To stop anti-Semitism, non-Jews from both the left and right must denounce the hatred

The Torah portion read this weekend in synagogues around the world offers a timely — and chilling — reminder of just how quickly vicious anti-Semitic hatred can rear its ugly head.

As the book of Exodus recalls: “A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelites are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase. ... So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor.”

Just like that, with the death of one pharaoh and the rise of another, Joseph’s extraordinary service to Egypt is forgotten and his descendants’ good fortune is violently undone.

Alas, this pattern would repeat itself again and again over the long course of Jewish history. Years of good will would vanish overnight with sudden upsurges in anti-Semitism that led to forced conversions, expulsions and massacres, under the Roman Empire, Christian Europe, Islamic North Africa and, ultimately, Nazi Germany.

Today we are witnessing another resurgence of the world’s oldest hatred as anti-Semitism sweeps through Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. Here in the United States — where many of us mistakenly believed this could not happen — we have seen shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway, California, and at a kosher market in New Jersey. Just a month ago, there was a brutal machete attack during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s house in Monsey, New York. Beatings of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn have become practically routine, and anti-Jewish rhetoric not-so-subtly disguised as criticism of Israel has entered the mainstream on college campuses around the nation.

The perpetrators come from across the political and ethnic spectrum: white supremacists, black nationalists and radical Islamists. This is one of the most mystifying, and sinister, aspects of anti-Semitism, which defies logic and rationality. To anti-Semites, Jews are simultaneously ruling the world and looking to overthrow it, are radical revolutionaries and reactionary oppressors — whatever stereotype best suits their hatred.

Anti-Semitism flourishes when and wherever anti-Semites feel it is acceptable to persecute Jews. As the esteemed scholar and writer Deborah Lipstadt notes: “In truth, when it comes to anti-Semitism, the right and the left often find common ground. The far right talks about the federal government as the Zionist Occupation Government; the left sees AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as a behemoth of unbelievable proportions, driving American policy in ways that are antithetical to America’s best interests.

“This absence of a dividing line between left and right when it comes to anti-Semitism was evident when the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke clicked ‘like’ on Representative Ilhan Omar’s tweet claiming that American support of Israel is ‘all about the Benjamins baby.’ Unfortunately, each side tends to criticize the anti-Semitic tendencies of the other, naively overlooking its own. This is cowardly and hurtful. We need the right to speak out when anti-Semitism comes from the likes of David Duke and Donald Trump, and the left to do so when it comes from the likes of Rep. Omar.”

I wish I knew how to end anti-Semitism, or even how to understand it. I don’t. All I know is that it is ultimately not a Jewish problem. Calls to stop the hate must come from without rather than within. We do well to learn from the two heroines of this week’s Torah portion, Shifra and Puah. They are Egyptian midwives who adamantly refuse to obey Pharaoh’s heinous order to kill every newborn Jewish boy. Theirs is perhaps the world’s first act of civil disobedience, an exemplar of resistance to anti-Semitism that should inspire all non-Jews of good will to this day.

We need you to stand up to hatred, as they did, lest it ultimately consume us all.