Excerpt of opinion article written by Rabbi Dr. Morey Schwartz, Melton's International Director, that originally appeared in The Times of Israel.
Last night, between the multi-million dollar beer commercials and the high-stakes plays of the Super Bowl, Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance delivered its latest $15 million message to America. The ad, titled “Sticky Note,” depicted a Jewish student being harassed with a slur, only to be “saved” when a classmate covers the hate with a small blue square. It was heart-tugging, well-intentioned, and – if you listened to Bret Stephens at the 92nd Street Y just last Sunday – it completely misses the mark.
Speaking at the 46th annual “State of World Jewry” address – a podium historically graced by Elie Wiesel and Abba Eban – Stephens didn’t just offer a critique; he threw a gauntlet. Stephens argued that our current strategy of “fighting” antisemitism is a “well-meaning, but mostly wasted, effort.”
The Blue Square ad is the latest iteration of a comfortable, long-standing Jewish belief: if we just share the “truth” widely enough—if we show the “unengaged” 100 million Americans our pain—antisemitism will dissipate.
But Stephens’ diagnosis was unsentimental. He argued that antisemitism is not a “defect of education” but a “psychological reflex… a neurosis” that is impervious to facts. We think that if people only had a finer understanding of history or the Israeli-Arab conflict, they would stop hating us. “That thesis is wrong,” Stephens said. “Constantly seeking to prove ourselves worthy in order to win the world’s love is a fool’s errand.”
Why is it so hard to let go of this belief? In my opinion, it’s because the alternative is a much harder pill to swallow. If we stop trying to “fix” the world, the work falls entirely on us. It requires us to stop being a “perpetual apology machine” and start the grueling work of reinventing ourselves.
Read the full article here.
Rabbi Dr. Morey Schwartz, EdD, is the International Director of the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning.