth with you, Professor Sarna, it’s also the case that you had a huge impact, not just on me, but on the broader field and scholarship in general. So we are very excited to have this conversation with you about some topics that are front of mind for the not just Jewish world, but the non-Jewish world as well. So let’s do it.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Noam
When we were getting ready to chat today, one of the things that you told us is that what you’re seeing today right now in terms of the American antisemitism,
You said that it’s the best parallel, the best analog to today’s, what you’re seeing today is the late 19th century. Can you tell us why from a historical perspective, are there specific incidents that come to mind and how you think about this in terms of the parallel to the late 19th century to what you’re seeing today?
JONATHAN D. SARNA
So in the early 1870s, Jews were tremendously optimistic in America. Indeed, the most popular journal of the time was called The New Era. And it was an era in the 70s when many people thought all of American Jewry would
really become reform. They would be Jewish by religion, American by nationality, fully accepted into American society. And then in the late 1870s, really a well-publicized incident
in 1877 brought it to public attention when one of the most prominent Jews of the day, the banker Joseph Seligman, who been considered for a cabinet job and was a friend of presidents, was excluded as a Jew from what was then the Grand Union Hotel.
in Saratoga and the articles around that event made clear that the owner of the hotel thought that people didn’t want to associate with Jews while they were on their vacation. Now we know and it was even known then that there were personal issues but soon afterwards
we see other places. Coney Island bars Jews. And a whole book is written, you can still find it on the internet archive, Coney Island and the Jews, and the man explains why he doesn’t want Jews. And before long, Jews
JONATHAN D. SARNA
discover that they are being rejected from lots of places where they formerly had been accepted.
Mijal
Let me ask you, because I’m hearing from you a thesis that you’ve shared in the past in different articles that reminds us that American Jews have faced great exclusion and discrimination and anti-Semitism. And you’ve also argued that very often these moments came together with strong Jewish responses of an awakening of agency and of reshaping who we are.
I’m curious because as you were speaking, don’t know, Noam, if you felt this, but you use the language of exclusion after feeling very included. And I was thinking this describes so much our current moment. There’s two aspects of our moment that I’m curious if you think make this the same or different than the time period you’re describing. One is the rise of social media. So
I don’t know if back then it was like exclusion, let’s say, when you’re going to a hotel or certain jobs, but you didn’t feel it in everyday life the way that so many Jews feel it today because we’re all hooked to our phones. So we’re seeing the exclusion and bots and anti-Semitism, you know, constantly. And the second aspect that I’m curious if you think it makes a meaningful distinction is that today, part of what makes this moment fraught is that there’s also
battles inside the Jewish community over, you know, what exactly is anti-Semitism? What is anti-Zionism? How do we respond? And I don’t know if back then there was a more unified front in kind of perceiving these threats.
Noam
Michal, I thought you were going to add a third point. I thought your second point was going to be your third point, which is another major distinction is the proliferation of Zionism as a major worldview within the Jewish community that wasn’t to the same extent at all in late 19th century as a major distinction.
Mijal
Go for it.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
And those are all extremely important. I would say there’s a lot of new technology in the late 19th century. Printing becomes much cheaper and ubiquitous and we see anti-semitic publications. Whenever there’s new technology, it can be used both
for Jews benefit and to the detriment of men. And that certainly happens, but no, obviously social media was not there. But I do remind you that increasingly from the 1870s Jews simply are not allowed to live close to non-Jews. It was once normal. You looked…
at a map of New York. these are Jewish areas. But what we don’t remember is they were Jewish areas because there were whole sections where Jews were not permitted. In New York, it was more tacit. In Miami, that area where today, of course, filled with Jews, you could literally find, I used to show it into my class.
a sign which read, always a view, never a Jew. So there was certainly anti-Semitism and indeed there were all sorts of hotels that were Jewish owned and known to Jews and the reason they existed was because the Grand Union and many other
Noam
Wow.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
hotels that once took Jews easily stopped taking them. So Jews created parallel institutions of their own. That was a major Jewish strategy. Now with Jews divided, we like to look back and imagine Jews always loved one another and
until the current era, but actually it wasn’t. So first of all, these young people were cutting against an ideology that said, do away with Jewish peoplehood and Jews will be accepted. And that had been widely viewed as a solution. Another interesting thing,
that hasn’t been noticed in the 19th century a lot of Jews abandoned the word Jew. They believed, let’s excuse me let’s find a different word Israelite, Hebrew, Mosaic persuasion, Yahwist, there was few others and they were sure
that the problem really was the associations with the word Jew. Fascinatingly, in the late 19th century, with the rise of antisemitism, young Jews say, that didn’t work at all. We were quite wrong to change the word, and they come back to the word Jew. So the YMHA becomes the Jewish community center. The Hebrew war veterans
become the Jewish war veterans and so on. And the Jewish theological seminary, but Hebrew Union college. So that masked a real debate over strategy. And when I hear, as I certainly do, people who think, let’s change the word instead of Zionist,
JONATHAN D. SARNA
let’s call it, you know, lover of Zion or pro-Israel or let’s not use the word at all. I always think to myself, yeah, maybe Yahwist or something. In other words, right, that strategy, while I think then and now there are people who deeply believe in it,
Noam
Ha ha ha.
Mijal
Hehehehe
Mijal
You can start a new branding agency, Professor Sarna, for all the…
JONATHAN D. SARNA
I don’t think it’s worked so well.
Mijal
Now it sounds so familiar, of course, so much of what you’re saying, that the obsession with Israel and Zionism, the accusations of dual loyalty, there is some comfort in knowing we have been here before. Noam, what’s the quote you like to say? History doesn’t something, it’s something?
Noam
History doesn’t repeat, rhymes. It’s definitely not mine, but Professor Sarner probably has been saying it for years.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
No, no, it’s attributed wrongly to Mark Twain, like a lot of things, but he, I looked, it’s hard to find it. That I haven’t, I haven’t investigated, but it was attributed to him. Yeah, yeah. And till, till we know, but nevertheless, the tone with his full load.
Mijal
Noam
there you go, Mark Twain. But he didn’t say, who said it? So who gets the credit?
Mijal
Who’s Noam quoting all the time?
Noam
We can’t according to the Talmud we can’t bring redemption until we know who said it originally. Yeah
JONATHAN D. SARNA
of unattributed statements. So they, yeah.
Noam
That’s true.
Mijal
Hahaha
Mijal
But Professor Solon, let me go back to my question. So you’re really giving us some thick texture to think about both the anti-Semitism and some of the Jewish renewal in the late 1800s, early 1900s, I would guess. I know also from your writings and other historical writings, this was a time of rising nativism across America.
I always think about this rising anti-Semitism and nativism at this time. I’m going to ask to simplify the question, but if you were to describe what ended this, what were the things that happened in America that
as a historian, can say we had this period of rising anti-Semitism and animus towards Jews and others. then certain things happened that made that not be the mainstream views. What would you say are those things that changed that?
JONATHAN D. SARNA
I think it’s very, I mean, certainly anti-Semitism goes up and down, but the big change is World War II and the Holocaust and realization. No, it’s not, not at all. I mean, you know, you ran the risk as an anti-Semite in the 1950 of your friend saying, hey, didn’t we just fight a war against you?
Mijal
That’s not very reassuring, by the way. That’s not reassuring at all.
Noam
Yeah, that’s what my reaction was also.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
and many American soldiers, this was brilliant, were taken to the death camps. Eisenhower said, let them know why we are fighting. And they saw it. We have letters in which troops describe what they saw and that was life-changing for them.
And a whole generation was sensitized to where anti-Semitism could lead. And of course, the civil rights movement strengthened new pluralistic ideas in the wake of World War II. And that’s why decade by decade, from 1950 to 2000,
anti-Semitism declines, other kinds of hatred decline, all of those restrictions against Jews living here and there decline, quotas are outlawed, and you know into the 90s, I will remember this, every few years, the first Jewish president of Harvard, the first Jewish CEO of a major bank.
Until we get to 2000, the first Jew on a major ticket for the vice presidency, Joe Lieberman, and lots of young Jews whose entire lives had, they’d watched one glass ceiling after another be shattered and Jews move where they hadn’t been before, these young people
thought, hey, anti-Semitism is going the way of anti-Catholicism, anti-Mormonism. We don’t see it. I taught the class, one of very few that was taught on the history of anti-Semitism, I would ask students, and by the late 90s they told me, yeah, I heard about it from my grandparents. They told me
JONATHAN D. SARNA
You know, we couldn’t go to this hotel or that hotel or live here and there or get this or that job. That’s why my dad was an independent accountant or an independent because the major banks and accounting firms didn’t hire them. But then they would say, of course, I’ve never experienced anything like that. And that’s why what happened in the 21st century.
was so shocking because like those young Jews of the 1870s, you know, they were not expecting anything of that sort. They had thought, as Seinfeld said in an interview, you know, we thought it had been relegated the dustbin of history.
And because, as he said, his own show had deals in certain stereotypes, which years later he felt he wouldn’t have dabbled in, but for the sense that antisemitism was no more and now you could just laugh at some of those things.
Mijal
Let me ask a follow up on that actually, Professor Sarna. You’ve written and shared, so I hope it’s okay if I paraphrase you here, that there’s five distinctive factors that have made antisemitism in America.
kind of like singular to the American experience, so different, let’s say, than antisemitism in Europe or across the Middle East or other places. I’ll name them quickly. You’ve described how in America, Jews have always been able to fight back against antisemitism freely. You’ve described how in America, antisemitism has always coexisted and had to compete with other forms of animus.
You described how anti-Semitism is more foreign to American ideals and the values of American founding than, let’s say, to European ideals, where Jews were often the ultimate other. You’ve described how America’s religious tradition, which has been called the great tradition of the American churches, has been classically inhospitable to anti-Semitism. And you’ve described that American politics very often
like the political system, resist anti-Semitism as a mainstream feature, even if it exists at the fringes.
So let me ask you the question that I ask as like an anxious Jewish mom. Okay. This is the one that like I text my friends at like 1 a.m.
after I read something very dark on X or Instagram or whatever. What would have to happen in America? What conditions would have to happen for you, a scholar of American Jewish history, very careful historian, to say, I don’t know if I’m as optimistic anymore, something is broken here irreparably.
and we cannot speak about America as the exception to Jewish history.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
First of all, I do think there are more and more American Jews who have asked that question, is it time to leave? And I believe the American Jewish Committee put that question on its latest survey. Have you thought of relocating? I think it’s about a quarter of American Jews said, you know, they thought about it. My friend
certainly have at had the conversation, which I never imagined we would have. But I will say to me the key point is government. Where Jews really suffered, whether it’s in Russia and the pogroms or of course Nazi Germany or for that matter in Spain,
anti-Semitism wasn’t just populist and social media there was a government against Jews and governments have a lot of power that’s what we’re seeing with ICE and so on. Now ICE has not been turned on Jews and we imagine that it can’t
But were we to begin to see government turning on Jews, that would be very frightening.
That would certainly for a lot of people be a sign. But let’s remember something. We don’t say it often enough when we talk in the earlier period. The Jews, my relative, maybe yours, in the 30s couldn’t come to America. had nowhere to go. Palestine wasn’t open to them because the British kept them out. You know, anyone who reads any collection of letters
from Europeans to Americans in that time. It’s all about, you help me? Can you try and find a way to get me into America? Notwithstanding the quotas, if I go to Latin America, will I be able eventually to get to America? Should I go to Shanghai, which is a free port? Today we have Israel. We don’t have any of those concerns. Every Jew knows.
that if they have to leave Israel will take them in.
Mijal
the insurance policy.
Mijal
That’s very powerful, Professor Sarnan. I did not think you were going to go there, interestingly, because your subject and writing is so focused on American Jewry. I’m going to ask you a question that I hate being asked, so apologies in advance, but as we’re closing out this conversation, if you had to share some words of wisdom or hope, not manufactured hope, but sober hope based on history, for those of us American Jews who are
seeing all these things that are new to us. And we hope we don’t need to wait 80 years or 90 years. And we hope we don’t need a world war and God forbid a genocide of our people for things to get better. So what is some of the words of wisdom and hope that based on your purview of American Jewish history, you would share with us?
JONATHAN D. SARNA
I’m delighted to do that because we have devoted far too much attention, I think, to antisemitism and have not noticed what I believe will prove to be at least as important, maybe much more important. And that is what’s called the surge or the October 8 Jews. Amazing things are going on that we are not noticing for the
first time maybe ever in American Jewish history, certainly in the post-war period, we see masses of converts to Judaism. Rabbi Adam Mintz in New York and I understand Park Avenue Synagogue will have a full-time rabbi engaged in this work and all of the mikvah ought to have seen it. We’re about to be on
There’s a little line there, nobody pays attention. At the very end it says, Rabim mi bnei ha’aretz mit yahadim. Many suddenly started to become Jewish. Well, yeah, exactly. You know, the New Yorker noticed this phenomenon of conversion, but you’d hardly know it, and we haven’t encouraged. I fear.
Mijal
many of the non-Jewish inhabitants in Persia.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
We leave a lot of those converts dripping at the mikvah instead of embracing them. But more than that, I recently was talking to a reformed rabbi who lives in a place with not a lot of Jews. She’s the only temple for miles around. And she says, you know, I’m the envy of all of the liberal churches. People have been finding their way.
to my synagogue since October 7. We’ve grown. We’re stronger. Why? Because Jews want to be with other Jews, just like you reported, Michal. That’s our strength.
In other words, maybe
Mijal
Yeah.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
One golden age defined by assimilation in the ability of Jews to rise up in American society is ended. But now we’ll have a different golden age marked by increased learning, strengthening of the bonds that bind Jews one to another, a real sense of Jews as family. And maybe that’s learning.
from the Sfar Adim as Michal argues, maybe it’s learning from aspects of Jewish tradition that are found even among those Ashkenazim, but it’s pretty amazing. And if only we would nurture it and put money into it and say every Jewish child who wants to should be able to go to day school.
Mijal
haha
JONATHAN D. SARNA
and Jewish summer camp, you know, we would have a, and Israel, all those three. If you send your kids to day school Jewish summer camp in Israel, it’s no guarantee, but it’s pretty amazing how those people are not only successful, but if something happens, they say, okay, we’ll go to Israel.
We’re confident and have, thank God, the ability to live either in Bavel or in Yerushalayim. We can live in both. And that’s what I’d like to do.
Mijal
That is so beautiful. And I think you’re leaving us with a lot of thinking analysis, not Pollyannish, a sober one, and also some inspiration at the end. think both Noam and I are very much in the same camp that you ended with that we want to understand anti-Semitism better, but we do not want that to, fight against anti-Semitism, which is an important one, to distract us from
investing and doubling down on Jewish life. So super appreciate your scholarship and you know.
Noam
The only thing I want to add to what you said, Professor Sarna, is everything you said about the future Jewish day schools and Jewish camps. There are many other ways to engage Jewishly now, jokes aside. And I think that Jewish day schools and Jewish summer camps is part of the future, but it’s actually just at this point, it’s a small part of the future, an important part of the future, but there is a lot more that all of us should be doing to engage Jewishly.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
Thank for watching.
Mijal
and podcasts.
Noam
and with the technology that we all have in front of us to engage Jewishly. And that should be part of the Jewish flourishing that we’re thinking about as well. So Professor Sarna, thank you so much for that sweeping lecture, connections of history, present, future, optimism, all the things that you shared with us. You gave us a lot to think about and to wonder about. So thank you so much for joining us.
Mijal
Thank you.
Mijal
Thank you, Professor Sarna.
JONATHAN D. SARNA
Thank you, it’s really been a pleasure.