“On the internet, they want to kill Jews and rape women.” I’m embarrassed to admit it now, but this used to be my flippant summary of the special brew of misogynistic antisemitism that Jewish women often encounter online. After many years as a professional Jewish feminist, I started relating to the insults and hate speech as drivel I could easily ignore.

This was before Oct. 7 drove home for me and so many others just how pervasive and enduring antisemitism still is. It’s not simply the device of some shadowy, pathetic and largely powerless internet trolls. In the past 14 months, Jews of all backgrounds around the world have experienced the force of antisemitism in ways both shockingly new and achingly familiar.

nadia_bormotova/Getty Images

As eJewishPhilanthropy reported in yesterday’s “Your Daily Phil,” Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, recently conducted a survey of American Jewish women to document the impact of antisemitism on their lives in the past year. Their sobering report details widespread experiences of isolation, fear and harassment. Adults have been intimidated in their social networks and at work; students have been bullied at school. Of the more than 800 women surveyed, 64% said antisemitism impacted their work, life or relationships; 52% felt the need to hide their Jewish identity; and 22% were excluded from groups because of their Jewish or Zionist identity.

What the report does not detail is how expressions of antisemitism are entangled with misogyny and sexism. In other words, how does the antisemitism that Jewish women experience differ from that experienced by others? How does the gender of its targets shape the ways and kinds of antisemitism directed at women? 

I have unwelcome expertise in this arena as CEO of the Jewish Women’s Archive. As an organization with a large social media presence and the words “Jewish” and “women” in our very name, we have experienced an overwhelming and alarming surge in antisemitic comments and messages since Oct. 7. While much of it is generic, it is often framed in specific gendered terms: attacking us as women, targeting our bodies and threatening rape. 

This is nothing new. There is a long history of “the Jewess” as a suspect and shadowy creature, dangerous and reviled. Contemporary attacks draw on these familiar tropes, attacking Jewish women as monstrous, promiscuous and bloodthirsty; we are witches, whores and unnatural women who kill children. In addition to the slurs you can imagine, we’ve received many creative combinations of language combining Nazis, rape and your mother. 

Like all antisemitism, these misogynistic permutations are designed to humiliate, threaten and silence Jews. An additional significant impact is to re-traumatize women who have already experienced sexual harassment or assault. In the past year, JWA has collected stories from around the world of Jewish women and gender-expansive people’s experiences in the aftermath of Oct. 7 and the war, asking about the impact on their identities and relationships. Many respondents have referenced the specific impact of the sexual violence of Oct. 7. 

“I have been personally affected by the war through retraumatization of the sexual abuse I experienced as a child and teenager,” a woman who identified herself as Adri told us. “I am now reliving and watching women of my race be targeted in sexual violence. I am also witnessing the denial, celebration, and justification of this violence from voices around me.” Another woman, this one going only by G., told JWA, “It’s a visceral horror that is intrinsic to the majority of women… I can’t speak about the idea of speaking about the assaults of 10/7 without imagining my own.” 

Ongoing gendered antisemitism is exacerbating this trauma triggered by the events of Oct. 7.

Despite increased recognition of the intersectional nature of identity in recent years, gendered antisemitism remains under-researched. This is, of course, due in part to both sexism and antisemitism: women’s experiences are often not recognized as unique and significant, and Jews are often excluded from the lens of intersectionality because they are not perceived as an oppressed category. If the sexual violence of Oct. 7 and the indifferent response of the global feminist community can teach us anything, it is the urgent need for more attention to the nature and repercussions of gendered antisemitism. 

In this challenging time, when antisemitism is a potent force affecting Jewish communities around the world, we need to take a close look at how sexism and antisemitism operate together. If we do not investigate these specific antisemitic strategies, we will fail to combat them effectively. The Jewish community will only continue to flourish if we take gender seriously as an essential part of Jewish experience.

Judith Rosenbaum is the CEO of the Jewish Women’s Archive.