Woke Antisemites Won’t Stop with Jewish Students

“First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People”

This slogan and variations (e.g., “After Saturday Comes Sunday”) were popularized during the 1936 Arab Revolt in Mandatory Palestine. It rose again to prominence in 1976 with the publication of Bernard Lewis’ seminal essay, “The Return of Islam.” It refers to Muslim persecution of Middle Eastern Jewish communities and to fears — and threats — that the region's Christians will be targeted next. In retrospect, the slogan was prophetic: today, the project of ethnically cleansing both groups from Middle Eastern nations is essentially completed.

At the time of this writing, just over one year has passed since the October 7^th, 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists. Following those horrific attacks, elite U.S. universities were engulfed by antisemitic protests and encampments. This “campus intifada” was, of course, laser-focused on Jewish students. Yet, much like prior campaigns against Jews abroad, the forces targeting Jews on Americans campuses will, in short order, train their sights on Christians.

The Red-Green Alliance

Campus antisemitism is linked to the bizarre “Red-Green Alliance” of radical leftists and Islamists. Left-wing antisemitism is not new, but the radical Left’s embrace of reactionary theocrats seems facially contradictory. After all, it is hard to imagine that this most secular group is warming to Shariah’s religious teachings. Do feminists secretly yearn for the burka and sex-segregated public spaces? Are LGBTQ activists (“Queers for Palestine”) lining up to be thrown from the tops of buildings?

Recent polling points to a different explanation for this puzzling development: campus antisemitism is rooted in group-based antipathies nurtured by contemporary progressive (aka “woke”) ideology.

• According to Harvard-Harris, 67% of 18- to 24-year-olds (an extremely woke demographic) agree that Jews “are” and “should be treated as” a “class of oppressors.”
• According to the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, 80% of self-identified “progressive” and “very liberal” likely voters believe American Jews possess “unfair advantages.”
• According to the Anti-Defamation League, respondents agreeing with the statement “problems in the world come down to the oppressor vs. the oppressed” are 2.6 times more likely than disagreeing respondents to support antisemitic tropes.

“Plug and Pay” Neo-Marxism

On elite campuses, as elsewhere, the woke view the world through a simplistic neo-Marxist lens. In that view, group disparities — in power or wealth, for example — render associated systems (e.g., institutions or practices) unjust and worthy of destruction. In all such systems, advantaged groups are cast as hated “oppressors” and subject to reprisal, while disadvantaged groups are cast as “oppressed” and virtuous. This perspective, one ostensibly rooted in equality, motivates its adherents to treat different groups very differently.

This basic formula is present in critical race theory (CRT), whiteness studies, gender studies, queer theory, postcolonial studies, and so on — a seemingly endless array of pseudo-academic fields working to dismantle American society. The woke worldview selects oppressed and oppressor groups as needed, according to the system it aims to destroy.

This is the context in which left-wing antisemitism has taken root in elite American universities. The woke categorize Israel, Israelis, and Jews broadly as “oppressors” and Palestinians, including Hamas terrorists, as “oppressed.” They do so because Israel is a functioning, modern, and wealthy liberal democracy and because the Palestinian territories are none of these things. They view Palestinians as sacred victims and heroes resisting oppression. They rationalize the unspeakable atrocities committed by Hamas and instead blame Hamas’ “privileged” victims.

At home, the woke label American Jews “oppressors” because they are often successful and because, depending on who you ask, they are White or “White adjacent.” Woke antisemitism is the fruit of intersectionality, a CRT-linked concept that ranks people according to privileges that allegedly accompany aspects of their identity. In this shifting calculus, prosperity and especially “whiteness” outweigh small numbers (minority status) and historic discrimination. Members of other majority left-leaning groups should note that Jews’ historic liberalism and reliable Democrat voting did not save them from the “oppressor” designation.

In this light, the woke contribution to campus antisemitism derives principally from a profound antipathy for the United States and Western civilization. This hatred, in effect, spills over onto American Jews due to woke ideology organizing along the noted (crude) neo-Marxist lines. The complete absurdity of radical leftists allying with Islamists — people who would gleefully kill them — attests to the depths of this hatred.

Sunday People, Take Note

Jews are canaries in this coal mine, but antipathy for Christianity is more fundamental to woke ideology. Christians are certainly the larger target:

• Christianity remains the majority religion in the United States.
• Christianity defined the Nation’s founding and values.
• Christianity is a bulwark against an all-powerful state.
• Republicans are overwhelmingly Christian, and most Christian registered voters are (or lean) Republican.

The woke see Christians as members of the dominant (i.e., oppressor) group and Christianity as an instrument of Western oppression. They rage against Christian values and ethics. Indeed, neo-Marxists targeted Christianity for destruction from the beginning, with Marx targeting Christianity before that.

Christianity birthed Western civilization, and the liberal values and institutions that define Western nations reflect this inheritance. For obvious reasons (involving a certain Jewish carpenter), to claim a Christian inheritance is to claim a Jewish inheritance, by extension. Moreover, Jews’ contributions to Western — and especially American — history and culture are too numerous to name.

Suffice it to say that the bonds uniting Christians and Jews are substantial. These bonds should deepen under the shared weight of the woke Left’s enmity. To be sure, Jews have recently borne the brunt of it on American campuses. This makes defending the Saturday People a moral and practical imperative for Christians. Christians should oppose antisemitic hatred first and foremost because that hatred, and the worldview that informs it, is profoundly evil. Christians should also oppose antisemitism because after Saturday comes Sunday.