Antisemitism today

The following passage was being shared on X today. The people who posted it said it was a quote from  Woody Allen.

I have not been able to verify whether this quote really comes from him, but whoever wrote it, I am republishing it because it is powerful.

"I always thought the biggest advantage of New York was that you could be neurotic and nobody noticed. In other cities, they send you to the doctor if you talk to yourself. In Manhattan, they offer you a column in a magazine for it.

Yesterday I went out to buy salmon. By the way, it's the only stable Jewish tradition that's survived Babylon, Rome, and my relationships with women.

I was walking through Brooklyn thinking about death. Not because I'm a philosopher. But because I'm already over ninety, though originally I'd planned to make it to seventy at most.

And suddenly—a crowd in front of a synagogue. At first I thought a famous psychoanalyst was performing there. In New York, people line up for hours to hear why their mother is to blame for everything. Though Jews already know that without needing a lecture.

But no. They were shouting something about 'intifada.' And do you know what surprised me most? The sheer energy those people have. Where do they get it from? Me, after climbing two flights of stairs, I'm already drafting my will. And they're ready for a revolution without even having a decent cup of coffee.

Some guy was yelling something about 'decolonization.' My God. When I was young, 'colonization' meant Aunt Frieda taking over our sofa for three months and refusing to leave. Today, suddenly, it's a Zionist conspiracy.

In general, modern antisemitism has become too intellectual. Back then, they just hated us. Straight up. Not today.

Today, someone with a scarf, who looks like he writes poems about his own beard, explains to you—with help from Heidegger and Nietzsche—why the existence of Jews is a form of aggression and a threat to humanity.

And there I was thinking: At least back then, the people beating us didn't have college degrees. Today, the pogrom organizers have diplomas from Columbia University.

Then a girl next to me said: 'We're against Zionism, not Jews.' That's like if my ex-wife had said: 'I have nothing against you. I'm just against everything you say, do, feel—and especially against sleeping with you.' The meaning is the same.

And then someone shouted: 'Zionists are Nazis!' At that moment, I felt my grandmother would have spun in her grave so fast she could have powered half of Queens with electricity.

My grandmother, by the way, lived through actual Nazis. She hid in a basement in Poland with a man who coughed so hard the Germans could have found them just from the bronchial racket.

And now a boy from an elite university, whose biggest life trauma is a cold Starbucks coffee, is explaining fascism to me.

I really am living in surprising times.

Today, people talk like they've accidentally swallowed a university library. Nobody says anymore: 'Sorry, I'm an idiot.' No. Today it's: 'I'm deconstructing the dominant narrative.'

Listen, I grew up among Jews. We don't deconstruct narratives. We create narratives.

I got home and turned on the TV—because when you're anxious, TV seems like a brilliant idea. It's like treating alcoholism with an iced martini.

There was Roger Waters explaining the world again. Rock musicians always scare me when they get old and start talking like paranoids who see conspiracies in a black cat.

Then Kanye West came on. In my childhood, at least the crazies looked crazy. Disheveled hair, overcoat, pigeons, conversations with garbage cans. This guy just puts on a black mask and says he loves Hitler. And that's when I realized: Humanity has come a long way—from 'never again' to 'let's discuss the nuances.'

And the politicians? Politicians say: 'The situation is complicated.'

No.

Complicated is explaining to a Jewish mother why her forty-year-old son still isn't married.

But when a crowd in front of a synagogue shouts “death to the Zionists,” that’s not complexity. It’s a remake. And a bad one at that. No original script, but with a huge budget for social media.

And what really scares me isn’t the radicals. I’m used to radicals. I lived in the New York of the seventies. Back then, anyone who distrusted tap water and washed their fruit with soap was already considered a radical.

What scares me is the speed with which normal people start acting like nothing’s happening. Human beings adapt incredibly well. Even when a Jewish girl has her hair pulled or a boy with sidelocks is blinded with strobe lights.

We get used to everything. To war. To hate. To coffee costing nine dollars. To that last one, by the way, only with great difficulty.

At night I was lying in bed thinking: maybe we shouldn’t give humanity any free time. Because as soon as people get bored, they either try to save the world, or kill each other, or record podcasts about the benefits of conflict.

And yet… if tomorrow there’s someone shouting about the death of the Zionists in front of a synagogue again, I’ll go out. Not because I’m brave. I’m the kind of person who once fainted when they drew his blood. But because Jews have waited too many times for the madness to go away on its own. It never does. It just puts on a suit, enters the university, and opens a TikTok account.

But anyway… first I’ll eat my salmon. I’d prefer not to die on an empty stomach. That never would have seemed right to my Jewish mother."