Mark Twain once remarked that history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. We are living in such a moment today, in which the long history of antisemitism is not necessarily repeating itself, but it certainly rhymes.
Perhaps the strangest aspect of this renewed antisemitism is the phenomenon of “objective” antisemitism. Born of cognitive dissonance and moral bad faith, objective antisemitism is expressed by antisemites who may not consciously hate the Jews. They may even convince themselves that they love the Jews. Yet they still engage in the most egregious forms of antisemitism while violently denying they are doing so.
Today, there are innumerable examples of the objective antisemite, almost entirely on the political left. Most right-wing and Muslim antisemites are perfectly conscious of loathing the Jews, feel completely justified in doing so, and make no bones about speaking and acting accordingly. Progressive antisemites, however, almost universally deny that they have an antisemitic bone in their bodies. Indeed, many protest that, due to their passionate anti-racism and dedication to human equality and solidarity, it is impossible for them to hate anybody.
Perhaps the most prominent objective antisemite may be New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who went so far as to issue a plan to fight antisemitism that effectively defined antisemitism out of existence. At the same time, Mamdani has denied a nation of 7 million Jews’ right to exist; attacked American Jewish pro-Israel activists as “monsters”; refused to condemn openly genocidal antisemitic slogans; defended hate rallies outside synagogues; and generally conducted himself precisely as an antisemite might do.
It is possible, of course, that Mamdani is a subjective antisemite who is consciously occluding this fact. Nonetheless, for the sake of argument, let us say he’s not. Then, we are faced with a man who sincerely believes that he loves or at least tolerates the Jews while, simultaneously, enabling and inciting antisemitism.
In many ways, this is a phenomenon that is quite old, and was, ironically, personified by another mayor. Karl Lueger was mayor of Vienna during the turn of the 20th century when it was a cultural capital of world Jewry. He and his party ran on an explicitly antisemitic platform and made no bones about it. Yet Lueger appeared to have no inhibitions about employing or at least exploiting Jewish talent when it suited him. It is said that a potential appointee once told him: “I am a Jew.” Lueger replied: “I decide who is a Jew.”
This is, in some ways, the essence of the objective antisemite: He accords to himself the right to choose which Jews are acceptable and which are not. He considers himself free to decide which Jews he loves and which he hates. When it suits him to love, he loves. When it suits him to hate, he hates.
In the case of someone like Mamdani, this is the tell: A hate that dare not speak its name must, at some point, express its hatred, but it must do so by hypocrisy, by deciding who is a Jew.
To be fair, this phenomenon is not confined to the political left.
On the right, there are subjective antisemites like the “groyper” Nick Fuentes. But there are also those like Tucker Carlson who consistently deny they are antisemitic and even occasionally point to Jews they consider acceptable. And indeed, it is just possible that Carlson uses antisemitism for purely mercenary purposes and does not believe a single word he says. At the very least, he could be sincere in his denials. He may not consciously hate the Jews. But this changes nothing. Objectively, his hatred is as manifest as that of Mamdani and Fuentes.
This presents us with an ominous question, given Mamdani and Carlson’s popularity and success: Is the objective antisemite more dangerous than the subjective antisemite? It is entirely possible that this is the case.
Antisemitism is, thankfully, still stigmatized in Western societies and, as a result, subjective antisemitism is usually confined to the fringes of public discourse. Objective antisemitism, however, is not. It can be and indeed already is mainstream or at least being mainstreamed very quickly. As a result, the objective antisemite feels completely free to speak and act as he pleases, because he always regards himself and is often treated as inherently innocent. His self-accorded sainthood at best blinds him and at worst grants him permission to publicly be what he may not even consciously know he is.
Where then, does this leave us? To some extent, it puts us at a severe disadvantage, because far more non-Jews are objective than subjective antisemites, and their denials, to other non-Jews and even some Jews, have the illusion of credibility or at least prompt the benefit of the doubt. Objective antisemitism is subtle in ways that subjective antisemitism is not, and thus it can be difficult to parse and explain. In a world defined by social-media shallowness and nonexistent attention spans, this makes debunking and exposing objective antisemitism inherently difficult.
There may be a simple answer to the question, however. It was stated quite well by the black writer and activist James Baldwin, who was once presented with an interlocutor skeptical of the presence of widespread racism in American society at the time. Baldwin replied:
There is a profound lesson in this for today’s American Jews, because Baldwin was saying that racism must be understood objectively. For us, this means that the objective antisemite must be dealt with objectively.
We must say: We cannot see into the soul of a Mamdani or a Carlson. We cannot know what is in their hearts. We cannot know what loves or hatreds they shelter there. We can only know what they say and do. This is the evidence. On the basis of that evidence, we must judge them accordingly.
