National antisemitism expert Eric Ward will bring his conversation about antisemitism to St. Louis next month, just weeks after a violent attack at a suburban Detroit synagogue on March 12 reminded Jewish communities why conversations like this matter.
In St. Louis, those reminders don’t arrive as headlines alone. They show up as security outside Jewish buildings. Police cars near community events. The quiet mental check people make before walking into a school, a service or even a public lecture. That reality will likely be felt in the room on April 6 as well.
Ward’s visit, part of Maryville University’s annual Staenberg Lecture presented with the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, comes at a moment when those precautions feel less theoretical and more personal.
Ward is a civil rights strategist, the executive vice president of Race Forward and a longtime voice on extremism and democracy. But if you go expecting a standard talk about hate, you may miss what makes his argument different.
He is less interested in antisemitism as a matter of insult or prejudice alone. He focuses on how it functions and why it spreads.
ADVERTISEMENT
What Ward wants people to understand
“Antisemitism is not just hatred of Jews,” Ward told the Jewish Light. “It is a conspiracy framework that tells people democracy itself is fake and secretly controlled.”
Ward argues antisemitism doesn’t just target Jews. He says it gives people a simple explanation for why the world feels unstable and who to blame. Once that thinking takes hold, he says, the consequences can come quickly.
“Once people believe that violence starts to feel like self-defense,” Ward said.
What to listen for
Ward tends to be most compelling when he explains what antisemitism does to a society, not just the people it targets.
“Watch for conspiracy thinking going mainstream and empathy breaking down,” he said. “When complex problems suddenly have secret villains and Jewish fear is dismissed as exaggeration, that is a society losing its guardrails.”
Ward is expected to connect antisemitism not just to Jewish safety, but to bigger questions about trust and how communities respond when false narratives start to feel normal.
“Hate crimes are late indicators,” Ward said. “The early warning is when distrust becomes normal.”
The most useful way to hear Ward may be to listen less for answers and more for patterns.
What does he say people miss about how antisemitism works? What warning signs does he think communities ignore? What does he believe people get wrong about when danger actually begins?
Why this conversation goes wider
Ward also argues antisemitism rarely stays contained.
“Jews become the immediate targets, but the real victim is reality itself,” Ward said.
His point is that when a society starts running on paranoia and blame, Jews may be among the first targets, but they are rarely the last. That’s what makes this feel less like history and more like right now.
If you go
What: Fourth Annual Staenberg Lecture featuring civil rights strategist Eric Ward
When: Monday, April 6, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Factory, Chesterfield
Details: Ticket available via Ticketmaster.com
ADVERTISEMENT
