As the Black Lives Matter movement has grown, so, too, have workplace and campus workshops in equity, belonging, inclusion and diversity. More than half of college students surveyed by the ADL say they have taken such training where they learn, among other things, about white privilege, the fact that simply having white skin imbues a person with advantages that people of color do not have. 

But what the training doesn’t explore is the status of Jews and white privilege because that same privilege has helped perpetuate antisemitism, said Goldstein, the Emory University professor and the author of “The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity.”

“American Jews have benefited from white privilege. But at the same time, that’s not the whole story. It’s more complicated. Antisemitism relies on Jews having a degree of white privilege. It opens them up to projecting societal problems onto them,” Goldstein said.

In other words, Jews are dangerous because they can infiltrate the white race without people noticing; Jews surreptitiously lurk in plain sight. White nationalists cannot fall back on the idea that whites are inherently superior when they are beginning to see greater equality between racial groups, Goldstein said. To them, that doesn’t make sense. So, they rationalize it by blaming the Jews.

“It only could have happened if Jews were helping African Americans. Jews are moving within the corridors of white society and disrupting white society and are disloyal to it,” Goldstein said.

Structural antisemitism is gone. There are no restrictions on how many Jews can attend universities; Jews are partners in white-shoe law firms; they can join whatever country club they want. But, Goldstein said, the number of Jews who are U.S. representatives and senators is out of proportion to the number of Jews in larger society. Jews are also disproportionately represented in some professions, including education and entertainment. What’s more, Jews attain higher levels of education than the general population, according to Pew Research.

This level of success is precisely the reason antisemitism is perpetuated, said Horn.

“The way antisemitism works is so different from the narrative in America about how racism works,” Horn said. “It’s not the same because racism is social prejudice because you believe a group of people is inferior. But antisemitism is a conspiracy theory and it believes Jews are superior to you. Jews are evil geniuses manipulating things behind the scene. It’s that Jews are going to take my job. It’s Jews are bringing in immigrants and promoting Hispanics and getting those people to take my job. It’s a puppet master thing.”

Until Oct. 7, there was an assumption that when we talk about people who hold antisemitic beliefs, we are talking about the right wing, white nationalists. But since Oct. 7, it’s become clear that there is plenty of antisemitism to be found on the left and from progressives who seek justice for the oppressed.

The latest variant

It took less than a day, in some circles, for people to blame Israel for the attack. By the time the Israeli Defense Forces invaded the Gaza Strip and the world saw the brutality of Israel’s retribution, support and sympathy for Israel waned, even in circles where many American Jews thought they belonged.

For progressives, the framing of the Israel-Palestinian conflict has been one of settler/colonizer, said Rabbi Daniel Bogard of Central Reform Congregation. On the one hand, that lens reflects the reality of the power that Jews have in Israel. But to use this “one lens to understand the entirety of Israel is distorted and distorting,” Bogard said.

There is also a whiff of hypocrisy in the settler/colonizer construct, said Michael Berenbaum, distinguished professor of Jewish studies at the American Jewish University.

Berenbaum refers to Natan Sharanksy’s “3D Test” to help people understand when criticism of Israel leaks into antisemitism. Delegitimizing the state of Israel’s right to exist; demonizing Israel’s actions as uniquely criminal or evil; and the double-standard of holding Israel responsible for actions but not applying that same standard to other countries.

While it is justifiable to object to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, it is also necessary to acknowledge that the situation in Israel “sounds like the United States and Canada and Australia and 27 other countries.” It doesn’t make it right. But it is also a double standard to pretend like Israel is unique, he said.

The same framework explains why many people say calls for a cease-fire are antisemitic.

“If you call for a cease-fire now, where the outcome of the war is still in dispute, then you leave Hamas in place,” Berenbaum said. “Then you are saying that they have the right to attack Israel, but Israel doesn’t have the right to respond.”

Berenbaum added, “Anybody who sees the casualties of this war would like peace to be prevalent. But one of the problems is that Israel is in a lousy neighborhood to be unable to respond.”

The Black Lives Matter movement prompted a long-overdue questioning of why we, as a society, commemorate some people but not others.

As Confederate monuments and statues came down, scrutiny over who we venerate turned to people whose legacies aren’t as clearly problematic as Confederate soldiers.

There is Thomas Jefferson, the man who authored a doctrine asserting that “all men are created equal” also enslaved hundreds of human beings. Christopher Columbus, the explorer whose “discovery” of America brought Europeans to this continent who went on to conduct a brutal genocide against Native Americans. King Louis IX, the city of St. Louis’ namesake, spent fortunes to create art and churches, but he also fought in the Crusades in northern Africa, convinced that violence would wipe out Islam.

But for all the interrogation of historical figures for their racism, there is silence when it comes to historical figures who were antisemitic. The silence may come from Jews’ own discomfort with bringing attention to the issue. Or it might be a recognition that taking down a statue, or changing a street name, doesn’t solve the underlying problem, said Helen Turner, director of education at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum.

“If you cancel or simply erase someone, we are actually denying that history and letting ourselves off the hook,” Turner said. “A better approach would be to fold it into our history.”

However, this is easier said than done, Turner said, because of the emotional and intellectual work this requires.

“We wrap a national narrative around people we hold up as heroes. If we reevaluate them, we have to reevaluate ourselves. It’s the idea behind it and our value system that we have to examine. It’s a challenge to our national identity,” she said.

Perhaps the void of discussion about Lindbergh might speak to the uneasy place Jews still have in the United States, said David Greene, the curator of the exhibition at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. It’s not comfortable to point out that individuals who are American heroes to so many people also both hated Jews and questioned whether Jews were real Americans.

“Multiple things can be true that make us uncomfortable,” said Greene. “It can be true that the U.S. is a land of opportunity to Jews and also a nation that closed its doors to Jews when they needed help. So, it can be true that Lindbergh is an aviation hero and the advances he helped create are a point of great pride. And also it’s true that he is someone who had a restrictive view of who should be an American and particularly hated the Jews.”

What’s the solution? Greene said the upcoming 2027 centennial of Lindbergh’s famous flight is “a chance to think about the past in a way that maybe could help us better understand the present.”

It’s unclear if that is going to happen. When asked what the Missouri Historical Society is planning for the 100th anniversary of Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, Sharon Smith, curator of civic and personal identity, said the organization is tossing around ideas, but the plan is to keep things low-key.

“We might have a book featuring items from the Lindbergh Collection published for 2027,” Smith wrote in an email. “We will also be doing some small installation within our larger permanent gallery called ‘Collected’ that will feature items from the Lindbergh Collection.”

Even the Lindbergh Foundation doesn’t seem to have much planned to celebrate Lindbergh the man. Rather, its website is lauding its push to decarbonize aviation as part of 100th anniversary commemoration.

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum doesn’t have any plans to use the centennial as a launching pad for public discussion. But Turner said that given the increased reports of antisemitism and the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, there is an opportunity to change one aspect of the narrative.

“We keep talking about antisemitism being on the rise, or spreading, which makes it sound inevitable,” Turner said. “But antisemitism is not inevitable. We are seeing a man who made an uptick in antisemitic language and violence. These are choices made by human beings. Our language around antisemitism is not doing us a great service. Rather, if we re-couch it in terms of human choices that are changeable, therein lies our power.”

Along with the River City Journalism Fund, Mont Levy and the St. Louis Jewish Light’s Bob Cohn Fund contributed to make this project possible. This story is being published simultaneously by the Riverfront Times in the hopes of informing a bigger and broader audience.

Evan Stewart provided research assistance.