Opinion: The new American anti-Semitism

View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, February 23, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Opinion »]( My late father and I had a friendly running debate about anti-Semitism. He had experienced some nasty anti-Semitic teasing as a child in the 1950s. And when a high-profile incident happened in the United States during his adult life, he’d often express a concern that it signaled the start of a resurgence. I’ve experienced no meaningful anti-Semitism in my life, save the occasional hateful reader email. When he expressed alarm, I would reply with optimism: Wide-scale American anti-Semitism was a thing of the past, I’d say. I was wrong, and he was right. Social media was filled with anti-Semitism last year: Journalists who said they had never been subject to bigotry before [came to expect it]( usually [from Trump supporters](. The neo-Nazi symbol Pepe the Frog was gleefully [spread]( by Donald Trump Jr. Schools have been [defaced with swastikas](. More recently, Jewish community centers have received bomb threats, and a Jewish cemetery was [desecrated]( last week. In an Op-Ed, Jennifer Weiner [talks of the role]( that Jewish community centers have played in her life and many other lives. She also calls out President Trump’s reluctant denunciation of anti-Semitism. “The president’s silence, and his day-late and dollar-short declaration, made their own statement,” Weiner writes. “They said that American Jews did not deserve his reassurance, that the threats against places where we lift weights and send our kids to finger-paint weren’t important enough to require his swift condemnation, like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s poor ratings, or that time the cast of “Hamilton” addressed Mike Pence during a curtain call.” She’s right (and I encourage you to [read the full piece](. Given how quick Trump is to denounce many things, and how much of the new American anti-Semitism comes from his supporters, his one denunciation doesn’t count as permanent. If the anti-Semitism continues, so must the president’s rejection of it. He, more than anyone else, has the responsibility to make everyday religious bigotry again feel like a part of the country’s past. The full Opinion report from The Times follows. David Leonhardt Op-Ed Columnist Editorial [President Trump Takes Aim at the Environment]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD Invoking a false argument about saving “many thousands” of jobs, the president has again retreated from responsibility. Op-Ed Columnist [The Death of Compassion]( By CHARLES M. BLOW The Trump phenomenon is devoid of compassion, and we must be closed to compromise. Op-Ed Columnist [Trump Is Bad for Water and Puppies]( By GAIL COLLINS Maybe the president keeps talking crazy to divert attention from the fact that he doesn’t have anything else to report. 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