Related are the scars Jews collectively bear from centuries of anti-Semitism and the underlying fear that, no matter what we do, we will always be perceived negatively. Despite our contributions and assimilation throughout Europe, we were reviled as an infestation so pernicious and alien that we had to be exterminated. Whether as slaves in Egypt, auto-da-fé victims in Spain for failing to renounce our Judaism in Spain, essentially imprisoned residents of shtetls throughout the Pale of Settlement, shunned and marginalized citizens of the USSR, or outcasts from schools and jobs throughout the Anglosphere … the consistent messaging has been that Jews are subhuman, lesser than, the Other.

For many, the solution was to embrace political parties, policies, and ideologies that reflected positively on them by demonstrating how good, caring, and involved they were, especially with people who were also of different ethnicities and races—including the Palestinians.

Then, out of the blue one day in October 2023, they were gob-smacked by Palestinian brutality and antipathy towards Jews and their joy in annihilating the Chosen People. American liberals were forced to acknowledge that the very politicians, policies, and institutions they have supported have undermined not only Israeli safety but, now, their own, as they witness Jews threatened on university campuses and in major cities throughout the world; are barricaded by protesters in university libraries; and are being targeted with hate crimes in their neighborhoods—up 1,350% in London and 400% in the US.

They cannot help but wonder what awaits Jews everywhere as Hamas’s Reign of Terror is brazenly feted by a crazed, irrational mob.

[I don’t think that many of these liberals will be voting Republican after this. Some may, but I think that some of the fringe anti-Semites on the Right (which undeniably exist) will make them even more cautious about the GOP. I do think, though, that they will stop funding the ethnic-determinist activists like Black Lives Matter and CRT, among others, and will more openly balk at their allies running for public office. — Ed]