Increasing Antisemitism Will Strengthen American Zionism and Weaken American Society

 Open Antisemitism Rears Its Head

Open antisemitism is becoming more and more common in the United States. The extreme political right has always included neonazis, White Christian nationalists and other antisemites. The extreme left has trafficked in ideas like the idea that the economy of our country is controlled by Jews. Now, the legitimate opposition to Israel's brutal and extreme actions in Gaza has had the side effect of bringing American antisemitism into the open. Jews in the United States who have never been afraid are afraid now.  This open antisemitism has created a big rift among American liberals and progressives and threatens the Democrats' ability to win control of Congress in this year's general election. In addition, the increase in open antisemitism will have the perverse effect of strengthening American Zionism and will also weaken the solidarity of American society. 

Zionism Was From Its Beginning a Response to Antisemitism

Zionism emerged in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century as a response to antisemitism there. Judah Pinsker’ pamphlet Autoemancipation was written in response to the pogrom in Odessa in 1882. The pamphlet argued that Jews could never be at home in countries that were not their own, and he founded a society to promote settlement in the Land of Israel.

Theodor Herzl wrote his best-known work Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) and founded the modern Zionist movement in response to the antisemitism displayed during the Dreyfus Affair in Paris in the eighteen nineties.  There he saw mobs in the streets calling for “Death to the Jews,” and he felt that if that could happen in Paris, the world’s most enlightened city, there could be no hope to escape antisemitism anywhere except in a Jewish homeland. 

After World War II, the State of Israel was created, and refugees from the Holocaust as well as Jews who fled from the countries of the Islamic world went to settle there. However, few American Jews have been interested in moving to Israel because antisemitism - while it has existed in here – has not been a serious threat to American Jewish communities.

Now, the situation has changed. On the political right, we have seen neo-nazism and other forms of overt antisemitism. On the left, we also see a range of antisemitic views. We see denial of the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and we see a revival of older antisemitic tropes that say that the world is controlled by a Jewish conspiracy (The Protocols of the Elders of Zion) or that Jewish wealth controls the economy. There have been attacks on synagogues, and many Jews who had always been very comfortable in the United States have now become afraid. Synagogues all over the country have invested in improved security. This can only strengthen the Zionist cause among American Jews. As in the past, many people will say that Jews can never really be safe outside of their own homeland. This will be a tragedy.

American Solidarity is Based on Acceptance of All Our Citizens as Real Americans

A second effect of rising antisemitism will be to weaken the solidarity of America society. People from all over the world have made their homes in the United States, and we have built a unique society and a unique polity. The United States invented the idea of citizenship as a voluntary commitment rather than an expression of ethnic identity. A person who becomes an American citizen is an American by the only definition that we have, and that definition is the basis of American solidarity.

That solidarity is the fact rooted in the fact that a person can be an American by choice. In a congressional hearing Fiona Hill  said that she was “an American by choice.” She is English by birth, but now, she is American. No one could say that he/she was “an Englishman or Englishwoman by choice.” A person can become a citizen of the United Kingdom, but a person cannot become a English. One must be born English. There is no other way to become English, and most countries are like the U.K. in that respect. But not the United States.

The fact that people - including Jews - can become American is and always has been a source of strength for us. Immigrant workers powered the development of American industry. The American army in WWII was full of soldiers – including Jewish soldiers - who were the children of immigrants, and they fought valiantly for the country they saw as theirs. If we give up that inclusiveness by excluding Jews, we will have given up a part of the core of what it means to be American. 

Moreover, we should not kid ourselves. The exclusion may begin with Jews, but it will not end there. Already, we have J. D. Vance saying that only Christians can be Americans. Along with Jews, he would exclude the millions of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims who are part of the fabric of our society. His attitude, if it is accepted by most Americans, will break our society. It will destroy the solidarity of our people and the greatness of our country.

Trump, Hegseth and "Sixteen Tons"

 The Mighty Man of Sixteen Tons

In the nineteen-fifties, Tennessee Ernie Ford sang a song called Sixteen Tons that perfectly captures a certain kind of masculine ideal. The song’s protagonist is a mighty man with a grievance. He is stronger and tougher than anyone can imagine, but he is trapped in a system that exploits him. The song says,

If you see me comin’, better step aside.

A lota men didn’t and a lotta men died.

One fist of iron the other of steel,

If the right one don't get you, then the left one will.

This man can load sixteen tons of coal in a day, an unheard-of amount, but the system does not reward his strength, which gets him nowhere. He knows that he is trapped. He says,

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

Saint Peter don’t you call me ‘cause I cain’t go.

I owe my soul to the company sto'.

He is proud of his strength. In fact, he embodies a certain ideal of manhood. He is strong and independent. He stands on his own two feet with no help from anyone. He is feared by those around him, but at the same time, he is trapped in a system that exploits him. He understands that. He knows there is nothing he can do about it, but he stands tall.

The Price of Being a Such a Man

A man can build a life in this way, but it exacts a price. Such a man must continually validate his status as the toughest of the tough and the strongest of the strong. He has to get into fights that have no purpose except to maintain his honor and his reputation as a man who is stronger and tougher than anyone around him. He can never back down from a challenge.

He Should Never be a Leader

This kind of man should never be a leader. He must be either a loner whose decisions affect only himself or a subordinate who uses his talents in the service of a “boss” who keeps him from getting himself or his organization in trouble. We see a memorable portrayal of a mighty man as a subordinate in the film, The Irishman where Robert de Niro plays a mob hit man.

Such a man should not be a leader because he cannot be counted on to make decisions for the benefit of his followers. He is always focused on his need to maintain his honor, and he is likely to lead his followers into conflicts in which they have no stake and in which they suffer and sometimes die for no reason except to maintain the honor of their leader.

Trump and Hegseth Portray Themselves as Men of This Kind

Trump and Hegseth portray themselves as such men. They stand tall and thumb their noses at “the system” and “the elite.” That pose is one of the sources of Trump’s power. Millions of Americans admire that kind of manliness, and they say, “Right on!”  

Unfortunately, however, Trump and Hegseth are led by their pose to approach international conflict in a dangerous way. They see an international conflict in the way that the hero of Sixteen Tons would see a bar fight: it provides them with an opportunity to uphold their manhood and their reputations. To Trump and Hegseth, war is not - as Clausewitz famously said - "policy carried on by other means." War, in their view, is a way for them to demonstrate their strength and their valor and to uphold their honor. In their eyes, they become heroes like Roland at Roncevaux, where he and all his men died in a battle against the Saracens - a battle that served no purpose other than to demonstrate Roland's knightly honor.

Now we find ourselves in a war with no national purpose in Iran. People are being killed, and American treasure is being wasted to demonstrate Trump and Hegseth’s manhood. They get to show unbending resolve, and they are able to make awful, theatrical threats to destroy Iran completely. They parade their “warrior ethos” before the world, while we pay the price for having such men as leaders. Let us hope that the price does not include a third world war.

There Is No Protection From Antisemitism In Moving to The Republican Party

Republicans Have Their Own Antisemites

This article is a sequel to last week’s blog post in which I said that liberal Jews must vote for Democratic candidates in spite of their condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza. We cannot allow Mr. Trump to continue to destroy everything that we love about our country, and the only hope of preventing that destruction is to elect Democrats in November. However, that is not the only reason why we should stick with the Democratic Party. The other reason is that the Republican Party has even more antisemites than the Democratic Party.

Antisemites Are a Core Part of the Republican Party

The Republican Party is rife with antisemitism. Trump’s MAGA movement counts well-known antisemites and white nationalists like Nick Fuentes among its strongest supporters. Trump's vice president J. D. Vance is a Christian Nationalist, and Christian Nationalism is inherently antisemitic because it claims that only a Christian can be a real American.

Evangelical Christians are among the Republican Party's strongest supporters. They support Israel and so do not at first seem to be antisemites, but their support for Israel is not based on sympathy for Jews. Instead, it grows out of their apocalyptic theology:

Christian Zionism is a belief held by many evangelical Christians that the modern state of Israel fulfills biblical prophecy and must be supported for the Second Coming of Christ. While Christian Zionists advocate for Israel, their motivations are often rooted in apocalyptic theology rather than genuine respect for Judaism.

Christian Zionism can reinforce antisemitism in several ways. Many Christian Zionists view Jews as instruments of prophecy rather than a people with a sovereign right to self-determination. They support Israel not out of solidarity but to fulfill end-times prophecy, in which Jews must convert or be destroyed.

People with Christian Nationalist and Christian Zionist beliefs are core parts of Trump’s MAGA movement, and they play an important role in the Republican Party today.

Trump Never Condemns the Antisemitism of His Supporters

Some Jews are impressed by Pres. Trump's opposition to anti-Israel activities and antisemitism on American university campuses, but those Jews ignore the fact that his opposition to antisemitism has very strict limits. He has built his power on a coalition that includes antisemitic groups within the United States, and he never questions or repudiates the beliefs of those groups or their members.

When asked what he thought about the violent clashes at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017, he famously said that there were good people on both sides. More recently, he has refused to repudiate Nick Fuentes, a well-known racist and antisemite. The Republican Party gives a home to Fuentes and others like him. So, moving from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party is not a way to oppose antisemitism in American politics.

There is Antisemitism in Both Parties

Unfortunately, antisemitism is common among extremists both on the left and the right, and extremists in both the Republican Party and Democratic Party include antisemites. Therefore, the antisemitism in the Democratic Party cannot provide a reason to move to the Republican Party, and Jewish voters must decide which party to support on other grounds. If you like Pres. Trump's domestic policies and his war in Iran, you should vote Republican. On the other hand, if you think as I do that Pres. Trump is a danger to our democracy and to our society, you should vote Democratic in November.

Keep Our Eyes on the Political Ball and Stick With the Democratic Party

 We Must Keep Our Eyes on the Ball

We liberal and progressive Jews must keep our eyes on the ball in the coming elections. We cannot allow Democrats' criticism of Israel or even the antisemitism of some progressive Democrats to blind us to the need to protect our democracy here at home. We must work to elect progressive Democrats in spite of their attitudes toward Israel.

The Antisemitism of Some Democrats is Obvious

The rising antisemitism of some progressive Democrats is obvious, but we need to be clear: criticism of Israel's policies is not antisemitic. Israel is a country like any other, and when it does awful things, it cannot expect to be immune to international criticism or even ostracism. On the other hand, the claim that Israel has no right to exist is antisemitic because such claims are never made against other countries that have committed awful crimes including genocide.

Israel Has Done Things That Are Unjustifiable, but It Has a Right to Exist

I am a Jew and a supporter of Israel. Nevertheless, I share the belief that Israel has done things in Gaza that are completely unjustifiable. The utter destruction of most of Gaza is grotesquely disproportionate to the damage inflicted by Hamas’s raid that killed 1500 people and took 250 hostages. I loathe Netanyahu and his racist supporters. Those who condemn what Israel has done have a perfect right to do so, and I agree with much of what they say.

On the other hand, those who go further and say that Israel has no right to exist are clearly antisemites because they make that claim only against the Jewish state. No one says that the United States should not exist because we dropped atomic bombs on Japan or because of our genocide of the American Indians. No one says that China should not exist because of the genocide of the Uighurs. No one says that Nigeria should not exist because of the slaughter in Biafra. No one says that Turkey should not exist because of the Armenian genocide. Only when the violence is committed by Jews do we hear that they have forfeited their right to a national state.

We Jews Can Support Israel Without Supporting Its Government

We American Jews can continue to support Israel, but that does not mean that we have to support its current government or its actions in Gaza. If you want to support Israel while opposing its government, you should consider making a contribution to the New Israel Fund. 

We should also remember that Israel and its position in the world have changed since the country's founding almost 80 years ago. Then, Israel was a poor, weak country that barely survived the 1948 assault by its neighbors. Today, Israel is a strong, rich country that is more than a match for its neighbors, and as a strong, rich country, it cannot be exempt from criticism or from international condemnation. We must accept that today, Israel is not merely a refuge for survivors of the Holocaust. It is a normal country with complex politics and social injustices. Israel sometimes does very bad things. So, it is ok to criticize Israel's policies.

We Must Elect Progressive Democrats

In the coming elections, we must stick with the Democratic Party even though many Democrats criticize Israel's policies or call for ending American military support for Israel. We must stick with the Democratic Party even though some of its members are antisemites. We must remember what is at stake here in our own country. We cannot allow Mr. Trump to continue to destroy everything that we love about our country, and the only hope of preventing that destruction is to elect progressive Democrats in November. We must also remember that the antisemitism of the left is much less dangerous than the antisemitism of the right. The antisemites of the right kill us in our synagogues. The antisemites of the left do not.

So, my fellow Jewish Democrats, we must grit our teeth and work to elect progressive Democrats to office. There will be time to deal with the antisemitism after the election.

It's a New World and $1.5 Trillion in Defense Spending Won't Change That

Trump Has Lost Touch With the World

Pres. Trump’s request for $1.5 trillion dollars in defense spending shows that he is completely out of touch with the evolving position of the United States in the world.  He seems to believe that, if he spends enough on our military, he will be able to substitute raw military power for the economic power that we have been gradually losing for years. He will fail because military power cannot really take the place of economic power.

The Power of the United States Was Always Mainly Economic, Not Military

We have dominated the world since 1945 partly through military power but mainly through economic power. At the end of the Second World War, we were the only major industrial power still standing. Our factories had not been destroyed in the war, and we produced more than half of the world’s industrial production. We used the power that gave us to construct a worldwide economic and financial system based on the U.S. dollar. 

Initially, the dollar was strong because it could be converted into gold at a fixed rate. However, when we went off the gold standard in 1974, we were able to maintain the position of the dollar in world trade through an agreement with Saudi Arabia that it would price and sell its oil only in dollars. This “petrodollar system” meant that anyone who wanted to buy oil had to have dollars to pay for it, and that created a strong, international demand for dollars. The dollar remained the currency that all nations used in international trade.

The centrality of the dollar in international trade gave us an enormous amount of geopolitical power, but it rested on trust. The countries of the world trusted that we would not weaponize our economic power against them, and for many years we upheld that trust. However, in 2022 in response to the Russian support for separatists in Ukraine, we and our allies froze billions of dollars in Russian assets in Western banks.

U.S. Power is Declining Because Countries Are Diversifying Away From Dollars

All the central bankers in the world saw that action and asked themselves, “If the Americans can do that to Russia, what stops them from doing it to us?” So, in the name of their own national security, they began to diversify their foreign currency holdings away from dollars, and they began to look for ways to avoid dependency on dollars. As a result, the dollar's share of international currency reserves is declining. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, U.S. dollars constituted about 70% of the foreign exchange reserves held by all countries worldwide. Now, U.S. dollars are down to about 57% of foreign exchange reserves, and that percentage is falling. 

China Has Built a System That Bypasses the Dollar

In the meantime, the Chinese have established a system for conducting foreign trade in their currency, the yuan. The system is called “CIPS” (Cross-border Interbank Payment System), and it bypasses dollars entirely. Trade between China and Russia is handled in that system, and as of 2025, organizations across 121 countries were connected to CIPS. In the fall of that year, Saudi Arabia began to accept payment for oil in yuan. In addition, other countries are building shared systems that allow them to use their own currencies for international trade. This means that foreign countries now have alternatives to the dollar for international trade. They don’t depend on the United States to the same degree as before, and therefore, our economic power is waning. In addition, we are no longer the most important manufacturing country in the world. China is. We can no longer dominate the world's economy. 

Trump's Military Spending Will Drive Us Further into Debt and Make Our People Poorer

Trump thinks that we can substitute military power for economic power, and he has asked for $1.5 trillion in military spending. Where will the $1.5 trillion that Trump is asking for come from? It will have to be borrowed because he is not suggesting that we should raise taxes. However, the United States is already spending $980 billion per year just to pay the interest on its existing debt. The cost of servicing the debt is now the largest item in the federal budget, and if we borrow $1.5 trillion more, that cost will go up. He is already talking about cutting Medicare and Medicaid to cover some of the cost. If he does that, our healthcare will become even more unaffordable than it is now, and our people will be poorer and sicker.

Military Power Cannot Substitute for Economic Power

He will do all that in the vain hope that military power can somehow substitute for our lost economic power, but military power cannot really substitute for economic power because we cannot go to war every time a country does something we don’t like. We are going to have to accept the fact that we are living in 2026 and not in 1946. We are going to have to accept that the world has changed, and we cannot dominate it completely. Spending $1.5 trillion on armaments will not roll back the clock.

Private Choices and the Public Good: The Case of Portion Sizes in Restaurants

Is the Public Good the Same as the Sum of Private Goods?

Many conservatives like to say that we don't need government policies to promote the public good because the public good is nothing but the sum of the private good of the individual members of our society. If everyone gets what he/she wants through the free market, the welfare of the whole society is maximized, and anything that the government does can only subtract from the welfare of society.

That sounds persuasive, but is it true? If everyone gets what he/she wants, does that really mean that the welfare of the whole society is maximized? Is welfare of the whole society merely the sum of the welfare of its members, or does the public good of the society include things that the individual members do not include in their sense of their own wellbeing?  The answer is complex because it depends on the way that the costs of individual choices are apportioned. To see why this is so, consider the case of portion sizes of meals in American restaurants.

Why Have Portion Sizes Increased So Much?

Portion sizes in restaurants in the United States have increased greatly over my lifetime. For example, when I was in college in the 1950s, most restaurants served hamburgers that were less than one quarter pound in size. A restaurant that served a quarter-pound hamburger advertised that fact. Today, in contrast, a quarter-pound hamburger is considered small. We see half-pound hamburgers in restaurants, and the portion sizes of other dishes have increased similarly. Today, portions in American restaurants are so large that most people cannot consume them at a single meal. Consequently, restaurants provide boxes for their customers to use to take home the food that they have not eaten, and we often see people leaving restaurants with such boxes.

Why have portion sizes increased so dramatically? They have increased because restaurant owners have discovered that people will pay more for large portions. People feel that they are getting a good deal if they get a lot of food for their money. At the same time, the large portions cost the restaurant owner very little more than smaller portions.

Cooking and Serving a Meal Costs Much More Than the Meal Itself

The biggest part of the cost of a restaurant meal is the cost of cooking and serving it. The cook and the server cost much more than the food itself. The cost of cooking and serving a half-pound hamburger is the same as the cost of cooking and serving a quarter-pound hamburger. The additional quarter pound of meat adds very little to the cost, but customers are willing to pay substantially more for the larger portion because they feel that they are getting a good deal. So, people buy meals that are too large to eat and take home the leftovers. Everyone is happy. The customers get what they see as good deals, and the restaurant owner makes more profit. What could be better?

The Big Portions Create Costs

The fly in the ointment is that the larger portions create costs that are not born by either the customers or the restaurant owner. They are shared by all of the members of our society. The first such cost is environmental. The millions of plastic foam boxes that the customers use every day to take home the leftover food add a huge amount of non-biodegradable trash to our landfills, and the environmental and financial cost of dealing with that trash is not born by the restaurant owner or by the customers. It falls on the whole society. For example, residents of my community pay a monthly fee for trash collection, and the size of that fee depends in part on the amount of trash that has to be collected.

The second cost is the cost of excessive obesity. The large portions drive customers to eat too much, and as a result, too many people in our society are obese. Obesity is a cause of many chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. The cost of caring for patients with such chronic diseases adds substantially to the cost of healthcare in our country, and that additional cost is born by all of us in the form of higher health insurance premiums.

The Restaurant Owner and the Customers Do Not See the Social Costs

The environmental cost and the healthcare cost are in a sense invisible to the restaurant owner and the customers. They bear only a tiny fraction of those costs, and in any case, there is no way for them to know the environmental cost of a single half-pound hamburger or one plastic foam box.

What is Important and How Do We Decide?

What should we do about the social cost of the large portions? I do not wish to say that restaurant owners should not serve half-pound hamburgers or that customers should not order them. Individual freedom is important. On the other hand, we have to see that the choices made here impose costs on us all, and we would be better off if we did not have to bear those costs. Clearly, maximizing the welfare of our society as a whole involves more than maximizing the benefits to the restaurant owner or to the customers. We would all be better off if we did not have to pay the fees or the health insurance costs imposed by the larger portion sizes. 

Are the social costs more important than the individual benefits, or is it the other way round?

There is no simple answer to the question of the relative importance of the social costs and the individual benefits. The answer to that question is inherently political. We could, for example, forbid the use of nonbiodegradable boxes by restaurants, or we could start a campaign to shame people who take home food from restaurants. Should we do such things? There is no easy answer, but one way or another, we will decide what costs we wish to bear as a society, and we will decide what costs we will impose on the people who impose extra costs on us.

The Government of the U. S. Will Have to Cause Inflation to Pay Its Debts

Our Government Will Devalue Our Money

In last week’s post, I talked about the decline in the value of the dollar due to the loss of its central place in the international oil market. I pointed out that you will become poorer because your dollars will lose purchasing power. However, that is not the whole story. It gets worse. Much worse. We should expect that our government will deliberately devalue our money in order to be able to pay the interest that it owes on our national debt.

We Have Lived on Borrowed Money For Decades

As long as the value of the dollar was underpinned by the fact that everyone needed dollars buy oil, and as long as Saudi Arabia was committed to investing its oil profits in U.S. treasury bonds, the U.S. government was able to borrow money at extremely low interest rates to finance its operations. That in turn made it possible for our government to lower the taxes we paid over and over again while maintaining at least a semblance of domestic services and supporting a worldwide network of military bases along with a navy that patrolled all of the world’s seas. In short, we have lived on borrowed money for decades.

Now Our National Debt Has Become Unmanageable

Now, the debt has become unmanageable just at a time when the government’s borrowing cost has risen due to the declining demand for dollars. The government is now borrowing money just to pay the interest on the national debt – not to reduce the principal – just to pay the interest.  In addition, a recent article reported that the United States’ government is now formally insolvent:

The U.S. government is insolvent. That’s not hyperbole — it’s the conclusion drawn directly from the Treasury Department’s own consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2025, released last week to near-total media silence. The numbers: $6.06 trillion in total assets against $47.78 trillion in total liabilities as of September 30, 2025. Importantly, the $47.78 trillion in reported liabilities does not include the unfunded obligations of social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare — those are disclosed separately in the off-balance-sheet Statement of Social Insurance (SOSI).

Our Government Will Print Money to Avoid Defaulting 

A private business in this situation would have to default on its debts. It would declare bankruptcy, and its creditors would receive only a small fraction of what they were owed. In contrast, a national government does not need to default because it can print as much money as its needs to pay its debts. Our government has debts of just under $40 trillion. The interest payments now come to about $980 billion per year, and they are rising. We are now spending more on interest payments than on our military forces. We recently started a costly war, and last year, Congress passed a big tax reduction, but don’t you worry. When the interest payments are due, the Federal Reserve will be able to print as much money as the government needs to pay the interest.

Printing Money Causes Inflation

However, printing money to cover the debt has the side effect of creating inflation. When new money goes into circulation, but no new goods or services are produced, prices rise and the value of the dollar goes down. Nevertheless, printing money to cover debts is the solution that has been used for more than a century by all governments that have faced unmanageable debts, and we should expect that our government will do it this time, too. It will have to print money because the current path of borrowing to pay the interest is unsustainable, and the alternative of defaulting is unthinkable. U.S. treasury bonds are the foundation of both the American and the world’s financial systems, and defaulting would be a disastrous shock. Printing dollars will avoid the shock, and the decline in the value of the dollar will be a gradual process that the world can adjust to.

Act to Preserve the Value of Your Retirement Account

You can adjust to it, too but only if you understand what is happening. If you have retirement accounts, savings accounts in dollars or other wealth that needs to be preserved, I strongly suggest that you use the internet to inform yourself of the alternatives that are available to you,  and I also recommend that you talk to a financial advisor about what you can do to preserve the value of what you have. The devaluation of the dollar will not happen all at once. It will be a gradual process. So, you have time to act, but you do not have time to waste.