Anti-Antisemitism Is Not Like BLM's Anti-Racism
This rabbi isn't BLM in a yarmulke
This week, a rabbi speaking about antisemitism went viral on social media and was quickly turned into a low-IQ dunk on the supposed woke tactics of the anti-antisemitism crowd.
During a Senate hearing on campus antisemitism, Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, suggested that educational institutions and governmental bodies should not just be "not antisemitic," but be "anti-antisemitic."
"Antisemitism is not just an age-old prejudice. It is a contemporary crisis manifesting on campuses across the nation," Rabbi Shemtov said. "It is not enough for individuals or institutions to claim they are not antisemitic. As my father once told me, it is not enough for people, especially public figures, to be neutral or not be antisemitic. One must be anti-antisemitic. We must demand the same of our universities and government institutions."
And this entirely uncontroversial call triggered an avalanche of people comparing the statement to the infamous BLM demand that we must be "anti-racist."
Superficially, the comparison writes itself: one must be "anti-" not just "not." It's a linguistic trap, they say. A gateway to ideological tyranny. But this kind of simplistic thinking is lazy at best and dishonest at worst.
Let's start with the obvious: The problem with BLM wasn't the phrase "be anti-racist." We should be anti-racist, because racism is bad! No, the problem was the bait-and-switch that followed. BLM declared that any opposition to their political project — whether it was resisting the abolition of police, rejecting critical race theory or simply saying all lives matter — was itself racism. "Anti-racism" was never about opposing real racism. It was about power, money and narrative control. How else do you rake in millions in donations and build a real estate empire overnight?
Is that what's happening here? Is this rabbi, with his modest podium and emotional appeal, angling for a multimillion-dollar grant? Is he organizing riots in the streets, burning down kosher delis to protest hate crimes? Of course not. He's asking people to take antisemitism seriously — especially as Jewish communities are being physically attacked in cities across the West. You don't need to agree with his entire approach to understand the moral chasm between this and the cynical grift of BLM.
The right, rightly, spent years criticizing the subjectivity of "hate" as defined by the left. BLM's "racism" meant everything and therefore nothing. In contrast, antisemitism — thanks to frameworks like the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition — has been carefully defined to guard against that exact problem. You can disagree with aspects of that definition, and many do, but pretending it's a carbon copy of the left's word games is simply dishonest.
There's nothing inherently wrong with saying we should oppose hatred in its active forms. It is obviously better to oppose racism than to simply not be racist as an individual and be surrounded by unfettered racism. The same is true with antisemitism. You shouldn't hate Jews, and it's admirable to stand up against those who do.
The real question is intent. When BLM said, "Be anti-racist," they meant, "Agree with us or you're racist." When a rabbi says, "Be anti-antisemitic," does he mean, "Hand me the cultural wheel or you're a bigot"? If that's your read, you're being willfully obtuse.
This rabbi isn't BLM in a yarmulke. He's not demanding you bow to an ideology; he's pleading for solidarity as Jews continue to face growing hatred. If you can't tell the difference, maybe the problem isn't him. Maybe it's you.