The New Philosemitism An age-old tradition has taken new shape recently. Who, exactly, is this helping?
BY PHOEBE MALTZ BOVY
ILLUSTRATION BY EZRA BADERMAN FOR THE CJN
J ews have always had our share of ene- mies, but some moments seem more antagonistic than others. Our popularity’s taken a hit since October 7. There was a blip of a moment when well-meaning gentiles were parsing whether it counts as cultural appropriation to put up a mezuzah in soli- darity with one’s Jewish neighbours, as an I am Spartacus -type solidarity gesture. But, soon enough, the world at large switched its focus to the IDF’s response. Do Israel’s actions constitute a genocide, and are Can- adian and other diaspora Jews complicit? Is it possible , asked antisemites, who already had their answer, that Jews are the worst people ever to exist, and now the world is finally waking up? Going by certain corners of social media, not to mention lamppost flyers, it can be easy for Jews—even those of us with our own criticisms of how Israel is handling this war—to catastrophize about the people who hate us. But, on a population level, North American Jews are not actually unpopular, recent criticisms notwithstanding. High-pro- file antisemitic incidents have a way of masking the fact that Canadians and Amer- icans tend to have favourable views of us. A March 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 35 per cent of Americans express very or somewhat favorable attitudes toward Jews, while 6 per cent express “unfavorable
attitudes,” making Jews the most positive- ly viewed of all religious (or non-religious) groups surveyed—more so than Catholics or Protestants and much more so than athe- ists, Muslims or Mormons. In a survey con- ducted after October 7 and published in a special edition of Canadian Jewish Studies this spring, University of Toronto sociology professor Robert Brym found that 83 per cent of Canadians “hold positive feelings about Jews” and that “antisemitism comes primarily from four specific groups in Can- adian society—Muslims, white supremacists and leftists, non-Jewish university students, and Quebecois.” Some non-Jews, however, have more than a vaguely positive feeling about us. A handful of them think we are the greatest and want the world to know that they are on Team Jews. This can be anxiety-producing in its own right. Philosemitism has a rich and much-ex- plored history, the relevant bits of which I will get into shortly, but my focus here is what I have come to believe is a new incar- nation of this centuries-old phenomenon. Where philosemitism of recent decades been understood as an affinity for Jews, this new philosemitism is distinguished by steadfast commitment to the two-pronged policy platform of defending Israel and fighting antisemitism. It’s the sort that ex-
presses itself online and in political speech about how wronged Jews (and sometimes Israel) are, in such passionate language that you think (that is, I think) there has to be some personal attachment—but no, this is just their side. The sort where someone has a Star of David or Israeli flag emoji in their bio and you think (if you are me), “Oh, I didn’t know so-and-so-was Jewish,” and it turns out they’re not. A few words about what philosemitism is not. Philosemitism might inspire conversion, but once you are Jewish, you’ve ceased be- ing someone with an outsider’s affinity for Jews. The lobbyist Richard Marceau may be a pro-Israel advocate with a French-Can- adian name and heritage, but he converted to Judaism, thereby making his own story a part of the Jewish one. I also have trouble referring to a solidar- ity born of real-life closeness with Jews as philosemitism. Plenty of non-Jews’ concern for Jews’ welfare comes from having a Jew- ish partner or Jewish kids. Jews aren’t ab- stract entities to them, but real people. This is different from finding Jews interesting as a concept. It is a bias born of proximity, and not so far off from being pro-Jewish on ac- count of being Jewish yourself. It’s not that there are hard-and-fast rules for these things. Someone can be Jew- ish and still think of Jews as abstractions,
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