Three Things Every Jew Needs to Hear at the Seder This Year
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From Sartre to Mayim Bialik, 10 powerful quotes reminding us that antisemitism must always be challenged.
Antisemitism has reached record highs across much of the world. A 2025 ADL poll found that nearly half of all adults worldwide report harboring antisemitic sentiments. One recent poll found that 60% of Gen Z respondents report supporting Hamas in its battle against Israel. In the face of so much hatred, it can feel overwhelming to know how to respond.
Tragically, we’ve been here before; antisemitism has existed for millennia, and so have brave people who have stood up to Jew hatred. Here are 10 quotes from contemporary and historical figures.
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was one of the founders of the Existentialist movement. Though he himself was not Jewish, he spent much of his life arguing against the intense antisemitism he saw around him. Here he exposes antisemites’ arguments as no more than a cynical game of tormenting Jews.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words…
The anti-Semites…like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
(Quoted from Anti-Semite and Jew by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1944)
The author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and many other works, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was approached by his German publisher, Rütten & Loening, in 1938 with a burning question: was he of Aryan descent? Tolkien pointed out that history would judge the publisher and other antisemites harshly. He wrote the following in a letter to his British publisher, Stanley Unwin, refusing to work with the German publishing house:
If I am to understand that you are inquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great great grandfather came to England from Germany in the Eighteenth Century….of impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride… I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and remain yours faithfully, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (1948-2020) served as Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. In his many books and speeches, he pointed out that antisemites hate Jews and the Jewish state irrationally, not because of any supposed reasons they might provide.
What is antisemitism? It is less a doctrine or set of beliefs than a series of contradictions.
In the past Jews were hated because they were rich and because they were poor, because they were capitalists and because they were communists, because they kept to themselves and because they infiltrated everywhere, because they held tenaciously to a superstitious faith and because they were rootless cosmopolitans who believed nothing. The best way to understand antisemitism is to see it as a virus.
Viruses attack the human body, but the body has an immensely sophisticated defense, the human immune system. How, then, do viruses survive and flourish? By mutating. Antisemitism mutates, and in doing so defeats the immune system set up by cultures to protect themselves against hatred. There have been three such mutations in the past two thousand years (in which Jews were hated for being a nation, hated by Christians as part of Church doctrine, and hated for being supposedly racially inferior), and we are living through the fourth (anti-Zionism).
(Quoted from Future Tense by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, 2009.)
Celebrated playwright, novelist and journalist Emile Zola (1860-1902) - who was not Jewish - put his career on the line in 1898 in defense of the French Jewish Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was falsely accused of espionage in 1894; his trial and conviction were marked by extreme antisemitism. When evidence arose exonerating Dreyfus, officials ignored it.
In 1898, Zola published a full page letter in a newspaper: it began J’Accuse…!, and accused French President Felix Faure of a cover-up. Zola was accused of libel and fled to England.
And what a nest of vile intrigues, gossip, and destruction that sacred sanctuary that decides the nation’s fate has become! We are horrified by the terrible light the Dreyfus affair has cast upon it all, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate man, a ‘dirty Jew.’ Ah, what a cesspool of folly and foolishness, what preposterous fantasies, what corrupt police tactics, what inquisitorial, tyrannical practices! What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nation under the boots, ramming back down their throats the people’s cries for truth and justice, with the travesty of state security as a pretext.
(Quoted from J’Accuse…! By Emile Zola, 1898.)
(Wikipedia)
The former NBA star and writer is an outspoken critic of antisemites, and has called out celebrities for having a double standard: tolerating hate speech against Jews that they would never accept against any other group. In 2020, he wrote a famous column after a spate of antisemitic statements and social media posts by a range of celebrities.
Even the apologies (for antisemitic slurs) floundered, more attempts at spin than true contrition…. It’s not enough to have good intentions, because it’s the actual deeds - and words - which have the real impact. In this case destructive impact. In 2013 there were 751 reported hate crimes against Jews, but by 2019 the number had nearly tripled to 2,107. That same year, a gunman in San Diego entered a synagogue and murdered one person while wounding three.
One of the most powerful songs in the struggle against racism is Billie Holiday’s melancholic ‘Strange Fruit,’ which was first recorded in 1939. The song met strong resistance from radio stations afraid of its graphic lyrics about lynching….
Despite those who wanted to suppress that song, it went on to sell a million copies that year and became Holiday’s best-selling record ever. The song was written by a while, Jewish high school teacher, Abel Meeropol, who performed it with his wife around New York before it was given to Holiday.
The lesson never changes, so why is it so hard for some people to learn: No one is free until everyone is free. As Martin Luther King Jr. explained: ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.’ So, let’s act like it. If we’re going to be outraged by injustice, let’s be outraged by injustice against anyone.
(Quoted from Where is the Outrage Over Antisemitism in Sports and Hollywood? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 2020)
Britain’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) spoke in the House of Commons in 1946, when Britain was debating the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel:
I am against preventing Jews from doing anything which other people are allowed to do. I am against that, and I have the strongest abhorrence of the idea of antisemitic lines of prejudice.
When the Nazi youth movement included one of Helen Keller’s books in their public book burnings in 1933, Helen Keller (1880-1965), the blind and deaf author and activist, penned an open letter to youth of Germany, criticizing Nazi policies against Jews:
History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them... Do not imagine your barbarities to the Jews are unknown here. God sleepeth not, and He will visit His Judgment upon you… - Helen Keller
Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter John Ondrasik - better known as Five for Fighting - has been vocal about speaking out against antisemitism since Hamas’ October 7 massacre. Though he is not Jewish, Ondrasik feels the pain of the Jewish community. His song OK is about Hamas’ assault and carries the meaning “We are not OK.”
After the horrifying Hamas atrocities, I was disgusted with the moral relativism and clear antisemitism being displayed around the world in so many of our institutions, particularly the media, elite academia, the UN, and tragically in the US House of Representatives.
The Jewish actress and Jeopardy host gave voice to the anguish many Jews feel when activists all over the world respond to Hamas’ attacks on Israel with condemnation for the Jewish state:
Imagine if there was a massacre of an ethnic group or religious group, the equivalent of 50,000 Americans. And imagine if what happened after that was that all over the world, there were marches of tens of thousands of people calling for further massacres of those people… That’s what it feels like right now as a Jewish person.
There has not been an experience in my lifetime that has prepared me for this. The swiftness with which the global population has seized upon the massacre of Jewish civilians…. The swiftness with which the world has stepped up to redefine terrorism, to redefine statehood, to redefine the right of a people to exist…
It is clear that there is a strain of antisemitism that is alive and well. It is thriving at my Alma Mater (UCLA) where the chant ‘We want a Jewish genocide’ was echoed in the quad in front of Royce Hall.
There is no excuse for calling for a genocide of an entire people. Period. Full stop. I’m no longer afraid to draw comparisons to the global attempt at an elimination of the Jewish people, which my grandparents escaped eastern Europe to flee…. I’ve always believed that Israel was my homeland, and now I understand it more deeply than ever before.
https://www.tiktok.com/@mayimbialik/video/7294768398318325035?lang=en
Angela Merkel served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. In 2018 she spoke on the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and warned against becoming complicit about antisemitism in any form:
We can see that the evil of National Socialism did not come about overnight at all, but grew steadily. Ladies and gentleman, why am I talking in such detail about all these things that happened…85, 90, 95 years ago?
I do so because I firmly believe that we can only learn the right lessons for us today and in the future if we consider the November pogrom of 1938 to be part of a process that was not only followed by the terrible chapter that was the Shoah, but also had a pre-history.
Because in this way we can see what the consequences are if - as under National Socialism - what was once punishable behavior is first tolerated and then, ultimately declared to be desirable behavior. Prejudices that had previously or always been held could now give way to open violence with impunity. This was accompanied by a large majority of the German population looking the other way, remaining silent and indifferent and above all going with the flow.
The eloquent ways in which these brave figures have spoken out against antisemitism can inspire us and help us as we craft our words and responses to hatred today.
These people are or were special it depends if they are dead or alive, i read some place that Helen Keller visited Israel and was happy they helped people that were disabled like her
I think that the deep roots of antisemitism today are the teachings of Christianity and Islam for 2000 and 1400 years respectively.it is also true that many people throughout the World do not like the values expressed in the Ten Commandments.
I will always love & support Israel. Who was the first to help the Haitians after a disaster? Jewish medical professionals. They have given much. Genesis 12:3 says God will bless who blesses Israel & curse who curses Israel. National Organization for Women has said nothing against the rapes & atrocities of October 7. They should rename themselves "National Organization for some Women who we agree with." 😡😥🙏
I agree with your comment 100%
The bottom line? (In my opinion.)
America has lost its morals. 50% of the country has no morals. They worship evil. Young girls dress up like terrorists, like people who burn babies alive and rape women. They don't care! They admire them. They want to be like them.
They want communism, where the government kills the rich and steals all their property and possessions. They don't care. As long as they'll get free stuff.
Cops, who put their lives on the line for thousands of people every single day, are treated like dirt.
Is there a way to educate the upcoming generation to morality? I don't know.
I was thinking about an award winning master teacher and educator, Dr. Laz. Maybe he could help fix our national education system? Our curriculum? Who knows.
The problem is the youth of America are getting brainwashed in public schools to be with evil terrorists instead of moral good people and Israel, people that are with evil terrorists are getting brainwashed by Qatar oil money that is using propaganda and lies like the Nazis( may their name be erased) did around 80 years ago the most popular book in Muslim Arab countries is " Mein Kenif" ( my struggle or my fight) by Adolf Hitler ( my his name be erased) and the useful idiots that are with the evil terrorists that are not Muslim will have a rude awakening that the Muslims want the whole world to be under Sharia Law ( Muslim Laws) so they better wake up for it is to late, some smart people Jews and non Jews see the truth
Robert Aumann, an Israeli professor (and receiver of the Nobel prize in the Science of Economics) was sitting shiva for his adult son, a husband and father, a brave soldier in the IDF.
Rabbi Gustman, his Rabbi and teacher, came to comfort him. He asked him if he could sit next to him on the floor to mourn for his own child murdered by the Nazis decades before at age 6.
"My child died because he was a Jew and therefore he is very holy 'upstairs' But your child died saving the Jewish people My son is now welcoming your son "upstairs'. Q I never sat shiva for my child. I was on the run from the Nazis. Could I sit with you?"
Professor Auman said, "Rebbe, nichamtani." (My Rabbi, my teacher, you have comforted me.)
How sad to hear such a story
I appreciate the article. Yet, not for the first time, I want to state the case for abandoning the term "antisemitism". To my mind it is an anemic terminology of an academic bent. Let us be direct and call this phenomenon by its substance - Jew hatred, and call out antisemites for what they are - Jew haters.
Stop and consider: what resonates more, "antisemitism" or "Jew hatred"? To me the answer is clear. To anyone who may read this, I urge you to contemplate the powerful effect of replacing the word antisemitism in any conversation that refers to antisemitism, and employing instead the term Jew hatred. That term is not an exaggeration, it is to the point, and it leaves an indelible impression.
Beautifully constructed, and full of wisdom
It is such a comfort to read the wise words of these philosemites ( yes people who like Jews, we don’t hear the word often enough!).
At a time when there has never been so much outspoken vilification against our people, simply because we want to keep our homeland safe.
Thank you.
My dad's side were Catholics and mom's side Reformed. I went to my aunt's Church Sunday school and church services 1959-62. No one on either side had hatred towards Jews.
Do include the quote from Valery Grossmaan's "Life and Fate" novel of the Russian experience of WW II. Somewhere in the middle is the following exchange between characters - much quoted by Douglas Murray and others - "Tell me what you accuse the Jews of and I shall tell you what you are guilty of." This iis the psychology of displacement or exculpation otherwise judging others by oneself. Arabs and others know what they would do in circumstances "x" so accuse the Jews of it regardess of why they see the Jews as enemies.