During our recent Melton Ask the Rabbis conversation, I listened as Rabbi David Wolpe shared a story from an ordinary morning in a coffee shop. A father approached Wolpe and said his seven-year-old son had come home troubled by something a classmate had said.
The boy had been told, quite simply: "I don’t like Jews."
Seven years old. Young enough that we still imagine children as untainted by the harsher judgments of the world, and yet old enough to repeat what they have heard.
The father went on to explain how his son handled the moment. Instead of withdrawing or responding in fear, his son told the classmate: "That means you don’t like me, or him, or her, or her, or our teacher."
In other words: Do you understand what you are actually saying? Wolpe told the father he thought his son handled the situation remarkably well, responding with clarity and courage.
When One Prejudice Is Treated Differently
Rabbi Wolpe shared this story not to shock us, but to bring up a truth many of us already know but sometimes hesitate to name: that antisemitism remains, uniquely, the kind of prejudice society often treats as acceptable.
Rabbi Wolpe put it plainly: "You cannot make the Jews the one exception to the illegitimacy of prejudice."
If that same classmate had said something targeting another marginalized group, the response would likely have been sharper and more immediate, Rabbi Wolpe noted.
Schools today rightfully mobilize resources — counseling, education, restorative conversations — to address prejudice directed at those who have been historically harmed. And of course, these dynamics are not confined to schools; similar patterns appear in workplaces, social settings, online spaces, and even in casual public interactions, where antisemitic remarks are often brushed aside as if they were somehow less serious.
The point is not to diminish responses to prejudice against other marginalized groups, nor to imply they are excessive; they reflect an important moral awareness and a commitment to protecting those who have been harmed.
Wolpe’s concern, rather, is with the contrast: when the target is Jews, that same urgency too often softens. Why is that so?
What Jewish Wisdom Offers Us Here
A Single Standard
We might turn here to a familiar teaching from the Torah: "Do not hate your brother in your heart" (Leviticus 19:17), a verse embedded in the same chapter that calls upon us to love our neighbor and the stranger. The Torah does not create categories of who deserves our moral concern. It binds us to a single standard.
To treat one form of prejudice as somehow less urgent is to fracture the moral fabric we claim to uphold. As Rabbi Wolpe noted, society too often behaves as though hatred toward Jews exists outside the usual boundaries of communal outrage.
It is as if Jews occupy a peculiar category — historically vulnerable, yet seen as too "privileged" in the present to merit the same protections. But privilege has never shielded a people from hatred; not in Europe, not in the Middle East, not in America. Rabbi Wolpe reminded us: "Privilege doesn’t protect people from hatred. We’ve learned that throughout our history."
The purpose of raising this inconsistency is not to fuel anger but to help us see the situation with honesty and seriousness.
When we accept the exception, when we shrug off the remark, diminish its harm, or assume that "it isn’t as bad as it sounds," we send an unintended message to our children and our community: that the standards we expect for everyone else do not apply equally to us. We risk accepting that we must quietly absorb what others would never be expected to endure.
Responding to Prejudice
Our tradition offers guidance not only about naming prejudice, but about how we respond to it.
The Book of Proverbs teaches: “A gentle answer turns away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1), reminding us that our strength need not be expressed through retaliation or anger.
And the Psalmist speaks directly to moments of pain, urging us to “seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:15), not as passive acceptance, but as an active choice to stand together with dignity and support one another as a community.
These teachings do not tell us to ignore harm; they tell us how to meet it without losing ourselves.
A Lesson in Universal Human Dignity
The boy in Rabbi Wolpe’s story offers us a profound lesson. By universalizing the statement, he held up a mirror to his classmate’s words. He reminded his classmate, and all of us, that prejudice against one is prejudice against many. This is a profoundly Jewish act, grounded in the belief that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God. To diminish the dignity of one person is to diminish the dignity that flows from the Divine into all creation.
Our task, then, is not only to challenge hatred when it surfaces, but to insist gently and firmly on moral consistency. Not because we seek special concern. But because this is what a healthy moral society requires.
Melton’s mission has always been to bring Jewish wisdom into the conversations that shape our lives. This moment calls for precisely that. The story Rabbi Wolpe shared isn’t just about a classroom incident. It's an invitation for us to ask:
What kind of world are we helping to shape?
How do we choose to respond when prejudice appears in front of us?
What do our responses teach the generations coming after us?
We can choose a path one grounded in compassion and courage. We can refuse to allow any form of prejudice to be dismissed, including those too often directed our way. And in doing so, we can strengthen not only our own community but the broader human family in which we live.
What might our society look like if every prejudice were treated with the same urgency, the same moral seriousness, that we hope for when we hear words spoken about us? This is a question worthy of our study, our reflection, and our action.
Rabbi Dr. Morey Schwartz is the International Director of the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning.