Seth Mandel: Antisemitism in America a "virus" which mutates - including as DEI

Seth Mandel is no stranger to the twisted story of antisemitism in America. A longtime journalist and editor in American conservative circles and present-day senior editor at Commentary Magazine, Mandel and his wife - also a widely known and respected journalist and pundit - have been on the front lines against antisemitism wherever it appears for decades.

JFeed sat down with Mandel last week to discuss the explosion of antisemitism in the wake of October 7 on American college campuses and in America in general, and whether it can be defeated or only managed.

JFeed: Could you provide a brief summary of your impression of how anti-Semitism seems to have exploded in the United States since October 7th. Who is responsible and whether or not has the people responsible been dealt with or are we just waiting for another explosion?

Seth Mandel: Well, those are questions are not all mutually exclusive, unfortunately. But I'll deal with, in other words, I'll deal with the last one first. I kind of tend to think that we do wait for the next explosion each time. And so I don't know how confident, you know, that I can be that even while we're addressing it, you know, there won't be another explosion in the future. But what we're dealing with right now is, I think taught people a very important lesson about anti-Semitism, which is that it doesn't live on the left or the right or with the Republican party or the Democratic party. You know, it is, as many have said over the years accurately, a virus, and it attaches to a host.

And we have a very divisive, foreign political moment right now has been for a while. One thing that researchers have and political scientists have been pretty convincing about is the rise of negative polarization, negative partisanship, defining yourself by what you're against but also feeling like you're on a team, and you take personally criticism of that team, and that the other side is, you tend to inflate the dangers of the other side and, and all that. So negative partisanship is something that has kind of taken over American politics.

With the rise of Trump, there was sort of the summit of the whole thing, which you had people saying in 2016. And then again, in 2020, believe it or not, and in 2024, before Biden dropped out of the race, you had people saying they were voting as much against the other candidate. It wasn't just people who were voting against Trump. The negative polarization really has come to define American politics.

So when you're sitting in such a divisive and such a polarized situation, it's very tempting to let signs of misbehavior on your own side, so to speak, pass. And that's exactly what happened. My wife was on a list of the most harassed Jewish journalists by the alt-right in 2016. We had come out against Trump early on in the primary.

On the right, people saw that as betrayal. it's often treated as words when it's somebody on your own side, so to speak. So we were subjected to the alt-right…your phone would ring, you'd pick it up, and it would be a recorded Hitler speech, whatever, stuff like that. But it got serious every once in a while. And at one point, we were doxed by a neo-Nazi website, and we had to talk to the cops. We became gun owners, it was you know it was a scary time um but anti-semitism was instrumentalized, like this virus that latches on to whatever that's what it had to latch onto and it had other hosts emerge in the years since then.

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It's not just about antisemitism. I have friends…on the left who ran into trouble with the so-called Bernie bros in 2016, who had been adamant that they weren't going to cede their party to Hillary Clinton and whatever.

So it's really about the way that we set up all these purity tests and loyalty tests and things like that. And so if you throw anti-Semitism into that mix, you get something close the carried interest loophole or something, right? It's not some ephemeral political fight of the day. It's like we were against universal healthcare that we nominated somebody who was for universal healthcare. Then we want to get, you know, then we nominated somebody who wanted to cut entitlements. And now, Trump has been the leader of the party for a decade and he doesn't want to touch entitlements.

There are these fights that change, but the thing that stays, anti-Semitism, just once it gets its roots in there, once it digs in, it doesn't just float away like some, you know, some political issue of the day. It kind of sticks around and it finds, finds a place to stay. So, it'll come in and it will find the online communities and the sort of, you know, beneath the surface places. where this stuff can live and read and simmer and all that stuff.

JFeed: Joe Roberts, the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Tulsa wrote a blistering article for the publication E-Jewish Philanthropy, where he said that he used to work for many mainstream national American Jewish organizations who he said they or reports, they had great conferences, they had all these nice interface meetings, and they spent tons and tons of money for decades and decades and decades in trying to make sure that American schools and American culture in general was immunized against this virus.

Roberts said this has all completely failed. It accomplished absolutely nothing, and it stopped no one. And he had his own call for action in saying we need to look for things that work. And so I guess I would ask you, in your experience, what actually works in dulling the power of this "virus" or making it weaker?

Seth Mandel: It's a very tough question to answer, because we are more aware of what doesn't work, because lots of things don't work. If there were some kind of solution that were clearly explicable and something you could implement tomorrow, we would, the Jewish organizations would.

So it's a tough question to answer. It's sort of like a process of elimination. That's what fighting antisemitism has been like. And you learn by doing, and when something fails, you have to try something else.

I think the most important thing is that people don't stick with strategies that aren't working. That's really where I would guide people and say, I don't know what can eradicate antisemitism. I don't know. I think it's so complex that, and humans are so complex that, it would be different for every person almost, I wouldn't know how to do that. But I would know that if something isn't working, or it's backfiring, you have to move on from that, move on to something else.

And that sometimes requires you to confront your own priors, as they say, and move to areas where you're not so comfortable? Like, a lot of Jews thought that the best way to handle DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion - on campus and in other institutions was to make it include them, with Jews should have the protections that these other minority groups that DEI was sort of created to serve should have.

And I think everybody realized by now, it's obviously impossible, right? DEI…it's incompatible with DEI. And so what happens to Jewish organizations who have invested time and money in this? What happens to the organizations who have their own diversity fellowships and their own diversity events and all that sort of thing. And especially because DEI is seen as kind of an outgrowth of the civil rights laws right in the workplace and in schools. And so it can be very difficult for Jewish organizations to just pull the plug on that.

I've said in the past: these organizations should just take, the ADL and whoever should just take everything they spend on DEI and diversity initiatives and put it into security networks for Jews on campus?

And it's easy for me to say that, right? Because security works. It doesn't stop people from catching virus of anti-Semitism, but security is the one thing that enables people to go through it anyway and come out the other side. But I'm not the one who has raised all this money, from donors and made commitments to people and established relationships with other organizations and other leaders and other faith leaders, right? Maybe for some of them, some of this DEI stuff is a way that they relate to, they might say that this improves our relations with some of these African-American advocacy groups and that we think is good for Jews, right?

So they'll just say it's more complicated than just ditch DEI. But I think you have to do it anyway. That's an example of what you have to do when you have to be able to put your losses when something doesn't work and set your priorities. And I think it's gotten easier to do that. And not just with DEI, but that general principle since October 7th, because a lot of these Jewish organizations - they reached out to other faith groups that they have worked with over the years. They've always shown up for it. And those other faith groups stopped answering their calls after October 7th and wouldn't show up to help them, right? And so a lot of Jewish organizations found out who their friends were and who they could rely on. And it has gotten easier for them, I think, because of that.

They weren't even really the ones who severed ties. They were being ignored, ghosted, whatever you want to say by these organizations. So I think it's gotten slightly easier for people to accept the idea that we just, we have to cut loose the things that don't work. We have to be able to pivot. We have to be nimble enough to see a threat and adjust on the floor. We have to be like a football team, like a coach that can make adjustments at halftime: What's working, what's not working, what do we need to do better? And just move our energy and resources to that. It's not that easy. But it is what I would recommend at the top of the list.

Speaking of losing faith, one of the things I noticed in this election without taking a side in either direction was that a lot of students. A lot of Jews, at least according to media reports, were really taken aback by what they saw as President Biden's perhaps timid, perhaps insufficiently strong and robust moving, not just with regard to Israel policy, but also in terms of dealing with the outbreak of antisemitism and harassment. all over, especially in the Ivy League universities where Jews tend to be sent.

JFeed: But on the other side of it, outside of the Orthodox community and perhaps certain other enclaves, most Jews tend to consider themselves core Democrats, "blue no matter who." Do you, based on your experience and what you see, do you see I wouldn't say Jews becoming red, but more of an openness, at least among some to say, let's work with both parties and try to get out of that negative polarization, or are they still know we're still gonna say we are loyal Democrats and we're only working within the Democratic Party?

Seth Mandel: There's definitely an improvement. I hate to call it a...silver lining or anything like that, as if there's a good side to, that all the terrible things that have happened, but they have definitely improved. I mentioned the ADL before and under Jonathan Greenblatt, you know, he has somewhat course corrected. I mean, I've been a critic of his, of the ADL and its focus on things like either DEI or what I considered its partisanship, right?

And you have to be able to give credit where credit is due and say that, you know, Jonathan has stood up to some of the forces on the left that have really come after him and not back down from his post-October 7th approach, so I think that you can see the improvement in some situations like that.

And then you look among the public or in more direct electoral politics, and I blogged about this the other day (at Commentary – A.W.), but the New York Times had this kind of incredible story the other day, which was about Jewish Democrats - Jewish, influential Jewish Democrats. “Jewish democratic leaders” could be donors, could be activists, could be heads of Jewish organizations in the state of Georgia.

In December had written a private letter. There were Republicans, I believe who signed the letter too. This was a bipartisan thing, but the key was that there were all these Jewish Democrats on it, who wrote a letter to Governor Brian Kemp, who is a Republican, and urged him to run or to consider running for Senate against John Ossoff, who is a Jewish Democrat.

So this is the sort of thing that you absolutely did not see. I mean, I can't remember the last time I saw this ever, and at least in my lifetime, this is a highly unusual break with party politics you know, for Jewish activists. And it's in a state that - Georgia has became a sort of swing state in the last few years. I mean, Trump did everything he could to toss it overboard? And, and it has a highly unusual situation where both senators are Democrats from Georgia - I don't think it's going to stay that way.

I don't think this is a state that is turning blue, but I do think that it is sticking around in the sort of battleground area. It's a battleground state now. These are close elections. And in close elections, a lot of times, and certainly Jewish groups are no different, a lot of times activists and influence groups are loath to seem to be the one that pushed things over the edge. In other words, even if they're dissatisfied with the Democrat who currently represents them, like to be in situations where you could hint it on them if the Democrat lost, right?

AIPAC has gotten much better at this stuff also. They weren't afraid of being seen as involved in Jamal Bowman's primary defeat. But that is - and another one in Missouri - but those were Democratic primaries. Very rare that you see any of these groups, Jewish or not, that want to be able to have the finger pointed at them and say if you guys hadn't done that, the Democrats would have won, and we still would have had the Senate, and then Trump wouldn't have passed this and this and that and whatever, and everything that happens is your fault, blah, blah.

So I think it was hugely significant that they did that, that they wrote that letter, that they were saying, look, they're not going, some of them were interviewed by the time, said, look, we're not going to vote for Marjorie Taylor Greene if she's the Republican nominee. against John Ossoff. You know, we're not Republicans now. We're Democrats. And we're not willing to back just any Republican, because there are a lot of Republicans who, you know, who would not make the problem any better. Marjorie Taylor Greene among them, right? You'd be shooting yourself in the foot as a Jewish group if you were like, well, I guess we'll back Marjorie Taylor Greene, right?

But there are Republicans like Brian Kemp, who care about the issues that they care about. and have maybe vaulted ahead of the path to the issues that they care about. Maybe these democratic donors and activists were not prioritizing anti-Semitism or Israel-related stuff either, anti-Semitism at home or Israel abroad. You can only imagine that in situations where people have had their priorities restructured by events.

JFeed: To end off: obviously, none of us are prophets, but based on what you know now and assuming trends continue, how do you see the anti-Semitism wave continuing? Is it going to continue to be in recession or do you see an explosion happening?

Seth Mandel: So I tend to be an optimist by nature, but I'm not on this issue. So...I don't come bearing any sort of sunny optimism on this. I think that the reason we always rely on the comparison of antisemitism to a virus is because it mutates. And I don't think that anything in general stays the way it is. It's sort of like an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. So it's gonna keep going forward and not just tread water.

I think that antisemitism behaves that way. And so on campus, we had the Tentifada and I wrote a piece warning that it can get worse than this, even if it's not as public, right? That these things have to change to survive. And the Tentifada, especially once the active war stopped, there was not gonna be the same amount of Jews for the tent protests, right? But there were the seeds planted among especially young activists that you could and should wave a Hamas or a Hezbollah flag or wear a hoodie with the picture of Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas on it, like he was Shea Guvara. There was like this normalizing of explicit violence against Jews. And then we saw investigations and some arrests.

You may not have the numbers, but I think that antisemitism itself has been strengthened in a really important way during this time. And you don't need that many people to do terrible things. I'm not saying they're all terrorists on campus or whatever, or even budding terrorists, but the point is that they get, activists tend to get older. Activism itself tends to get older. And it's certainly true in American politics over the years.

Things don't tend to mellow out, pauses don't mellow out because if they do, they disappear, right? You have to always find a reason to push onward. And if your cause relies on the ability to shock, which antisemitism and the... Tentifada and a lot of the pro-Palestinian movement does, then what shocks people changes over time. It's the Overton window problem of moving the Overton window.

So I think that we've accepted, not we, but we as a sort of society, considering the behavior of a lot of elected leaders and institutional leaders, a certain level of Jew hatred as normal. And that wasn't the case before. They would have denied before October 7th and before all these protests, a campus administrator would have flatly denied that such a thing, that level of Jew hatred existed in those places.

And it's gone in those 16 months to now being: not only does it exist, but it's basically been sort of accepted as normal. And then the question turned to what do we do to make our campus safe for everybody? There's almost no thought given to the fact that they sort of read this vile Jew hatred in students and among professors and people on campus. There's just like, all right, well, what do we do about it? So that Jews stop asking, Jewish students stop asking to take their classes via Zoom. and they're not afraid to come on campus. It's been normalized. It's like, all right, this is the status quo.

The status quo is we've got chapters of SJP and all their followers and people who will behave like this and a very large number of people who hate Jews with every fiber of their being and will cheer violence against them with almost no limit. And that's like, all right, that's where we are. Now what do we do just to make our institution run? Not what do we do to turn back that tide and cleanse our institution of the ideas and the hatred and I would say the enabling agents of it, the things that push people to do that or see them as the incentive structure, I guess you could call them.

So, I don't know what form it's going to take. And like I said, it's not a partisan thing, and there's no way to see the future. But I think that there are warning signs that you just have to expect that whatever it is, this is a thing that mutates. And you have to just try to assess the political climate wherever you are. And think about how that virus might gain a foothold, how it might survive, and how it might evolve. in the changing environment. And that's really kind of the best you can do to try to stay ahead of it.