Leonid Goldin | An Invitation to Reason

Photo credit: Ami Shooman

Recently, every notable event in Jewish public life has been accompanied by protests and police surveillance, and often only the police prevent violent clashes. But during the Hayom Summit, a small group of anti-Israel demonstrators behaved quietly, and the police did not have much work to do. The summit did not receive wide media coverage, but it was one of the most important events realistically assessing the situation of Israel and the Jewish diaspora in the modern world.

No illusions

The summit was organized by Miriam Adelson, a doctor, entrepreneur, and conservative political activist. Miriam is the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the most famous sponsor of organizations and campaigns in support of Israel.

In an ironic twist of Jewish fate, Adelson and Soros, Jews with messianic convictions and unyielding persistence, spent billions of dollars supporting opposing projects and movements. Adelson defended the interests of his people, while Soros supported everything and everyone opposed to those interests.

After her husband’s death, Miriam continues his work amid growing global anti-Semitism, slander, and hatred toward Israel. Miriam is an expert in microbiology and genetics, and she approaches the situation of the Jewish people not as a preacher, but as a researcher, a doctor who makes a diagnosis and determines the prognosis and methods of healing.

Miriam is the publisher of Israel Hayom, the most popular newspaper in Israel. She supports the annexation of Judea and Samaria. One of the largest donors to the Republican Party and Trump’s presidential campaign, her support for Trump in 2024 amounted to $106 million. She believes that no president has done as much for Israel as Trump, and that he deserves a place in the Bible for his support of the Jewish state and his opposition to anti-Semitism.

Adelson donates $200 million annually to Jewish philanthropy and medical research. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Miriam Adelson understands the real situation of Jews in the world better and helps them more than Jewish organizations and their leaders. Another difference is that organizations engage in charity and make a living on other people’s money, while Miriam pays for all her projects herself.

In her speech at the summit, Miriam said that she is not surprised by the rise of anti-Semitism and the manifestation of hatred toward Israel, expressed in the election of an open anti-Semite as mayor in a city where Jews occupy a prominent place in political life, business, science, education, and the media. This is a direct result of the influence of radical movements and liberal-progressive ideology, which have found refuge and support in the Democratic Party. The process began long before October 7 and has deep roots. Adelson does not expect a quick solution and understands that the problem is not Mamdani, of whom there have always been many everywhere, but those who voted for him, including a large number of Jews.

Photo credit: Ami Shooman

Many American and Israeli politicians took part in the summit. The most impressive speech was given by US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz. He recalled that Democratic administrations have increasingly distanced themselves from supporting Israel, putting pressure on it and encouraging it to make damaging concessions. In recent years, the UN has adopted more than 150 anti-Israel resolutions, while all other countries engaged in territorial and tribal wars, in which hundreds of thousands of people have died and tens of millions have become refugees, have been the subject of 50 resolutions. The ambassador called the UN what it really is: an anti-Semitic organization. The Trump administration will not allow the main international forum to be turned into a weapon against the Jewish state; America’s position is firm and unwavering. The ambassador unreservedly recognized Israel’s right to take all measures necessary to protect the country’s security.

Waltz spoke about the problems of implementing Trump’s plan for Gaza. No one but Israel will fight Hamas. But if the terrorists remain in power, no matter how many billions are invested in building a new Gaza, sooner or later they will resume their terrorist activities, and Gaza will be destroyed again. Israel cannot entrust its security to anyone else.

In stark contrast to this position was the speech by Amos Hochstein, former senior advisor to Biden. He tried to convince the audience that military action would not bring peace and security. What measures does he propose? The measures taken by Clinton, Obama, and Biden, which allowed Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran to strengthen their positions, arm themselves, and expand international support?

Israeli diplomats Danny Danon, Gilad Erdan, Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, businessmen, technology and military experts have stated that the global bacchanalia of slander and hatred will not force Israel to capitulate, to yield to terrorists and their accomplices, that Israel will rely on its own strength and make its own decisions.

The existential threat to Israel remains. Today, Turkey is increasingly taking on the role of Iran, and Syria is becoming a dangerous base for terrorism. There is no hope for support from international organizations. Convincing evidence of the moral decline of the international community was the reward given to Hamas after October 7 with the widespread recognition of the Palestinian state.

New York Mayor Eric Adams has shown the real threat to Jews posed by the rise of politicians who gain support by inciting anti-Semitism. To the best of his ability, Adams has been a good mayor for New York’s Jews, and many will remember him with gratitude under the city’s new leadership.

Ronald Lauder embodies the classic image of a Jewish philanthropist. He has made a huge contribution to supporting cultural heritage, museums, and medical research. Since 2007, he has been president of the World Jewish Congress. His attention is focused on global anti-Semitism, on the “growing tendency to blame Jews for all the evil that has happened under the sun.” Lauder has made great efforts to have Israel accepted into NATO. In domestic politics, he supports the Republican Party.

In his speech at the summit, he spoke about the oldest hatred, now in political garb. America is not immune to anti-Semitism. He drew a connection from Roosevelt’s position during the Holocaust to the present day, when politicians call for a global intifada, justify terrorists, and this helps them get elected. After Kristallnacht, Hitler realized that the world was indifferent to the fate of the Jews. This was confirmed on October 7.

Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, said that in many colleges and universities, students are under threat, in a toxic atmosphere, and many have transferred to Jewish universities. Perhaps for some students this is the best solution, but this situation is a disgrace to the American education system and to those who cannot and do not want to stop lawlessness and moral decline. Rabbi Berman’s position is controversial. He believes that Hamas is not the Palestinians, and that the people of Gaza are suffering. But the vast majority of these residents support Hamas, and even today, with the possibility of radical social change, they do not seek to change the terrorist regime.

Hillary Clinton also spoke about anti-Semitism in the education system. She received the most applause, and we must give credit to her oratory skills, expressed in her ability to proclaim banal truths to the general delight of the audience. She remains an icon of the Democratic Party, but she has no intention of acknowledging her and her party’s responsibility for the situation in schools and universities. She now holds a very prestigious position at Columbia University, where she teaches a course on international and public affairs. And this university found itself at the center of the anti-Semitic bacchanalia that she experienced when she tried to say that Israel has the right to defend its security. Mamdani does not bother her; she consoles herself and others with the fact that not all elected Democrats are anti-Semites.

Malcolm Hoenlein’s speech made a big impression. He worked for many years in Jewish organizations and is the founder and director of the Conference of Soviet Jews. His statement on Obama’s speech in Cairo, comparing the Palestinian struggle to the Holocaust, is memorable. Malcolm touched on a taboo subject: the responsibility of Jewish organizations for the huge amounts of donations that, despite grandiose plans, campaigns, and rhetoric, have not prevented the colossal growth of anti-Semitism. Slogans, calls for unity, conferences, and resolutions are repeated year after year, but the results are contrary to expectations and promises. Jewish organizations are divided, and the current threats have not led to unity. However, there is one call that unites Jewish organizations: “Anti-Semitism is on the rise, we are fighting it, give us money.”

Today, Jews receive their most serious support in America from Christian evangelicals, but Jewish organizations avoid cooperation with them. Instead, for decades they have been unsuccessfully building bridges with organizations of colored minorities, Muslims, immigrants, and gays, who have repeatedly proven whose side they are on and whom they are hostile to.

Pro-Palestinian organizations and activist groups have been more successful in winning public support—from the streets to universities, the media, cultural and government institutions. The country’s new demographics, driven by uncontrolled immigration and the growth of the Muslim population, which has a much higher birth rate than Jews, pose even more serious challenges for American Jews and the West as a whole, challenges for which they are unprepared and have not even begun to comprehend.

Photo credit: Ami Shooman

In a web of lies and ignorance

The summit was attended by hostages and their families, including the mother of a student killed by anti-Semites on the Brooklyn Bridge, and documentary evidence of Hamas’s horrific crimes was shown. In a special hall, it was possible to listen to and watch live reels from the scene of the events.

But, by common consent, Israel and Jewish organizations lost the information and ideological war. Many summit participants spoke about this. What to do next? But here, too, history repeats itself: education, more active use of information opportunities.

Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, the most staunch and consistent defender of Israel and fighter against anti-Semitism, placed this issue at the center of his speech. Hillary Clinton exclaims dramatically: “The protesters chanting ‘From the river to the sea’ don’t know which river they’re talking about.” Will better geography education change attitudes and behavior?

Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Hassan Picker, Candace Owens, and their like-minded colleagues, who dominate social media and have turned it into a vanguard of anti-Semitism, know where the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are located and understand that this call means the destruction of Israel. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and a renowned expert in world history and politics, has supported blatant anti-Semitic propaganda. In academic and cultural circles, it is not shameful to be anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic; if you are Jewish, you will be hailed as a hero. Speaking out in defense of Israel poses a considerable risk to your career and reputation, often resulting in job loss and threats of reprisals.

Not only ignorant dwellers of downtowns participate in demonstrations of hatred, but also children from well-to-do and educated families who have been educated at elite schools and universities. Were they taught by the wrong teachers, using poor textbooks? But where can one find other mentors who are willing and able to change the situation? World academic authorities and defenders of Israel, such as Alan Dershowitz, Bernard Levy, Alan Finkielkraut, Shai Davidai, Steven Davidov Solomon and many others, often encounter hostility from their audiences and are unable to continue teaching.

The most famous rabbi in America, Shmuel Botach, worked with students from different countries for many years, but in the current climate, he has been repeatedly attacked in America and Europe, receives threats of violence, and cannot even consider speaking at an educational institution. At Oxford University, Shmuel taught Torah to future African-American senator Cory Booker for several years. They often spoke together in front of large audiences. Booker is married to a Jewish woman. I have listened to him many times. He is not stupid, he is educated and a good speaker. But now he actively supports anti-Israel policies and measures to save Iran and Hamas. Booker understands everything. He doesn’t need anything explained to him. But anti-Semitism is political capital, and for a modern politician, it would be a sin not to take advantage of it.

The arsenal of arguments used in the fight against anti-Semitism is based on rational thinking, historical evidence, and moral arguments. But anti-Semitism is irrational in nature and cannot be controlled by logic. It is pointless to tell an anti-Semite, even if he is a Christian or a Muslim who recognizes the biblical belief that God gave the Jews the land of Israel. But even recent history convinces few people. Even without mentioning Third World countries, the democratic West has paid little attention to the norms of humanism and international law when it comes to protecting its security and interests and punishing its opponents. The carpet bombing by the Allies of German cities where there were no troops or military industries, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, incendiary bombing when Japan had exhausted its strength to resist, napalm in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, the fight against terror far from its borders after September 11, with a million victims and tens of millions of refugees… All this is widely known. But Israel, which has lived its entire history in a hostile environment and under terror, is presented in the mass consciousness as the greatest war criminal in world history.

History is full of examples where high education and knowledge serve evil and hatred rather than virtue. Convicted of numerous terrorist attacks, the future head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, spent 22 years in an Israeli prison. During this time, he learned English, mastered Hebrew, and took 15 courses at universities, including Torah, the history of Judaism, Israel, Jerusalem, the Zionist movement, the Holocaust, and the political system and politics of Israel. Israeli doctors cured him of cancer. Upon his release, he became the organizer of October 7. Like him, Palestinian students at Western universities were not re-educated, but they managed to re-educate their liberal classmates and teachers.

A pluralistic society with broad freedoms implies a diversity of views on truth, justice, and law. In this atmosphere, social media has become the most influential factor in shaping the worldview of young people. Social networks have provided boundless freedom of speech. They have given rise not only to competition between ideas, opinions, and talents, but also to fierce financial competition. The larger the audience, the more likes, the more profit. In the competition between truth, reason, and conscience on the one hand, and obscurantism, lies, and primitive thinking on the other, scandalous sensationalism, shock effects, conspiracy theories, intimidation, provocation, and manipulation prevail.

The summit noted that false information spreads six times faster and reaches a much larger audience than reliable facts. According to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fakes are forwarded 70% more often than facts. Falsification provides a hundred times larger audience than reliable information.

The suffering of children makes the strongest emotional impression. Because of the war in Sudan, about 7 million children are refugees, 12 million are starving, thousands are on the verge of death, and 80% of schools are closed. Thousands of children have been abducted, subjected to mass sexual violence, and forcibly conscripted into the army. A few days ago, a drone killed 63 children in a kindergarten. It would seem that all media outlets should report these horrific facts to a global audience. But a global audience is much more attracted to theatrical reports from Gaza.

In this respect, the mainstream media is not much different from social media. The front-page photo in The New York Times: a woman holding her daughter, who was killed during Israel’s response to rocket fire from Lebanon. Photo by David Guttnfelder and article by Roger Cohen on three pages entitled “Israel chooses its targets at will, even during a ceasefire.” Was the child Israel’s target? That is the question posed by the most influential newspaper in the world. The effect is reinforced by the names of the authors of the photo and article. Terrorists constantly use the civilian population as human shields, and the blood of children is on their hands. But viewers and readers are left with a different impression of those responsible. And the newspaper often uses Jewish names when a self-respecting non-Jew would be embarrassed to sign his name.

The same picture can be seen in politics. In recent years, anti-Semitism has been predominantly exploited and propagated by the left, among Democrats. This has brought political success, as evidenced by the gangrene of reason and conscience among New Yorkers who elected Mamdani. But now the right wing is not going to miss this opportunity either, there is no sane center, and anti-Semitism is being used across the political spectrum.

Ben Rhodes’ article “The Biden Administration Made a Mistake with Israel” argues that support for Israel’s military operations was a strategic mistake that alienated voters and damaged the global position of the United States. The logic of the author and the editorial board is clear: if the Democrats had taken an even more openly anti-Israel stance, there would be another Mamdani in the White House.

Can Israel win the information war against anti-Semites, whose main weapons are lies, slander, and manipulation of consciousness and emotions? Israel cannot adopt the methods of its opponents. Americans have an idiom, “pissing contest.” Does it make sense to participate in such a contest? To win, you have to stoop even lower than your opponent.

Hegel, the great teacher of dialectics, has an article entitled “Who Thinks Abstractly.” The essence of the article is that a philosopher cannot win an argument with a market fishwife for whom facts and logic mean nothing. In biblical times, John the Baptist was able to persuade the cruel tax collectors, the hypocritical Pharisees, and the stubborn Sadducees and set them on the right path, but there are no words or arguments capable of correcting minds crippled by internet lies and demagoguery.

What can be opposed to this? Truth, conscience, morality, justice, common sense, which the masses supposedly crave? More museums, Holocaust memorials, new editions of Anne Frank and monographs on how to combat anti-Semitism? All of this has been tried before, and experience, psychology, and market laws refute these hopes.

The Babylonian Talmud, a compendium of the fundamentals of Judaism, includes eight centuries of discussions and commentaries on the Torah and the norms of Jewish life. It is the work of sages, and, like the Bible, the Talmud has become a great intellectual treasure of civilized humanity. The epigraph to this article gives an idea of the philosophical and psychological depth of this great creation of the mind: we see the world, people, and events not as they are, but as we are. Here is the whole theory of knowledge and a practical indication that the mind and knowledge have limits, but ignorance and lies do not.

To change the minds of haters, to defeat them in the information war, to unite Jews is a utopia, a fool’s errand.

Hopes for enlightenment, the triumph of truth, justice, and good deeds have gone bankrupt. But there are still laws, the foundation of the Constitution and the social contract. There are laws against discrimination on racial, ethnic, and religious grounds, against supporting terrorist organizations and propagating hatred, against disturbing public order, against disobeying the police, against harassment, against violating property rights, against assault and physical threats, and many others that protect the rights, safety, and dignity of citizens. These laws are violated more in relation to Jews than to anyone else.

Many Arab countries actively support Hamas in its fight against Israel, but keep Palestinians under strict control in their own countries, deporting them and not allowing them to enter. Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia see Palestinians as a threat to stability and prohibit their activities. Palestinians have been expelled from Lebanon, Jordan, and Kuwait. But in America, they are opinion leaders and political activists. Pro-Palestinian organizations shape the atmosphere at universities. It is unthinkable to imagine freedom of speech for supporters of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but Palestinians have special rights.

We don’t need new laws, we need new policies, not necessarily Jews, who will ensure compliance with legal norms and make law enforcement agencies effective. Ted Cruz and Elise Stefanik defend American Jews and Israel better than Schumer and Nadler. And, despite all the criticism and reservations, no American Jew has done as much to support Israel and Jews as Trump.

It is not just a matter of national prejudice. There are acute social contradictions in society, an explosive situation, and anti-Semitism has always and everywhere served as a method of diverting attention from real social problems, as a channel for mass dissatisfaction, resentment, and inability to change the situation.

We must strive to understand that, as always in history, the escalation of hatred will not be limited to Jews. In the broad and not-too-distant perspective, we are talking about the fate of Judeo-Christian civilization, which is itself facing an existential threat.