The Finish of the Golden Age
Anti-Semitism at the proper and the left threatens to finish an exceptional duration of protection and prosperity for Jewish American citizens—and demolish the liberal order they helped determine, Franklin Foer wrote within the April 2024 factor.
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Franklin Foer’s article at the finish of the Golden Age for American Jews makes a very good and painful connection between the upward push of anti-Semitism and the decline of democratic establishments all over historical past. I used to be a kid in Communist Romania in 1973 on the outbreak of the Yom Kippur Warfare. A few of my lecturers made my lifestyles depressing in class just because I used to be Jewish. My oldsters needed to bribe them with American cigarettes to prevent them from tormenting me. 3 years later, my circle of relatives and I defected to america. The U.S. used to be recognized around the globe for its democratic establishments, and we would have liked to escape from a rustic the place anti-Semitism ran rampant.
No person born right here can believe what it used to be love to be unfastened, to be Jewish and dare to confess it. However that used to be The usa within the Seventies and ’80s. Nowadays’s The usa frightens me: I’ve lived in an authoritarian state ahead of; I perceive viscerally what’s at stake on this yr’s election. For the primary time in 48 years, I consider carefully ahead of telling other folks I’m Jewish.
Monica Friedlander
Cambria, Calif.
I’m a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor. I used to be born in Berlin in 1928 and seen the upward push of anti-Semitism in Germany. There’s a international of distinction between the ones days and america lately. In Germany, anti-Semitism used to be sanctioned, even inspired, via the government. Cops stood via giggling when boys beat us on our method to faculty. The federal government handed rules forbidding us from proudly owning radios, newspapers, phones, even pets. The arena is aware of how that ended: I used to be liberated from Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945. I believe Franklin Foer’s article is a bit of excessive.
Walter L. Lachman
Laguna Niguel, Calif.
Even if a captivating overview of Twentieth-century Jewish entertainers and intellectuals, Franklin Foer’s review ignores the road fact.
I used to be born and raised all the way through the Franklin D. Roosevelt years. Rising up, I used to be given a bloody nostril via different children greater than as soon as on my method house from faculty. They shouted anti-Semitic slurs and attacked me for “killing their God.” After I served within the army, my roommate requested whether or not I had horns, and if it “had harm once they took them off.” After I carried out for a task at a prestigious regulation company, I used to be advised, “We don’t rent your sort.”
I went directly to revel in a a hit occupation. However the underlying prejudice has at all times been provide. The truth that we Jews were entertaining and artistic does not anything to do away with the elemental prejudice in opposition to us as “the opposite.”
Benjamin Levine
Roseland, N.J.
The evening ahead of I learn Franklin Foer’s article, a stranger tore my mezuzah off my doorframe. I used to be disappointed—however so used to be my non-Jewish roommate. In that, he used to be a part of a broader American custom: On the founding of our nation, George Washington promised the Jews of Rhode Island, “To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no help.”
The Jewish American Golden Age predates the 20 th century, and has outlasted it. Now not handiest has The usa been the most efficient position within the diaspora to be a Jew, however the scale of Jewish participation and inclusion is bigger than many understand. The top-ranking American armor officer to die in fight used to be the mythical Maurice Rose—a Jewish main normal who died combating the Nazis in Germany. Foer quotes Thomas Friedman announcing that the Six-Day Warfare made American Jews understand they may well be tank commanders—however Jews were tank commanders so long as The usa has had tanks.
In Columbus, Georgia, the place I reside, in a while after the October 7 assaults, the mayor and city-council individuals attended my synagogue. Other people from far and wide the rustic reached out to precise their sympathy and enhance. A pal stationed in Syria checked in after Iran introduced missiles towards Israel, fascinated by my Israeli circle of relatives and the way I used to be coping with American anti-Semitism. The usa’s proceeding heat welcome isn’t simply anecdotal: The Pew Analysis Heart lately discovered that Jews are seen extra undoubtedly than another U.S. spiritual team.
Anti-Semitism is also on the upward push, however it’s and stays un-American. My great-great-grandfather, a Jewish refugee, arrived in New York at the Fourth of July. In line with circle of relatives lore, he noticed the fireworks and idea they had been for him. In some way, they had been. This July, I look ahead to celebrating the Golden Age’s 248th anniversary.
Jacob Foster
Columbus, Ga.
I used to be dissatisfied studying “The Finish of the Golden Age.” I believe the Golden Age is now, as such a lot of American Jews stand up to mention “Now not in our identify.” We’re spotting the variation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. It’s time for everybody to acknowledge it too. Grievance of Israel’s movements in Gaza isn’t anti-Semitism. American Jews and Israeli Jews can be protected when we will be able to acknowledge the resilience and survival of each Palestinians and Jews and notice how our struggles are interconnected.
R. Toran Ailisheva
Oakland, Calif.
Franklin Foer translates a survey—“just about one in 5 non-Jewish scholars stated they ‘wouldn’t need to be pals with any individual who helps the life of Israel as a Jewish state’ ”—to imply that they had been announcing they wouldn’t be pals with maximum Jews. I might problem this interpretation.
As a Columbia graduate, and as any individual who can in fact learn the Yiddish on The Atlantic’s quilt, I don’t query the Zionist dream of a haven for Jews. However I query the desire for a predominantly spiritual state, which I worry will inevitably result in a theocracy, illiberal even of Jews deemed insufficiently Orthodox. Israel is headed in that route.
Elliott B. Urdang
Windfall, R.I.
We had been shocked and dismayed that The Atlantic would put up Franklin Foer’s article about the upward push of anti-Semitism with none accompanying articles discussing the concurrent upward thrust in anti-Palestinian racism. Scholars who protest the brutal conflict crimes dedicated in Gaza or suggest for the liberty and dignity of the Palestinian persons are being silenced and persecuted. We are hoping The Atlantic will put up tales that spotlight efforts in search of peace and justice for all. At the moment, we’d like answers. We want voices supportive of our shared humanity, now not inflammatory rhetoric that can result in additional polarization and alienation.
Samar Salman
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Christina Kappaz
Evanston, Sick.
Franklin Foer replies:
A author’s deeply ingrained intuition is to need their tales to end up prophetic. On this example, I desperately hope that I will be able to be proved improper. Unfortunately, within the aftermath of publishing this text, I’ve heard too many tales like Jacob Foster’s, of mezuzahs ripped from doorways within the evening. One of the vital ubiquitous reviews of my tale, echoed in R. Toran Ailisheva’s letter, is that my argument equates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Many mainstream Jewish teams take that stance, however it’s not my rivalry. I explicitly said that there are lines of anti-Zionism that paint a imaginative and prescient of lifestyles in a binational state, the place Palestinians and Jews peacefully coexist. That imaginative and prescient moves me as hopelessly quixotic, nevertheless it isn’t anti-Semitic. Sadly, criticisms of Zionism are infrequently so idealistic. They’re in most cases forged in unsightly phrases, depicting a perilous Jewish cabal responsible of twin loyalties, betraying the hallmarks of classical anti-Semitism.
At the back of the Duvet
On this month’s quilt tale, “Democracy Is Dropping the Propaganda Warfare,” Anne Applebaum examines how autocrats in China, Russia, and different puts have sought to discredit liberal democracy—and the way they’ve discovered not likely allies at the American some distance proper. Our quilt attracts inspiration from constructivist propaganda artists corresponding to Alexander Rodchenko and Gustav Klutsis. The angled imagery and ascending traces evoke the manner of a Soviet propaganda poster, up to date with liberalism’s new opponents.
— Paul Spella, Senior Artwork Director
This text seems within the June 2024 print version with the headline “The Commons.”