I Don't Hate Jews; I'm Just an Antisemite
Not everyone who says “Free Palestine” is antisemitic. Many people use the phrase to express support for Palestinian self-determination or criticism of Israeli policy. That is legitimate political speech.
But it is also true that antisemites can and do use the phrase as a socially acceptable vehicle for hostility toward Jews.
And when someone harasses Jews and “Free Palestine” is the justification, the meaning becomes clear.
A couple of weeks ago I experienced that firsthand.
At Costco, at the Hurom America sample table, I overheard a woman complaining to the representative:
“They want everything to be kosher. Get over it. Free Palestine.”
I walked over and asked her a simple question:
“What’s the connection between kosher and Palestine?”
She looked me up and down and snapped: “Oh no you don’t. No you don’t.” Then she began shouting at the top of her voice:
“Free Palestine! Free Palestine!”
Her partner intervened. A manager came over. Both asked me to move along.
I didn’t.
I knew I had to stand my ground.
Because for most of the Jews in my community — the ones shopping in that Costco at that moment — being Jewish is far more about keeping kosher than it is about Israeli politics.
Kosher food. Jewish holidays. Shul/synagogue. Family.
The woman shouting at me wasn’t making a geopolitical argument. She was expressing contempt for the Jews around her, and “Free Palestine” was simply the vehicle she chose because she knew it carried little social cost.
That is the dynamic many Jews are trying to describe right now.
Language matters. And throughout history, hostility toward Jews has often adapted to the language of its time.
In the late nineteenth century, the German writer Wilhelm Marr helped popularize the term antisemitism. Hatred of Jews was nothing new, but Marr gave it a modern, political label that made it sound like a respectable ideological position rather than simple bigotry.
The words changed.
The hostility did not.
Today, some people cloak their hostility toward Jews in the language of activism. A political slogan can become a shield — a way to express contempt for Jews while claiming moral legitimacy.
This doesn’t mean everyone who says “Free Palestine” is antisemitic. Far from it.
But when the slogan is directed at Jews who are simply living Jewish lives — buying kosher food, attending synagogue, sending their kids to Jewish schools — it stops being about Palestinian freedom and becomes something else entirely.
It becomes harassment.
And that raises a deeper question: Why don’t Jews get to say what antisemitism is?
In almost every other context of prejudice, society recognizes that members of a targeted group have insight into how hatred manifests.
Women speak about sexism.
Black Americans speak about racism.
Muslims speak about Islamophobia.
But when Jews say something is antisemitic, we are often told that we are mistaken — that we are overreacting, misinterpreting political speech, or trying to silence criticism.
The result is a strange double standard: others reserve the right to define antisemitism for Jews.
No one is asking for a veto over political debate. Criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate and necessary in a democratic world.
But shouting political slogans at Jews in a grocery store because they keep kosher is not criticism of a government. It is harassment.
And denying Jews the authority to recognize and name that harassment only compounds the problem.
Confronting hatred in public is uncomfortable. It draws attention. It makes you vulnerable. And sometimes the people around you would prefer that you simply move along and keep the peace.
But silence has a cost too.
Because when hostility toward Jews hides behind fashionable language, it becomes easier to ignore — and easier to normalize.
Standing there in Costco, I realized something simple: if Jews do not speak up when antisemitism appears in front of us, no one else will.
So I asked a question.
“What does kosher have to do with Palestine?”
She had no answer.
Only a slogan.
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