By Elchanan Poupko
It is the trillion-dollar question: can antisemitism be defeated? For generations, thinkers, authors, and public intellectuals have struggled with this question, yet no clear answer has emerged. But when we look to history, and when we look to the overwhelming wave of antisemitism spreading today, we begin to see that there is an answer.
There was a time when antisemitism was decisively pushed back. It happened in the United States in the 1930s and early 1940s, one of the proudest chapters in the history of American Jewry. At that time the German American Bund, Father Coughlin, and a powerful Nazi influence campaign had turned millions of Americans into sympathizers of Hitler and everything he represented.
American Jews were in no position to defeat this threat. The German American Bund enjoyed prestige and protection in American society, while most Jews were still recent immigrants, children of immigrants, or blue-collar workers who spoke English as a second language.
And yet they did defeat it. The German American Bund was brought down in no small part by ordinary Jews who refused to give up the streets. One of them was Isadore Greenbaum, a 26-year-old plumber’s helper from Brooklyn who in 1939 stormed the stage at a Bund rally in Madison Square Garden while shouting “Down with Hitler.” His courage and the determination of others like him became symbols of a broader Jewish stand against the Nazis in America.
It is no accident that many of those who confronted the German American Bund were working-class Jews. Our community excels in scholarship, writing, debate, and moral argument. But historically, we have been less inclined to engage in the messy business of street confrontation. Sadly, antisemitism often grows in that very arena, and if we do not show up there, we risk losing ground before the fight even begins.
The truth is that governments and companies often change their policies because of what they see in the streets. Protests, demonstrations, and public intimidation shape the calculations of decision-makers far more than quiet arguments or private letters. Recently, Giro dell’Emilia, an Italian cycling race announced it would exclude Israeli athletes after pro-Palestinian activists disrupted previous events. The organizers did not make a moral judgment; they made a calculation about what they were willing to face in public. Increasingly, that calculation is leading institutions to choose boycotts over backlash.
We see the same dynamic on campuses. The Anti-Defamation League has found that the vast majority of Jewish students now hide their Jewish identity at universities worldwide. This is not the result of a failed debate. It is the result of intimidation, protests, and harassment in the public spaces of campus life.
If we want to change this, we have to reclaim the streets. It is not pleasant. It is not natural for us. But it is necessary. Every time I have seen an anti-Israel protest up close, I have been struck by the same thought: we should not have ignored this. We should have been there from the day after October 7th. We cannot abandon the public square to those who openly seek our destruction.
If we are serious about defeating antisemitism, we must be willing to leave our comfort zones. Like Isadore Greenbaum, we must step forward even when it feels unnatural, even when the people we face are those whose company we would never seek. The alternative is to let others dominate the streets until their ideas shape the institutions of power. That was the danger in Germany in the 1930s, when the Brownshirts first stood with sticks outside Jewish shops, and it became a catastrophe once they controlled the most powerful army in the world.
Victory against antisemitism will not come from silence or retreat. It will come from courage, presence, and persistence. If we want to win, we must win back the streets.
