Stop Saying “Antisemitism!” Jonah Platt Urges You to Fight Anti-Jewish Racism

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Can we all try something?

Can we all please try to stop using the word

anti-semitism

which is opaque as historical and

political context and obfiscates the

true meaning of how the word is

understood today? Instead, can we please

start saying anti-Jew hate or

anti-Jewish racism or anti-Jew bigotry?

Let's start calling it like it is and

not allowing antiquated, more polite

terms to lessen the blow. I promise

it'll be a lot more arresting for

someone to be called a Jew hater or

anti-Jew or anti-Jewish racist than an

anti-semite.

So went the text of an infographic I

posted on Instagram back in May of this

year. The idea had been lodged in my

mind after too many frustrating

interactions with folks online where

instead of having the black and white

conversation of is this anti-Jew hate or

not, we'd get lost in some pseudo

academic nonsense about the term

anti-semitism itself. And you'll notice

I often prefer to say anti-Jew as

opposed to anti-Jewish because hate

against us is never about the religion.

No one hates us because of our theology.

It's not the Judaism they hate. It's the

person. It's the Jew. So, in the words

of MTV's Real World, I wanted the Jewish

community to stop being polite and start

getting real. So, I reached out to a few

of the legacy Jewish organizations to

ask if they would consider changing

their official language moving forward.

One disagreed with my assertion and

said, "We have bigger fish to fry,"

which although true, I felt to be a

little short-sighted, and the other said

it was an interesting concept, but

wasn't confident it would pan out. It

was around this time that by a stroke of

luck, my mother, Julie, who as some of

you may know is the current chairwoman

of Jewish Federations of North America,

reached out to connect me with a woman

named Gretchen Barton, who is the

founder and principal of Worthy Strategy

Group, a research and behavioral science

consulting group, which basically means

they get hard data and deep

understanding about how people think and

feel about a whole host of issues.

Gretchen had been presenting JFNA with

some of her findings surrounding

anti-Jewish hate, including what

messaging about Jews is successfully

reaching people online and what's

actually shutting people down. Gretchen

is amazing. She's warm and intelligent

and very passionate about this work.

We'll definitely have her on the show at

some point. And also, by the way, not

Jewish.

So anyway, I told Gretchen my idea about

ditching the word anti-semitism, and she

agreed to try it out in her research.

This manifested in three ways. First,

she and her team had already built a

library of memes and gifts with

different messaging to test the response

on social media. Their post got

something like 60 million views, so a

lot of data. What she observed was that

whenever the meme labeled something as

anti-semitism, the majority of the

comments would say no, it isn't. Or if

the message was don't be anti-semitic,

the comments would be but this isn't

anti-semitic. So that was the first

indication that this term is

ineffective. It's too illdefined, too

misunderstood, too often misused.

Second, she convened an ethnography,

which is a word I learned today, and

basically means she gathered an online

panel of 15,000 diverse Americans. And

the results were stark. While the vast

majority of American Jews believe that

anti-ionism equals anti-semitism, which

spoiler alert, it totally does, but

that's for another episode, only 13% of

these panelists agreed. So again,

something about the term anti-semitism

is leaving too much room for

interpretation and rendering it

ineffective as a tool for calling out

hate and changing minds. Lastly, and

most pointedly, she showed the panel

images and clips of anti-Jewish things

and asked, "What do you most strongly

feel you are seeing? Is it

anti-semitism, anti-Jew,

anti-Jewish racism, etc." with a litany

of terms. And the most popular response

to these prompts was that they were

witnessing racism.

Racism, anti-Jewish hate, anti-Jewish

bigotry, anti-Jewish racism. All these

terms were much more easily identifiable

and relatable for people than

anti-semitism.

So to recap, we got to start telling it

like it is. The people of planet Earth

are not all working from the same

definition of what anti-semitism is. I

mean, even saying the word out loud,

it's a bit ridiculous. Like, why do we

acquies to the use of this cryptic

scholarly word to describe what is in

reality simply anti-Jewish hate? Why are

we making it harder and more complicated

for ourselves? I mean, what other

minority group is consistently lobbying

institutions to simply agree on a

preferred definition of what hate

against them consists of? It's madness.

And we now know scientifically and

anecdotally that people are much more

sensitive to overt racism and bigotry

than to this obscure and ambiguous term.

Now that you're aware of this mission

I'm on, you'll notice I almost never use

the word anti-semitism on this podcast,

in my speeches, or online. It's always

anti-Jew hate or anti-Jewish racism or

anti-Jew bigotry for me. So my challenge

to you, dear audience, is to pick

whichever alternate term you like best

and start using it in your

conversations, your group chats, your

workplaces, your public dispatches.

Calling out this hate in terms that

everyone can understand is a critical

step towards fighting it. And now that

you know better, my mission is your mission,