Message Guidance

A machine distorting items on its conveyor belt, and emitting smoke with the sign that reads ".antisemitism machine".

The Machinery Metaphor

To avoid these pitfalls, use a machinery metaphor instead:

Antisemitism is part of the machinery of division and fear created and used for specific material or political gain.

This suggests:

Antisemitism was built by people...

and is used by people for a specific purpose, and those people are the ones who benefit most from its use;

We can stop it...

shut it down, dismantle it; and

Antisemitism is part of a larger whole...

directly connected to other problems, and addressing it is intrinsically connected to other struggles.

In this metaphor, antisemitism is always an object— something people use—and never the actor independently responsible for doing damaging things.

It provides a clear story of WHY, showing the reasons someone would use antisemitism and highlighting WHO benefits from its use.

It also allows us to more easily express HOW we can solve this problem and conceptualize what the world could look like without it.

Using vs. Fueling

All antisemitism is damaging—it is never acceptable. The machinery metaphor makes it possible to recognize this while also acknowledging the importance of power in this story: not every incident of antisemitism—from graffiti to state-sponsored violence—is equally dangerous. It also allows us to show how all antisemitism—no matter the source—benefits the people and movements who use it for political purposes like white Christian nationalist and authoritarian movements. To do this, differentiate between USING and FUELING antisemitism:

Using
Antisemitism

Power switch

An individual or group is USING antisemitism when it is deliberate and unapologetic, when it serves their own purposes, and when they derive a concrete benefit from it like increasing fear and division in order to gain voters in an election. Using antisemitism is always purposeful; you don’t use a machine by accident.

Fueling
Antisemitism

Illustration of gasoline spout

An individual or group is FUELING antisemitism when it says or does something antisemitic, but doesn’t necessarily benefit from it. Someone can fuel antisemitism by repeating an antisemitic story (or “trope”), whether they understood it to be antisemitic or not. For example, a public figure might fuel antisemitism by repeating an antisemitic trope and then lose their job. They might also fuel it by expressing unexamined antisemitic ideas they have learned by being part of the pervasive culture, which tells antisemitic stories as truth.

Fueling antisemitism is damaging and dangerous and no one should do it—it provides power for the machine which is then used by those who benefit from it. At the same time, unintentionally “fueling” antisemitism has to be understood as categorically distinct from intentionally “using” antisemitism for a specific gain. Because we understand antisemitism to be one component of a larger machinery—directly connected to racism, Islamophobia, patriarchy, transmisogyny, and other forms of oppression—we can also understand that some people who fuel that machinery might also be targeted by it. This understanding is critical for diverse non-Jewish audiences to be able to identify their own stakes in the effort to end antisemitism and helps diverse Jewish audiences understand their stake in dismantling other components of that connected machinery.

Differentiating between “using” and “fueling” antisemitism provides a useful way to express the truth that all antisemitism is harmful, but not all instances are equal. Differentiating between the two helps identify opportunities for growth and change. Situations where a person or institution fueled antisemitism—intentionally or not—are often opportunities for apologizing, learning, and growth through education and relationship. But this is unlikely or impossible when someone has used antisemitism deliberately and for their own benefit.

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