There Are No Antisemites In America!

Great news! THERE ARE NO ANTISEMITES IN AMERICA!!! The newly added U.S. Census question: “Are you an antisemite?”  received absolutely zero Yesses!!  It marked the first time in over two centuries of census-taking that a question in the nation’s official survey received nothing but “No” answers.  Not only that but for the first time in history many answers included additional unasked-for information, something unheard of in prior population tallies.

The volunteered information included No!  I once had a court-appointed defender who turned out to be Jewish! (from slightly over three million people) Absolutely not – a Jew lived down the hall from me in college – at least I THINK he was a Jew because he had a big nose and There’s not an antisemitic bone in my body – I checked! Another 78,000 refused to answer the question on the grounds that they’d be misquoted.

“It really makes no sense to us,” an unidentified Census spokesperson said. “On the one hand, the census indicates that no one in our country is an antisemite, but on the other hand our second question, “Do you know an antisemite?” received 150 million positive responses, complete with names, addresses and Twitter handles. So it’s either zero or 150 million, or someone’s just trying to get into our head.”

The spokesperson’s befuddlement aside, we may find the answer to the conundrum by simply checking the definition of “antisemite.” Google tells us an antisemite is: a person who is hostile to or prejudiced against Jewish people. It’s a very intelligent definition because it explains why, if you ask an antisemite if he/she is an antisemite, the odds are you’ll receive an emphatic, “No!” followed by a justification, like the ones listed above, or more creative ones, such as, “I’m fine with the Jewish people – I just don’t like Jews,” or “I would hate George Soros whether he was Jewish OR a former Nazi—just watch this YouTube video!”

The key phrase in the definition is “hostile to or prejudiced against.” Real antisemites can double-think their prejudices into justifications, such as “I’ve got nothing against them, as long as they all go away,” or “But I LOVE the Holy Land,” or “Hey, I sat through ALMOST HALF of The Fabelmans,” and thus make themselves believe they are not hostile or prejudiced, while by their actions, SHOWING that they are.

I’ve never met an antisemite who actually, in polite conversation, said he/she was an antisemite unless they were a card-carrying extremist. At the most, they’ll use some other term, like “anti-Zionist” or “anti-elitist” or “anti-globalist” or “Well, except YOU, of course.”

So “Are you an antisemite?” is not a productive question to ask someone, especially an antisemite, because the answer will always be some version of No.

Instead of asking that question, you might just comment to the person, “Wow, it must be awfully hard work for you to feel the way you feel about Jewish people, say the things you say about them, do the things you do to them, and still not be an antisemite.”

That might get a rise out of them. But most likely not. But hey, isn’t it great?  There are no antisemites in America! Stay tuned for our next hard-hitting report, There’s no water in the ocean.