One of the Most Annoying Modern Debates About Antisemitism

There is a paragraph one often finds in pieces like this one—that is, in articles about antisemitism today. In that paragraph, the writer interrupts their point about whatever antisemitic incident just transpired to clarify that, of course, criticism of an individual Jewish person does not constitute antisemitism.

Take Elon Musk’s recent claim that Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros’ philanthropic organization, Open Society Foundations, “appears to want nothing less than the destruction of western civilization.” In an article about that, I might stop myself to say that the problem with this statement is not that Soros can’t be criticized because he’s Jewish, nor that any criticism of him is therefore antisemitic. Of course that’s not true, I would say. And then I would explain that the difference between criticism and conspiracy is that criticism is about things that are actually happening, whereas conspiracy overassigns responsibility and intent (in this case, to a philanthropic group that, while liberally minded, is not trying to destroy Western civilization).

The caveat makes sense, even if it is tired, because those hurling Soros smears often protest that they’re called antisemites for mere criticism, and their defenders—some of whom are Jewish—will just as often jump in to agree: Criticism isn’t antisemitism. Acknowledging the distinction engages with that argument. It explains that, yes, criticism is one thing and bigoted conspiracy is another.

But having read (and indeed written) a number of these paragraphs, I have come to realize that there’s a problem with them: Nobody is actually arguing that all criticism of Soros is antisemitic.

The anti-Soros crowd is deploying a rhetorical trick: Those speakers are the ones conflating conspiracy with criticism, and then protesting when others object. The tactic is clever: It shifts the burden of proof from the person espousing antisemitism to the person calling it out. In this version of the debate, Musk doesn’t have to explain why what he said about Soros wasn’t antisemitic; I’m left explaining why it was. This isn’t a case of people disagreeing about what antisemitism is. (One need only look at the heated debate over how to define it to see that that disagreement, in honest terms, is very much alive.) It’s a person saying something cartoonishly antisemitic—one does not need to like or agree with Soros and OSF to admit that their endgame is not destroying Western civilization, and that to assign that goal to a Jewish person and his enterprise echoes an ugly rhetorical history—replacing anyone who would protest his words with a straw man, leaving the offended party to explain that they are not, in fact, made of straw.

Soros is a particularly salient case, but the tactic is not unique to smears against him. A similar argumentative bait and switch is on display with the Anti-Defamation League, which Musk has blamed for ruining X. In a recent X/Twitter Spaces, Musk, who stressed that he has many Jewish friends, was joined by right-wing Jewish luminaries like commentator Ben Shapiro, who agreed that the ADL was pressuring advertisers, and Bnai Zion CEO Ari Lamm, who said that ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt “doesn’t even pretend to play in the field of great Jewish ideas and texts.”

Here, too, the terms of debate have shifted. In criticizing Musk’s comments, it becomes necessary to break from noting that blaming the ADL—the group in America that is still the organization that many associate with the fight against antisemitism (whatever else one might say about it)—for one’s own failures is a deeply concerning dog whistle. Instead, anyone troubled must count the ways in which Musk went beyond fact-based critique. Lamm slipped in another feint, which was to raise the question of whether Greenblatt is sufficiently engaged with Jewishness to merit a defense from antisemitism. In responding to the whole conversation, then, the issue for Musk’s and Lamm’s critics suddenly is no longer whether they were wrong, but how to explain that, yes, Musk was engaging in centuries-old tropes, and that what he was doing really was antisemitism. It practically requires a historical lesson in Jewish hatred, coupled with an assurance that explaining this is not reaching or being made-up. And finally, criticism attempting to engage with the original speakers must explain why Greenblatt is in fact, yes, Jewish enough to be antisemitism’s target.

It’s absurd. And one need not be a Soros or a Greenblatt to find themself the subject of such a rhetorical shift. Late last year, for example, Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, went on an antisemitic tear. Conservative provocateur Steven Crowder offered, “he’s not wrong about everything. Look, is there a conversation to be had about secular humanists with Jewish last names in Hollywood exploiting people in positions of, you know, the performance arts, talent?” Here, you can see the same misdirection at work. Instead of discussing the ramifications of a celebrity’s series of antisemitic rants, Crowder shifts the debate to whether West was being antisemitic when he said blatantly and explicitly anti-Jewish things, and whether “secular humanists with Jewish last names,” also known as Jews (though obviously not by Crowder), count as Jewish enough to be defended from smears.

All of this matters because it further confuses the conversation over antisemitism, what it is, and what to do about it. It renders the very existence of antisemitism suspect. The tactic matters because it assigns to legitimately concerned people positions that they have not taken and would never take—like the idea that Soros is not to be criticized—misrepresenting what the debate is really about. It matters, too, because there is only so much time or attention anyone is going to spend on any given subject, and the people changing the terms of debate are wasting it. If nothing else, it is important to stop giving oxygen to a made-up controversy, as if anyone believes that all criticism of individual Jewish people is inherently antisemitic. No one believes this, it’s an intentional distraction, and no one should have to waste their time negating an argument that nobody is actually making.