This Rosh Hashanah, I Refuse to Hide Who I Am

For American Jews, the new year arrives at a moment when an old hatred has once again become fashionable in places that once claimed to oppose it.

Tomorrow evening, my family will sit down for Rosh Hashanah.

There will be apples and honey on the table. We will wish one another L’Shanah Tovah. We will hear the shofar and begin the Days of Awe, that annual Jewish notice that before we spend all our time judging everybody else, perhaps we should spend a little time examining ourselves.

This year feels different.

I am a conservative. I am an American. I am a Jew. None of those things requires an apology.

Yet somehow, in America in 2026, saying the last one publicly can occasionally feel like making a political statement.

Antisemitism certainly isn’t new. Jews have been dealing with it for thousands of years. It has come from kings, governments, churches, mobs, communists, fascists, and assorted lunatics who somehow concluded that the Jewish family running the neighborhood deli was secretly controlling international finance.

What bothers me today is not that antisemitism exists. I never expected humanity to achieve perfection suddenly.

What bothers me is how respectable it has become.

Some people on the political left who can detect a microaggression from three zip codes away suddenly develop remarkable difficulty recognizing antisemitism when Jews are the target.

Call a Jewish student a Zionist as an insult? That’s apparently political discourse.  Treat an American Jew as personally responsible for every decision made by the Israeli government? Activism.  This isn’t acceptable in America in 2026!

Exclude Jews from progressive spaces unless they first denounce Israel? Somehow that’s inclusion.

There is an important distinction here. Criticizing Israel is not inherently antisemitic. Israelis criticize their own government every day. If political criticism were antisemitism, half of Tel Aviv would have to turn itself in.

Something changes when Jews are subjected to standards applied to no other people.  Something changes when “Zionist” becomes a socially acceptable substitute for “Jew.” Something changes when terrorism against Israeli civilians is explained away as “resistance,” while American Jews are expected to prove their political innocence before being welcomed into polite company.  “Zionists” is a substitution for Jewish hate.

American Jews are noticing.

The Anti-Defamation League recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in the United States during 2025. That was down from the extraordinary 2024 total, but still five times the level recorded a decade earlier. Even more disturbing, antisemitic physical assaults reached a record high.

The American Jewish Committee found that 93 percent of American Jews considered antisemitism a problem in the United States in 2025. Nearly half called it a very serious problem.

Those aren’t numbers dreamed up by conservative talk radio.

They describe something Jewish Americans can feel.

And yes, antisemitism still exists on the far right. Conservatives should condemn it without qualification. A neo-Nazi carrying a swastika doesn’t become less disgusting because somebody on the opposite side of the political spectrum is chanting something equally vile.

Principle means opposing antisemitism even when the antisemite votes the way you do.  This means i have no more tolerance for Tucker Carlson than I do for Abdul El Seyed, AOC, or anyone else, for that matter, who is spewing Jewish Hate as political discourse.

Leftists have a particular problem because it spent decades presenting itself as America’s great defender of tolerance.  When antisemitism appears inside progressive movements, universities, or activist organizations, too many people start searching for an exception to their own rules.  There are professors who are openly anti-Jewish but claim they are against Zionism, not anti-Jewish.  You can’t have it both ways.

Jews notice that too.

That may be why Rosh Hashanah matters especially this year.

Judaism has survived civilizations considerably more intimidating than angry people on social media. Pharaoh couldn’t finish us. Haman couldn’t finish us. The Romans couldn’t finish us. The pogroms couldn’t finish us. Hitler couldn’t finish us.

We’re still here.  We aren’t going anywhere!

Tomorrow night Jewish families across America will dip apples into honey just as generations before us did. Parents will bring children to synagogue. The shofar will sound. We will pray for forgiveness, health, peace, and another year of life.

There is something wonderfully defiant about that.

Jewish survival has never depended upon being fashionable.

So as 5787 begins, my resolution is fairly simple.

I will not hide my Judaism to make somebody else comfortable. I will not pretend antisemitism is acceptable when it comes wrapped in fashionable political language. I will condemn it when it comes from the right, and I will condemn it when it comes from the left.

Then I will sit with my family, eat something sweet, and celebrate another Jewish New Year.

We are still here.

L’Shanah Tovah.

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Endnotes

1. ADL antisemitic incidents figure — “The Anti-Defamation League recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents in the United States during 2025.”
   • Source: Anti-Defamation League, Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, published annually (typically released in spring covering the prior calendar year). The ADL’s audit has tracked assaults, harassment, and vandalism since 1979, and recent years’ totals have been reported as record or near-record highs. I was not able to verify the specific 2025 figure (6,274) or the “five times the level a decade earlier” comparison via search just now — I’d recommend pulling the exact number and citation link directly from adl.org’s most recent audit release before publishing, since the ADL updates and sometimes revises these figures.
2. American Jewish Committee survey figure — “93 percent of American Jews considered antisemitism a problem… Nearly half called it a very serious problem.”
   • Source: American Jewish Committee, State of Antisemitism in America annual report (ajc.org). AJC has run this survey series since 2019, polling both Jewish and general American populations on perceptions of antisemitism. Same caveat — I couldn’t confirm the exact 93% figure for the 2025 edition just now.

Jacob Silver writes on national politics and public affairs for Direct Line News.

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