How To Talk to Kids About Antisemitism and Why It’s Important

Antisemitism has been documented throughout history, appearing across the globe in various forms for centuries. But recently, there has been a noted rise in antisemitism. In fact, over the last five years, the Jewish American community has endured a record number of hate crimes in the United States, including a 35% increase between 2021 and 2022 alone.

But while some forms of antisemitism are obvious, others are more subtle. So parents may need to do some work to understand this form of prejudice as they also work to raise kids who will fight all forms of discrimination and racism and who will stand up as allies for peers when others are targeted, whether or not they share the victim's identity.

Facts About Antisemitism

Having a better sense of any issue will help you address it with your kids and this one is no different. Here are four common questions about antisemitism and how it happens.

Is antisemitism really still a problem?

In recent years, antisemitism has appeared in a range of places. These events include statements by public figures like congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and refused to disavow or apologize for her statements, and Kanye West who has posted antisemitic remarks on social media.

They also include conspiracy theories blaming Jewish people for COVID-19, and an uptick of antisemitic incidents on college campuses, not to mention the mobs in Charlottesville chanting, "Jews will not replace us," (a reference to a belief that Jewish people are systematically orchestrating a white genocide), the taking of hostages at a synagogue in Texas, and the Tree of Life Synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh.

This rise in hate crimes has also contributed to antisemitism. Notably, some QAnon supporters invoking Medieval claims about a "Jewish blood libel," which has been used to attack Jewish people for centuries. That is now believed by some to be connected to a cabal that allegedly rigged the 2020 election. Antisemitism was also apparent during the January 6 Capitol riots, which included members of many documented hate groups, some even displaying Nazi-inspired paraphernalia.

Is antisemitism a form of racism?

Certainly, racism and antisemitism can go hand in hand, and for Jewish people of color, both may impact the same person. But while racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism toward racial groups, based on the idea that there is a hierarchy of racial groups and that some are superior, antisemitism refers to prejudice or discrimination directed against people based on their Jewish identification.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that Jewish people can be of any racial or ethnic background, many people who hold antisemitic views do believe those who are Jewish to be a distinct race and often their views weave in racist ideology. In 2019, former President Donald Trump signed an executive order making antisemitism punishable under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which only deals with discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and nationality, not on the basis of religion. Classifying Judaism as a race, ethnicity, or nationality is something that is often debated within the Jewish community since associating Jewishness and White identity ignores the diversity of Jewish identity.

What is the difference between antisemitism and anti-Zionism?

On October 7, 2023, members of Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, invaded more than 20 Israeli towns and army bases in a horrific surprise attack. The devastating loss of both Israeli and Palestinian lives, and the ongoing brutality is heartbreaking and many of us feel shock, grief, fear, and anger.

Indeed, like many North American Jews, I have friends and family in Israel and I have found myself glued to the news and (ill-advisedly) scrolling through social media since this began. But it was in some of those spaces that I began to see something concerning emerge: Antisemitism couched in the language of anti-Zionism.

Anti-Zionism is the opposition to Zionism, a movement for statehood in Israel, based on the idea that Israel is an ancestral homeland for Jewish people. There are a lot of different views, both within the Jewish community and in the larger world, about whether disputing Israel's right to exist is inherently antisemitic. What is clearer is that while challenging or condemning the policies of the Israeli government is perfectly valid, the way this is done can sometimes become antisemitic. That happens when criticism of Israel makes use of antisemitic stereotypes, blames all Jewish people for the actions of that country's government, uses coded terms like Zionist to describe a Jewish person in general, or assumes that those who are Jewish cannot be impartial on issues due to their real or perceived views on Israel. When that occurs, criticism crosses the line from denouncing a government into antisemitism. 

Is Holocaust denial a form of antisemitism?

Yes. Denying the Holocaust, the state-sponsored persecution and murder of 6 million European Jewish people and millions of non-Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis in the Second World War, is a form of antisemitism. These denialists claim that Jewish people are inventing or exaggerating a genocide to promote Jewish interests. In this narrative, those interests often include secretly plotting some kind of global conspiracy. Such views are dangerous because they perpetuate long-standing stereotypes about Jewish people—including those which paved the way for the Holocaust.

Specific Issues for Jewish Parents

Addressing antisemitism is going to be different for parents who are Jewish than for those who are not. My family is Jewish and while I find antisemitic incidents deeply upsetting, I don’t find them all that shocking. I have a lived Jewish experience that gives me the context to understand that this is nothing new. My experience included growing up under the shadow of the Holocaust—my Jewish grandparents fled Nazi Germany for New York—and, as a child, having my synagogue firebombed and burned to the ground.

In 2021, I was reminded that antisemitism can also be delivered casually, when, during my first pandemic haircut, my stylist mused, "It's a good thing you came in today. Thanks to the Jews, we're probably going to have to close again." A reference, I assumed, to COVID-19 outbreaks in local Orthodox communities (many are very insular and erroneously believed they already had herd immunity by then).

But having a personal connection doesn't always mean that I find it easy to talk to my own kids about this prejudice. Partly, that is because I want to protect them from the knowledge that there are those in the world who would do them harm. In those moments, it is helpful for me to remember that one of the best ways that we can prepare our children to cope with discrimination is by acknowledging that it exists. Doing so reminds them that their experiences are valid and that they can come to us when things feel overwhelming. It is also wise to discuss how children may respond to hostile comments in advance so that they feel prepared if they are ever targeted.

How to have these conversations

Jenni Mangel, the director of professional learning for Jewish LearningWorks, and a parent of two, suggests making conversations about hard topics a more regular occurrence so that it doesn't feel like you are bringing things up out of the blue. To do this, she advises using the world around you to raise important issues. She suggests something like Holocaust Remembrance Day. “This is just a built-in place where we can say, this is something that happened, and here is why it is important."

It is also crucial to understand that not all Jewish people will experience antisemitism in the same way. For example, Jewish people of color often have to navigate the forces of both racism and antisemitism. As Chava Shervington, the past president and a current board member of the Jewish Multiracial Network explains, "Unless outwardly identifiable as Jewish, Jews of color often first experience racism and then antisemitism." She advises parents to help their children develop both racial and religious pride as a way to increase their resilience. Doing that is particularly important for white Jewish parents who are raising kids of color, and Shervington encourages parents in such families to build what she calls racially relevant homes and to create communities that include other Jewish people of color.

Shervington further explains that there is a misperception that people of color aren't likely to be Jewish. The result is that Jewish kids of color may actually encounter increased exposure to antisemitic comments since people may say things in their presence that they wouldn't say in front of someone they thought could be Jewish.

How Non-Jewish Parents Can Help

For non-Jewish parents of all races, it is crucial to address the role of disinformation and to make sure that you and your kids have your facts in order. Many seemingly innocuous beliefs—say that Jews are generally wealthy or are media moguls—are actually deeply harmful. Such views can serve as the basis for dangerous antisemitic ideas about Jewish control of the world's financial systems or about Jewish plots to take over various governments. Educating yourself about antisemitism will help you identify it when it occurs.

That education can include being attuned to coded phrases. For example, the night before the Capitol insurrection, Infowars' Alex Jones posted a video of himself telling a crowd in Washington, D.C.: "We have only begun to resist the globalists. We have only begun our fight against their tyranny. They have tried to steal this election in front of everyone." The term globalist originated in Nazi Germany and has evolved into a dog whistle today.

Parents of white kids should also know that far-right and neo-Nazi groups have been growing, in part, by actively recruiting white teens (often boys) online. Parents should look out for warning signs of white supremacist radicalization and be aware that some seemingly innocuous social media memes can actually be promoting antisemitism.

How We Can All Fight Antisemitism

Encourage schools to address the issue

Teaching about the Holocaust, as well as about the many other systematic campaigns of genocide that have occurred in modern history, is an effective way to combat racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia. It also can help increase civic engagement. One organization that provides such programming is Facing History and Ourselves.

Though parents might be wary of exposing their children to the difficult topics the organization tackles, Laura Tavares, Facing History's program director for organizational learning and thought leadership, explains that their curriculum has a real-world impact. Compared to students who did not participate in Facing History's programming, both independent researchers and the organization's own evaluations have found that the middle and high school students who did participate showed increased tolerance of different viewpoints, displayed more civic engagement, had a greater belief in their ability to make a difference in the world, and expressed increased comfort intervening as a bystander or upstander to disrupt harm. As Tavares says, "We believe that when students understand history they will be better equipped to stand up to bigotry and hate when they encounter it in their own lives."

Have hard conversations at home

We need to have difficult conversations with our kids at home even while we maintain hope for a better future.

One of the particularly difficult things about fighting antisemitism is that, like so many other forms of prejudice, it can show up in unexpected ways and it can be hard to spot. However, left unchecked and unacknowledged, it will only continue to grow. Yet, whether our kids are directly impacted by this specific form of prejudice or not, we all have a responsibility to name and fight it at every turn. That isn't always easy, but as Jenni Mangel reminds us, "We have to make the space for our kids to be able to ask the hard questions and then we have to be able to struggle with them through the answers."