As the battle over antisemitism in the US rages, one group has been conspicuously absent from standing up for American Jews: leaders within the organized Jewish community. That’s according to Jonathan Tobin, editor-in-chief of the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS).
“The American Jewish people have been failed by their leaders,” Tobin told The Media Line’s Felice Friedson. “Many of them have just fallen down on the job because they’re much more interested in partisan politics, remaining in sync with their liberal allies on other issues,” he said of Jewish communal leaders.
He added that these leaders are often aligned with political allies who, in his view, have abandoned the Jewish people by viewing Jews as “white oppressors” in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The organized Jewish community hasn’t even begun to fight this battle
“The organized Jewish community hasn’t even begun to fight this battle,” Tobin said, referring to the broader cultural and political struggle over antisemitism.
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Coming off the syndicate’s first policy conference, Tobin said the takeaway he hoped attendees would grasp was that the surge in antisemitism was part of a war by “so-called progressives and their Islamist allies” against Israel, the Jewish people, and the West, with Jews as the immediate targets but “the real target is America itself.”
Tobin has served as editor-in-chief of JNS since 2017. The news syndicate is officially nonpartisan, though it generally takes a more conservative slant.
Tobin said much of the success of JNS stems from frustration with the media landscape. “The woke catechism of DEI is at the core of antisemitism in this country, along with critical race theory, intersectionality, settler colonialism,” he said.
The woke catechism of DEI is at the core of antisemitism in this country
He defended President Donald Trump’s efforts to defund universities that he claims tolerate or encourage antisemitism. “These mighty institutions like Columbia, like Harvard, like Princeton, are violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. You’re violating the law,” Tobin said. “The law says you shouldn’t get a single cent of federal money if you’re discriminating.”
Tobin also addressed the Trump administration’s approach to Iran, saying there is a faction within the administration that “wants to go soft on Iran.” He warned that this approach would not serve the interests of either the US or Israel.
He expressed concern about President Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, describing him as “compromised by his own dealings with Qatar, which is Iran’s ally and the funder of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” and criticizing him for saying “a lot of really dumb things about Iran.” Tobin suggested Witkoff was “one of the stupid people that President Trump was talking about,” referencing the president’s own claim that “the Iranians are used to dealing with stupid people from America.” While acknowledging President Trump’s decision to pursue negotiations first as reasonable, Tobin cautioned that conflicting views within the administration—particularly those he sees as too lenient—could lead to a deal that repeats what he called the Obama and Biden administrations’ “appeasement” of Iran.
Tobin described the American Jewish community as deeply divided. “We are undergoing a plague of assimilation in the United States. … Many American Jews … don’t have a sense of solidarity with other Jews, with the State of Israel,” he said. He compared these weak communal ties to Elizabeth Warren’s disputed claims of Cherokee heritage.
believe America will survive this and go on to greater and bigger things, just as Israel will survive this war as well
Tobin believes the polarization within the American public has exacerbated this divide. “We live in a social media world where everybody lives in a silo,” he said. He acknowledged this cultural fragmentation but expressed confidence in America’s resilience. “I don’t believe America’s going to let itself be licked by DEI woke culture and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders,” he said. “I believe America will survive this and go on to greater and bigger things, just as Israel will survive this war as well.”