Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews

by David L. Bernstein

In woke ideology, if you substitute the word race for class, you will get almost the exact same Marxist-Leninist dogma in which we were indoctrinated in schools that became the basis of the hatred against dissidents and anyone who dared question the party line. In today’s ideological movements, I see some of the same forces that I experienced in the Soviet Union—forces that demonize the Jewish state—and an expectation, sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit, that Jews give up aspects of their identities in order to conform to these ideological whims. Jews should be able to live in the fullness of their Jewish identity and not be forced to rid themselves of the “undesirable” aspects, such as their relationship to Israel. Going along with progressive dictates is not nearly as cost-free as many Jews might imagine. I grew up in a place where the authorities proclaimed: “the proletariat of the world unite.” In today’s conception of intersectionality, haters of Jews unite. In the Soviet Union, there were good nations and bad nations—good nations were part of the struggle against the global capitalists and bad nations were opposed to it. In woke ideology, there are good identities and bad identities. In this worldview, the most victimized identity is Palestinian and the worst identity is Israeli, that which represents the last colonial project. Intersectionality unites woke progressive theory with the most primitive forms of antisemitism.