Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism
As Harvard begins a new school year, community members from various walks of life gather again to learn through difference, conversation, and a dedication to respect, safety, and just peace.
Religion and Public Life’s Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (RCPI) continues its work of power analysis and conflict transformation, stretching scholarly discourse around religion and the practices of just peacebuilding—including ongoing work combatting antisemitism—through its programming, such as its annual book series.
On September 9, the initiative kicked off this year’s book series with Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. Coauthor Ben Lorber is a senior research analyst at the progressive think-tank Political Research Associates and studies and publishes on antisemitism and white nationalism. Coauthor Shane Burley is a filmmaker and writer who has worked on far right and left-wing social movements with notable publications on fascism and antisemitism. The event was moderated by HDS Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies Shaul Magid.
The book highlights the notion that true peace comes from solidarity and understanding, with the goal of forming coalitions that celebrate differences, engage intersectionality, and bring together unique perspectives. Part of this work is changing the narrative on what antisemitism is and how it applies to American life.
“Growing up in Jewish communities, so many of us were taught what Hannah Arendt calls ‘the eternalist thesis,’ that antisemitism is eternal,” Lorber shared. “This is the kind of framing that I was taught in Hebrew School.” Lorber and Burley explained that “this framing creates a monster so overpowering it seems impossible to defeat, leading to support for militarized ethno-nationalism in Israel. It leads to the conclusion that if you can’t fight antisemitism, you might as well build higher walls, fortify borders, and hunker down behind armies.”
Burley described the book as tracing a different story of antisemitism by giving antisemitism contours. Lorber added, “Antisemitism is not an eternal monster hovering above society; it is a form of oppression with a history and material and political context. This is a story our world desperately needs: of a politic of fighting antisemitism through solidarity with neighbors and marginalized groups.”
This approach requires us to move away from strategies of 'vertical alliance,' which Lorber defined as the mentality that allying with powerful institutions, individuals, or states keeps Jewish people safe. “One example would be allying with administrative power to oppress student movements on campus,” he said, “However, to squelch academic freedom—all in the name of Jewish safety—is the opposite of the strategy we need.”
Burley shared an example of the strategy of solidarity, saying, “We talked to several rabbis and community organizers in Charlottesville organizing an event in advance of ‘Unite the Right’ with its Klan rally, other alt-right rallies, and threats on historically Black churches. One synagogue in town partnered with historically Black churches and created a clergy collective where they shared resources and created a plan for safety. They acknowledged that they had the same threat: “there are alt-right people and neo-Nazis coming to town and they are going to threaten all of us.” They knew that they had to build an alliance.”
Burley continued, “Through this sort of coalition-building, we’re reviving a tradition of bringing questions of antisemitism and Jewish safety back from professionalized organizations like the Anti-Defamation League to egalitarian conditions.”
Burley and Lorber explained that a key barrier to building solidarity and fighting antisemitism is the variance in the meaning of the terms ‘Zionism’ and ‘anti-Zionism.’ “For example, for my parents and grandparents,” Lorber shared, “Zionism means a kind of a Jewish pride. It means a desire for Jews to be safe, especially for my grandparents’ generation after the Holocaust.”
Burley continued, “However, if we are defining ourselves as anti-Zionist, we are doing so because we’re defining Zionism as an ethnic supremacist Jewish state, one that maintains its hegemony by maintaining a Jewish majority. As anti-Zionists, we’re talking about people that want one land for all people—a land of Jews, of Palestinians, for anyone that lives there. It’s not an area that’s cleared out of Jews, which is often the assumption when anti-Zionism is assumed to be antisemitism.”
He continued, “Part of what ends up happening in these problematic discourses is that Zionism is assumed to be the natural Jewish position, particularly by Jewish communal organizations. Zionism and Judaism are conflated. Therefore, opposition to Zionism or having a different political perspective is considered inherently threatening and is conflated with antisemitism.”
“When you define antisemitism and anti-Zionism as any criticism of Israel, it makes the work of building solidarity and actually fighting antisemitism difficult,” Lorber added. “It isolates our Jewish communities, and it makes it harder to build the relationships we need between Jewish communities and justice movements.”
“‘Real’ antisemitism,” Burley clarified, “comes from ideology that demonizes Judaism and Jews.” He said addressing antisemitism requires us to bring analysis back to our identification of antisemitism, saying, “We need to build movements with each other, so we must invest in asking questions and challenging each other and ourselves.”
Lorber believes that fighting antisemitism communally means pursuing equality for all in solidarity with one another, stating, “I find all violence against civilians horrific, against Israel civilians and against Palestinian civilians, and I do think that the refusal to name that and talk about it is a political mistake.”
The audience-curated Q&A highlighted community training, radical transformation, and accountability. The audience, comprised of over 150 people, conversed honestly about the need for consistent effort and collaboration.
One of the most moving parts of the event was its dedication to peacemaking, in topic, approach, and audience response. The gathering reflected Harvard Divinity School’s Religion and Public Life program, which encourages having tough conversations while creating real solutions. With a framework that highlights the inability to separate religion from public life, RPL’s goal is to morally imagine and to create a better, just world at peace.
It was powerful to see that the work of authors like Burley and Lorber used to facilitate real transformation through a hard and potentially life-changing conversation. It is a testament to a mantra often heard from RPL Associate Dean, Diane L. Moore: “Always be whole-hearted and half-sure.”