There have always been grumblings and mumblings and rumblings about the efficacy of the Jewish community’s efforts to combat antisemitism. But over the past two-plus years, in the wake of the wave of antisemitism that has swept the globe since the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel and Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, those disagreements over tactics, policies and strategies have reached a fever pitch, particularly this week. 

This comes in light of two nominally distinct events: one being a speech by New York Times columnist and Jewish thought-leader Bret Stephens at the 92nd Street Y in which he called to “dismantle the Anti-Defamation League”; and the other being the release of a new commercial from Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance aimed at combating antisemitism, which has, perhaps unsurprisingly, drawn fierce criticism. What is more surprising is that the criticism of the commercial has come from all sides of the Jewish world. Stephens’ comments also caused no small amount of ripples.

Those on the left criticized the commercial, which will air during Sunday’s Super Bowl broadcast and during the Winter Olympics, for using what appears to be a token Black character to address antisemitism. It raised the ire of those on the right for its portrayal of Jews as weak victims needing non-Jews to protect them. Why, for instance, was it not a fellow Jewish student who came to the aid of the bullied child, leaving it instead to a non-Jew to defend the poor weakling? This plays on tropes of Jews being weak victims as opposed to the Zionist vision of Jews being self-reliant and strong. 

Then there were the many people in the middle who perhaps did not take such a fierce ideological opposition to the commercial but took issue instead with its price tag — somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million — and questioned the efficacy of such campaigns.

While it’s not necessarily a zero-sum game, many pointed out that money that is being spent on an advertisement to combat antisemitism is money that could have otherwise been used to strengthen Jewish identity — how many hundreds of Jewish day school tuitions could have been paid for in their entirety by such an investment. Over the past two years, we have seen growing calls by philanthropists, thought leaders and organizations to reform the Jewish community’s efforts to combat antisemitism, seeing them as ineffective particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks.

For many Jews, Stephens’ call to dismantle the ADL draws on long-standing issues with the organization and more generally with the Jewish community’s overall strategy vis-a-vis antisemitism. It is the opinion of this reporter that Stephens was correct when, asked by Rabbi David Ingber what he would do if he were the head of the ADL, he initially rebuffed Ingber’s sole focus on that organization. But then Stephens made the mistake of clearly focusing only the ADL in his answer, as opposed to “the ADL, UJA, AJC and other sacred acronyms in the Jewish world,” as Ingber phrased it.  

While those other sacred acronyms were spared Stephens’ call for dismantling, it is clear that the Jewish community is facing growing calls to reform its overall strategy and not just the efforts of one particular organization, prominent as it is, such as the ADL.

It is mistaken, in this reporter’s opinion, to attribute all of these issues and the global rise of antisemitism to the actions or inactions of these organizations, particularly when there are national and global megatrends at play, many of them reinforced by nation-states with budgets that far outweigh that of the Jewish community. Qatar is the most obvious of these, but investigations have shown that China, Russia, Iran and other countries with significant financial means have also been part of the efforts to advance antisemitism and extremism in American and global discourse. 

However, a growing body of research, much of which has been covered in these pages, shows that the combating antisemitism complex is in disarray. A recent study by the Jewish Funders Network shows that there is a clear lack of clear data and goals for these organizations; there are significant redundancies, overlap and misspending; and there is a lack of coherent overall strategy to inform the field as a whole. 

But there is a difference between mumblings and grumblings and rumblings of opposition and a clear-cut plan. Those that want to see significant change in this field need to take the responsibility of putting forth viable alternatives — and use the momentum from the past week in order to advance them.