How broken are Jewish institutions?
Joe Roberts is correct in diagnosing the failures of the Jewish American institutions and their class leaders, but the problem goes deeper.
Yesterday I caught myself nodding along as I read a tweet thread by Joe Roberts addressing what he effectively described as an expensive failed effort to fight Jew hatred. Many of the things he was saying sounded like stuff I and others have been saying for a long time but it’s a much larger story than can be captured in one tweet thread. Here is the full text, edited to paragraph format:
I’ve spent much of my career in the Jewish institutional world. I’ve seen billions spent on fighting antisemitism. And yet, young voters are 5x more likely to have an unfavorable view of Jews than their grandparents. We need to talk about why.
For decades, our communal institutions raised and spent enormous sums to “fight antisemitism.” Conferences. Reports. Interfaith dialogues. “Education.” And yet, antisemitism is worse than ever.
The numbers don’t lie. We’re losing young people. Not just on Israel—on Jews, period. And this didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of systemic failures by institutions who were supposed to defend us.
Our institutions kept reassuring us that their strategies were working. That engagement and education were the answer. That if we just showed people our humanity, they’d stop hating us. They were wrong.
While we invested in glossy campaigns and polite conversations, our enemies were radicalizing a generation online, in universities, and in activist movements. They were playing offense. We were playing defense. Worse, we funneled resources into initiatives that enabled the very ideologies fueling antisemitism. We prioritized coalition-building with groups that turned against us. We funded equity programs that erased Jewish identity.
Now, the bill has come due. Young voters are openly hostile to Jews. Our institutions failed to anticipate this, failed to stop it, and failed to adapt. Jewish institutions have to take their share of the responsibility for this failure. We don’t need more summits and reports. We need accountability—and a total rethink of how we fight this battle. That means:
Investing in unapologetic Jewish strength, not fragile “bridge-building.”
Fighting propaganda with facts and power, not just op-eds.
Recognizing that some alliances are not worth maintaining.
This moment demands a reckoning. If we don’t change course now, we’ll be having the same conversations in 20 years—except in a world where it’s even more dangerous to be Jewish. It’s time to radically alter course. More of the same won’t make this better.
Roberts diagnoses the problem correctly, but it needs to be expanded upon. Here are four core issues that have led to these failures, which I feel mean that these institutions cannot be reformed but must be abandoned.
1. Degenerate values
One of the most irritating trends I’ve seen is the fetishising of abortion rights as a “Jewish value”. I would see it on yard signs on the way to work driving through an affluent neighbourhood, and no doubt the homeowner or occupant probably sincerely believes it. After all the National Council for Jewish Women and the American Jewish Committee are among those making similar statements. There actually is nothing beneficial or virtuous about abortion as defined in Jewish law and tradition. It is permitted in certain contingencies, but is certainly not desirable, as Aish haTorah explains. As someone with strong pro-life views, it is frustrating that there is no Jewish organization in either the lay or rabbinic sphere that is countering the strident pro-abortion message by the NCJW or congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz that couples their personal politics with the broader Jewish community. Part of this is because rabbis who hold conservative values are unwilling to alienate liberals within their audience and turn them off to religious worship and practice, whereas their liberal counterparts often put those values at the center when they take the pulpit and their religious beliefs are secondary to them.
This goes not only for abortion but other social wedge issues that traditionally have divided Americans along partisan lines. Even if there is consensus support within the Jewish-American population for abortion, LGBT rights, migrants and asylum seekers, or gun control, it is not true that any one or all of these are “Jewish values”, and institutions that claim to represent the entire community are arrogating a role beyond their stated purpose. It would be equally absurd if the reverse were true and an organization were to proclaim “gun ownership is a Jewish value”, but this is exceedingly rare.
In fact the ideological capture is often so strong in Jewish organizations that at a certain point they totally derogate their original mission of supporting members of the community. Several years ago when researching such occurrences at university Hillels, I came upon the case of Jesse Arm of the University of Michigan. Arm, who served on his campus Hillel board. He explained that his chapter saw no problem with cooperating on campus events with organizations that support the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
2. Closeness to power
Leaders of Jewish institutions celebrate - and haters bemoan - the incontrovertible fact that the Jewish Americans are disproportionately represented in boardrooms and government. Just for starters there are currently 23 Jewish members of the US House of Representatives (24 if one counts Ana Paulina Luna who identifies as Messianic Jewish) and nine senators (ten if counting Michael Bennet who was raised in an interfaith household). Many presidential cabinet members have been Jewish and major corporate CEOs, celebrities, and media personalities are too.
Why is this a bad thing for the average Jewish American? One must approach this counterintuitively: Many citizens see a person like former Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) pushing for more social media censorship as he did in 2018 when he demanded that YouTube, Facebook and other platforms ban Infowars founder Alex Jones for pushing conspiracy theories. Then in 2022 Deutch abruptly retires prior to an election in order to take the lucrative postion of CEO of the American Jewish Committee where he would go on to make close to $850,000 in annual salary and benefits. Both Jewish and non-Jewish politicians of both major parties and VIP’s from a variety of sectors cooperate on resolutions, executive orders, and publicity campaigns to counteract or even restrict Jew hatred, often as Roberts wrote at considerable cost. And yet the return on investment has been non-existent. As he noted, among different age demographics anti-Jewish attitudes are progressively higher the younger one goes. The usual bogeymen of social media, video games, and negative media portrayals may play a part, but the solution is not to found in more hearings, panels, reports, resolutions, or PSA adverts. Roberts is correct in saying that the hate has to be fought with “facts and power”, however it is still unclear what form that should take.
3. Upper middle class cultures and attitudes
When going to a pro-Palestine protest one might feel the same atmosphere combining elements of a pep rally, performance art exhibition, and often sadly a soccer riot. When going to a Jewish institutional event or rally it often feels like a middle school field trip or accountant convention. Major Jewish insitutions generally are donor driven and not representative of a membership base. The Anti-Defamation League’s next major event is called “Never is Now” at Manhattan’s Javits Center. General Admission tickets cost $550 (with various discounted rates for college students, seniors and educators). It’s understandable that the ADL, who I have never been a fan of, should charge at the door in order to at the very least deter disruptors from coming. But $550? Average prices per ticket for Opening Day at Yankee Stadium are $179, and it is not as if this convention is going to yield any big breakthroughs for whatever it is the ADL does. Then there is AIPAC who do offer annual membership for $1800.
There are some other organizations out there that don’t charge extravagant rates for event tickets and membership. Yet they all still have the same embedded static culture that is reactive and outdated, functioning in a top-down hierarchical manner and having no presence in the the daily lives of community members. I don’t know if they know or care how to do it differently. Recently in my local community an assortment of hard left activists decided to do an event to drum up support for their organizations. They rented the high school gymnasium for $550, put together tables for each group to use as booths and did not charge admission. It garnered over 1,000 attendees which may sound modest but is certainly good for a cold Saturday afternoon in February. Most importantly they were forging connections to like minded people in their local community or close to it. This can come in handy when recruiting volunteers, event hosts, and other participants, not just donors.
4. Passive Culture
Pro-Palestine activists are currently promoting a new single by Seattle-based rapper Macklemore, while Kanye West is dispensing with any pretexts and calling himself “Yadolf Yitler” while selling swastika t-shirts on Shopify (until banned). Big influencers like Dan Bilzerian and Candace Owens regularly put out viral clips that resurrect age-old falsehood. Jewish celebrities responded by making a bizarre video of themselves wearing t-shirts giving Kanye the middle finger. Oh wait, no. Actually they didn’t. It was just an AI generated video that Scarlett Johanssen was quick to condemn while tepidly objecting to the original topic. When it comes to condemning the Trump Administration over its Gaza proposal many Jewish celebrities and “notables”, including examples like Joaquin and Summer Phoenix who had been raised in a Christian evangelical cult and apart from shared ancestry have no connection to Judaism as a faith, suddenly found their courage.
The only celebrity who seems to have a spine within the community is Disturbed vocalist David Draiman who properly attacked Kanye West and also made the observation that nothing he said or did will lead to him being ostracised from any industry circle.
Draiman sets an example for how to engage in this fight with 21st tactics. There are a few others who take the same approach, and they do not have institutional power or following for it to be meaningful, but at least there is someone to point to as an example.