This piece originally appeared in the Fall 2024 edition of the quarterly magazine published by The Canadian Jewish News.
Jews have always had our share of enemies, but some moments seem more antagonistic than others. Our popularity’s taken a hit since October 7. There was a blip of a moment when well-meaning gentiles were parsing whether it counts as cultural appropriation to put up a mezuzah in solidarity with one’s Jewish neighbours, as an I am Spartacus-type solidarity gesture. But, soon enough, the world at large switched its focus to the IDF’s response. Do Israel’s actions constitute a genocide, and are Canadian and other diaspora Jews complicit? Is it possible, asked antisemites, who already had their answer, that Jews are the worst people ever to exist, and now the world is finally waking up?
Going by certain corners of social media, not to mention lamppost flyers, it can be easy for Jews—even those of us with our own criticisms of how Israel is handling this war—to catastrophize about the people who hate us. But, on a population level, North American Jews are not actually unpopular, recent criticisms notwithstanding. High-profile antisemitic incidents have a way of masking the fact that Canadians and Americans tend to have favourable views of us. A March 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 35 per cent of Americans express very or somewhat favorable attitudes toward Jews, while 6 per cent express “unfavorable attitudes,” making Jews the most positively viewed of all religious (or non-religious) groups surveyed—more so than Catholics or Protestants and much more so than atheists, Muslims or Mormons. In a survey conducted after October 7 and published in a special edition of Canadian Jewish Studies this spring, University of Toronto sociology professor Robert Brym found that 83 per cent of Canadians “hold positive feelings about Jews” and that “antisemitism comes primarily from four specific groups in Canadian society—Muslims, white supremacists and leftists, non-Jewish university students, and Quebecois.”
Some non-Jews, however, have more than a vaguely positive feeling about us. A handful of them think we are the greatest and want the world to know that they are on Team Jews. This can be anxiety-producing in its own right.
Philosemitism has a rich and much-explored history, the relevant bits of which I will get into shortly, but my focus here is what I have come to believe is a new incarnation of this centuries-old phenomenon. Where philosemitism of recent decades been understood as an affinity for Jews, this new philosemitism is distinguished by steadfast commitment to the two-pronged policy platform of defending Israel and fighting antisemitism. It’s the sort that expresses itself online and in political speech about how wronged Jews (and sometimes Israel) are, in such passionate language that you think (that is, I think) there has to be some personal attachment—but no, this is just their side. The sort where someone has a Star of David or Israeli flag emoji in their bio and you think (if you are me), “Oh, I didn’t know so-and-so-was Jewish,” and it turns out they’re not.
A few words about what philosemitism is not. Philosemitism might inspire conversion, but once you are Jewish, you’ve ceased being someone with an outsider’s affinity for Jews. The lobbyist Richard Marceau may be a pro-Israel advocate with a French-Canadian name and heritage, but he converted to Judaism, thereby making his own story a part of the Jewish one.
I also have trouble referring to a solidarity born of real-life closeness with Jews as philosemitism. Plenty of non-Jews’ concern for Jews’ welfare comes from having a Jewish partner or Jewish kids. Jews aren’t abstract entities to them, but real people. This is different from finding Jews interesting as a concept. It is a bias born of proximity, and not so far off from being pro-Jewish on account of being Jewish yourself.
It’s not that there are hard-and-fast rules for these things. Someone can be Jewish and still think of Jews as abstractions, though if you’re a Jew yourself, you probably know others, which mitigates generalizations. But philosemitism, to me, suggests a gulf between philosemite and Jew. You have to be someone who could up and decide you didn’t like Jews after all, or just that you preferred some other hobby, and nothing substantive would change in your life. The fate of the Jewish people is, at the end of the day, not the philosemite’s problem.
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In 2011 in The New Republic, critic Adam Kirsch reviewed Philosemitism in History, a book whose topics ranged “from the Christian Hebraists of the seventeenth century to documentaries on West German television.” The review is a synthesis both of philosemitism in history—including prior to the coining of the term in the late 19th century, alongside that of antisemitism—and of the significance of the phenomenon. “It takes pathetically little good will toward Jews to qualify for a place in the book,” Kirsch writes. Some philosemites of yore were simply the people who didn’t want all Jews murdered when others were advocating for this.
Initially, prior to the 1789 French Revolution, philosemitism had little to do with its proponents’ real-life Jewish contemporaries and far more to do with biblical Hebrews. These philosemites were early modern Christian theologians and Enlightenment philosophers, who weren’t encountering Jews socially or swinging by the deli for a smoked meat sandwich. Jews were interesting because of their role in Christianity’s backstory.
The theological place of Jews and Judaism in Christianity still plays a role in philosemitism, but its significance has waned over time; it is now mainly relevant to Christian Zionism. As the 19th century proceeded, the odds were ever-greater that a non-Jewish thinker would have met actual Jews, not just read about them. Their philosemitism, therefore, would be rooted in that more direct experience (though the high levels of integration and familiarity we know today would have been unlikely in most settings until further into the 20th century).
Philosemitism’s manifestations in modern European history included everything from fetishization of “Oriental” Jewish women (the belle Juive was a popular trope in 19th century France) to an association of Jews with French republicanism itself. After all, before the French Revolution, there was no concept in Europe of Jews as full citizens. If you believed in the Enlightenment values of human rights or in the idea of an unhyphenated French identity available to all, then you had to be on the side of the Jews, even if actual Jews proved a bit pious and particularist for your tastes. If you didn’t want French-ness to hinge on Catholicism, one of the easiest ways to demonstrate your anticlericalism or commitment to laïcité (French secularism) was to insist that even a Jew could be French.
The Dreyfusards—those who defended French-Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus from a false accusation of treason in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—were not necessarily immune to holding negative stereotypes about Jews. But categorically defending Jews from antisemitism became, in that moment, further entrenched as a proxy for defending the secular French state. Siding with Jews was a way of rejecting those who believed only Catholics with the right ancestry could be trusted as loyal compatriots.
The North American philosemitism of the mid to late 20th and early 21st centuries was both less political and more stereotype-driven than the versions that preceded it. It was also much more about interpersonal relationships with Jews, a natural reflection of the increasing interactions between non-Jews and Jews. It came out of what Franklin Foer’s much-discussed March 2024 Atlantic article deemed the “golden age of American Jews.” (In May, The Globe and Mail ran a Canadian quasi-equivalent, from Noah Richler: “Is the Jewish moment in North America over?”) Jews were at the centre of things culturally, seen as model minorities, and non-Jews admired us. Let’s call this Golden Age philosemitism.
Golden Age philosemitism was organic. Jews were seen—that is, stereotyped—as a group of particularly colourful white people: more cosmopolitan, intellectual, successful, and intense than their WASPy or preppy Catholic neighbours. Jews clustered in cosmopolitan cities like New York and Montreal. We took piano lessons, we read books or even wrote them, we ate Chinese food despite not (generally) being Chinese ourselves. To many gentiles, this made us off-putting; to others, it constituted our charm.
This philosemitism also had a sexual component. Unlike the 19th century French variety, though, the Golden Age exotic Jewish Other tended to be male. In her 2001 essay, “American Shiksa,” American writer Meghan Daum does a good job conveying this fixation. In it, she describes a love of Jewish men, those “dark-haired boys who read books and stayed up late, who had circles under their eyes, who looked like wise men, like owls perched up on the highest rungs of the evolutionary ladder.”
More than that, Daum writes about enjoying taking on the role of shiksa in relationships with these men. After flirting with the idea of conversion, she realizes an “agnostic” like herself isn’t about to do so. “So I decided that if I couldn’t be Jewish I might as well be un-Jewish in as obstreperous and maddening a way as possible…. And that meant surrounding myself with Jews and being a gentile. Blonde. Flaky. Adoring.” It’s a very funny essay, if you’re not easily offended.
As Daum presents it, her fixation on life amongst Jews is about fleeing all that is “white trash.” Writes Daum, of her fellow gentile white Americans, “With or without country homes in Kennebunkport or Squibnocket, we’re all descendants of shotgun culture, of Coke at breakfast, Triscuits for lunch, 4-H champions, horse thieves, and drunks passed out in front of 60 Minutes.” By contrast, Jewish families were restricting processed foods and screen time before it was cool, or at any rate tended not to settle in places where agriculture-themed scouting groups are a big deal. (I watched plenty of TV and ate no shortage of junk growing up in Manhattan in the 1980s and 1990s, but I did so in a home without guns or hard liquor, and with no livestock nearby.)
In her 2014 book Unchosen: The Memoirs of a Philo-Semite, British writer Julie Burchill also frames her philosemtism in terms of an adoration of Jewish men—and a hyperconsciousness of her own unsophisticated-in-her-view gentileness. The Jews had become a symbol to me of escape—of outsiderness not just embraced, but made magnificent.” Burchill also considered and ultimately rejected converting to Judaism, but recalls dyeing her hair black and inventing Jewish ancestry in order to get her own first job in journalism.
There is a fine line between admiration and ambition-driven emulation. Whoopi Goldberg, originally Caryn Elaine Johnson, grew up Christian but has mentioned a feeling of Jewishness in interviews. “Goldberg” is a stage surname, one that may have originated from her sense (or her mother’s sense?) that Jews succeeded in show business. In 2022, she made headlines for an antisemitism controversy: statements she made on The View, and subsequently apologized for, that were perceived of as dismissive of the Holocaust. The head of the Anti-Defamation League responded to the kerfuffle by suggesting The View hire a Jewish host, a reminder that “Goldberg”-ness is not enough.
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The new philosemitism is less about liking Jews and more about defending us from all enemies, real and perceived. It’s not about gravitating towards Jews, but rather about speaking up for us (or over us) as allies. It’s centrally about Israel—not the nitty-gritty of Israeli politics, but rather defending the right to be pro-Israel in the diaspora.
In more concrete terms: the new philosemitism is MP Kevin Vuong posting photos of himself dining at Toronto restaurants targeted by pro-Palestinian protestors, not because this set of cuisines appeals to him, but to defend Canada’s Jewish community. It is U.S. senator John Fetterman pasting Israeli hostage flyers all over his office. It’s the Canadian author, lawyer, and political operative Warren Kinsella posting on X, “I’m not Jewish. My partner isn’t Jewish. I don’t have a Jewish client. I haven’t been asked to go on a trip to Israel. I’m not getting an award for what I write or say about Israel or antisemitism. I write what I write, and say what I say, because it’s what I believe. Period.” It is Australian Quillette founder Claire Lehmann coming through with something along much the same lines: “I’m not Jewish,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “but they can put me on the Zionists in Publishing list anytime they want.” (This was in reference to anti-Zionist lists that were circulating at the time, and aimed at would-be Israel boycotters.)
Philosemitism is not something that happens sealed-off from actual Jews, but rather something Jewish communities have welcomed, particularly since October 7. Michael Moynihan, once Tablet magazine’s “Righteous Gentile” columnist (the name a reference to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust) remains on the philosemitic beat, having recently defended Israel’s war in Gaza for Bari Weiss’s The Free Press. Tristin Hopper, of the National Post, came to Vancouver’s Congregation Schara Tzedeck to speak on January 14. On February 28, the conservative British journalist Douglas Murray spoke at Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto (BAYT) synagogue, a packed event covered on The CJN’s website.
I will now voice a question I have heard asked privately: Are our non-Jewish supporters—how to put this delicately—being paid? Yes, and no.
Someone with philosemitic tendencies may wind up working for a Jewish organization, or a heterodox one with pro-Israel leanings, but I have trouble seeing this as nefarious evidence that Jews (or, for the less conspiracy-minded, Christian Zionists) are bankrolling support. It seems of a piece with people of all inclinations working for a place in line with their interests and values. Politicians are doubtless making calculations when deciding which communities to align themselves with—witness the Conservatives presenting Justin Trudeau and the Liberals as bad-for-the-Jews and gaining themselves a win in a midtown Toronto byelection. This is no more suspect when it’s the Jewish community than when it’s any other group.
The new philosemites don’t hold identical views on all issues, but their politics converge in ways that give political coherence to their pro-Jewish advocacy. Barring other mitigating modifiers, a Star of David or Israeli flag emoji in a non-Jew’s social media bio most often functions as a proxy for liberal or centrist anti-wokeness. The same is the case for pro-Jewish gestures that go further still. It’s not conservatism, exactly, unless that’s the term you’re using to refer to nostalgia for the calm liberalism of the not-so-distant past. That said, some philosemitism is more right-wing than centrist, and springs from criticisms of Islam and of leftist politics, and a sense (not always accurate) of Jews as natural allies in this. There have been times in history—and still are corners of social media—where defending the West implied antisemitism. Now it appears to go the other way. It all depends how you’re defining Western civilization, and there have always been competing definitions. There are still the white supremacists who use the term The West as a euphemism for a realm that ought to exclude Jews.
Is it, then, that the marginalized are for Palestine, and the privileged for Israel? This is certainly the impression you get if you observe the way Palestine has become the centrepiece of a consolidating progressive movement (or, in more skeptical terms, an “omnicause”).
But philosemitism doesn’t shake out along clear-cut identity-based lines. Ritchie Torres, an Afro-Latino U.S. congressman representing the impoverished South Bronx, is on Israel’s side. Many Iranians living outside Iran are Israel supporters out of a shared opposition to Islamic fundamentalism. In Canada and elsewhere, some Indigenous leaders support Israel and see Jewish Israelis as having a similar connection to that land as they do to theirs. Last I checked, Kevin Vuong is not a posh WASP.
Much is made of Queers for Palestine, and the seemingly counterintuitive attempts to link support for Palestinians with LGBTQ+ liberation. (Sample headline: “Yes, Palestinian solidarity is a queer issue,” in Xtra Magazine.) But then you get individual non-Jewish gay people like comedian Daniel-Ryan Spaulding on the opposing side. Supporting Israel aligns with opposing transgender activism in the strange polarization of contemporary political alliances, and is therefore a natural fit for whichever subset of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community has dissociated itself from mainstream queer activism. This is just one of the enemy-of-my-enemy backstories that can, these days, make someone seeming randomly pro-Jewish.
Here is how I’ve been able to make sense of who falls where on Israel-Palestine matters, among those not otherwise implicated or interested: People who favour the status quo and stability pick Team Jews, while those with more of a burn-it-all-down approach embrace Team Palestinians. (If you were to take my use of Teams here to be dismissive, you would be right.) What I’m dismissing is not the seriousness of conflict itself, which is bleak and self-evident. Rather, it’s how little what’s going on in the diaspora has to do with the war versus what it symbolizes in pre-existing domestic rifts. How else could you explain the way that, per Martin Gurri writing in the Free Press, Jews have come to represent “normies” and frat boys? There’s something to the way that the classic conflict of preppies versus theatre kids now plays out as if it were somehow about geopolitics: two intractable conflicts, conflated.
The new philosemitism, then, consists of pro-Israel cheerleading interspersed with sombre anti-antisemitic posting. Is this what Jews, collectively, find appealing? It’s unclear how much this wave of philosemitism has to do with real-life Jews to begin with.
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Lofty principles conflicting with on-the-ground ick at real-life Jews is basically the story of philosemitism in any era or incarnation. If you like Jews because we’re cosmopolitan, you’re going to lose it when you learn how many Jews (no more or less than anyone else) are deeply provincial and lacking in curiosity about the world beyond whomever they went to kindergarten with. If you imagine Jews are all like Hannah Arendt or Susan Sontag, what do you do when you meet one who owns exactly one book and it’s The Catcher in the Rye and she was assigned it in high school? Will you consider this a lesson learned, or will you be mad at her for not living up to expectations?
If someone says they’re a friend of the Jews, you do eventually have to ask, of which Jews? for we are not all friends with one another. The new philosemitism must contend with the presence of Jews within the pro-Palestine movement, including rabbis as well as Jewish Studies students and faculty. And the anti-woke philosemite—the one incidentally pro-Israel but more centrally invested in fighting progressive dogma—must come to terms with the embrace, by many liberal Jews and Jewish institutions, of the very phenomenon they oppose. Bari Weiss is Jewish but so too is DEI consultant extraordinaire Tema Okun. There are progressive Jews and right-wing Jews and anti-woke Jews and ambivalent Jews and Jews who (like our Catcher-reading composite above) don’t have any idea what I’m talking about.
If I could press a button and turn the world’s committed antisemites into philosemites I suppose I would, because it’s better to be liked for weird reasons than wished dead. But philosemitism is not the opposite of antisemitism. It is its own way of using Jews as an idea, which never works out well for us. In his book Obstinate Hebrews, historian Ronald Schechter writes about how terribly useful Jews were, symbolically, as figures for Enlightenment gentiles to use for thinking through philosophical notions of difference and inclusion. This is both an interesting abstract thing for academics to contemplate and terrible foreshadowing.
As Kirsch writes, “There may be little to love about philo-Semitism, and little to be grateful for in its history; but that is because genuine esteem between Christians and Jews, like real affection of all kinds, cannot be grasped as an ‘-ism.’ Ideologies deal in abstractions, and to turn a group of people into an abstraction, even a ‘positive’ one, is already to do violence to them.”
If surveyed on their feelings about the Jews, the answer I’d like to hear from a non-Jewish compatriot would not have anything to do with being impressed at Jewish achievements or contributions. It would simply be: “They’re human beings, no better or worse than anyone else.”
Jews are of interest to the outside world wildly out of proportion to our own numbers. Our fate as real-life people shouldn’t be tied up with that of phenomena, even impeccable ones like entrepreneurship or sobriety. I don’t want to be collectively admired for qualities I, as an individual, might not even share. You admire Jews for our financial savvy? Interesting; let me introduce you to my bank account. Though it’s true I have no alcohol tolerance—you’ve got me there.
