One feature of Jewish life that I have grown to love is the idea of repetition. It also happens to be foundational to our faith. From weekly Shabbat rituals, readings and prayers to the very cyclical nature of the Jewish calendar, the book Deuteronomy essentially “retells the same stories we have already read in earlier books” of the Bible. I have become grateful for the repetition, which helps reinforce values and foster a more nuanced and deeper understanding of my own faith.
While I excitedly prepared for the holiday and have previously written about the importance of the Seder for Jewish children, I found the Passover Seder this year to be painfully and unexpectedly jarring. As my family and I read the Magid section—which is the retelling of the story of how the Jewish people were enslaved in Egypt, their suffering, and their ultimate liberation through the Exodus—I realized that the Seder teaches us a very clear lesson that I do not like whatsoever: It is one of extreme feebleness and passivity on the part of the Jewish people.
Specifically, the Haggadah recounts the story of the enslavement of the Jewish people in Egypt and their ultimate liberation. The central part of the narrative involves the Jewish nation crying out to God for help, asking for deliverance. A key line in the Seder comes from the Book of Exodus: “And they cried out to the Lord with a loud voice.” That this is a desperate plea for help in the face of oppression highlights the reliance on God’s intervention. The Israelites, in this context, lack agency and self-determination. While the story concludes with God eventually delivering the Jewish people from Egypt and the Pharaoh, the narrative is one that reveals weakness, presents a story of victimhood, and portrays the nation of Israel as dependent on outsiders for help rather than having agency. This message is not what the Jewish people need today and I worry that an overreliance on God’s intervention has historically impaired the Jewish people’s will to fight back against oppression.
Given the global rise of antisemitism, I now see the Passover narrative differently and read these calls to God as dangerous signs of extreme collective paralysis and limited collective agency while highlighting a precarious reliance on others. This approach to managing crises in times of danger is the antithesis of how the Jewish people should respond to the current waves of antisemitism.
Instead of relying on others to defend the Jewish people, Jews in the United States may want to think more carefully and a bit skeptically about the passive story in the Haggadah and the hope that a higher power will save the community from existential threats. While the work of the Trump administration, public officials like Representative Stefanik and Senator Hawley, and public figures like financier Bill Ackman have all been appreciated and valued, Jewish institutions and communities must be the primary advocates and defenders of American Jews. The Jewish community should not rely on outsiders or a higher power alone for protection. That behavior is a sign of weakness, and far too many Jews have taken a passive position of walking away, privately voicing concerns and hoping that the new Trump administration or someone else will handle these issues.
Disturbingly, many of those who have the power to push back on antisemitism and hold the line are sending a message of retreat. While there are certainly a few who are pushing back with lawfare and social media, the Jewish community is running silent and scared with examples of professors who have the power of tenure choosing to retire or leave, essentially emboldening hate and confirming that the tactics of threats and harassment on the part of these antisemites are effective.
Disturbingly, many of those who have the power to push back on antisemitism and hold the line are sending a message of retreat.
Jewish Yale professor Jason Stanley, an expert on fascism who has well-known family connections to the Holocaust, for instance, is one of the latest and very public examples. Stanley announced he is moving to Canada and “compares the move to leaving Germany in 1933.” While Stanley claims that his move is for his children, he is well aware of the existential problems Jews are facing yet has opted to leave, not resist and lead. For someone who has stated that “When you’re in a war, appeasement is surrender,” Stanley has done a considerable amount of damage by exiting a situation where he could help the Jewish community and certainly Jewish students on his campus. In fact, by not standing his ground and supporting the Jewish community of which he is part, he has emboldened hate, shown that the tactics of many who are seeking to promote change through chaos, violence, terror, and disruption have been impactful, and effectively surrendered by literally running away.
Fortunately, there are some faculty who are very proudly and publicly pushing back and holding the line on this hate. Jeffrey Lax, a business professor at CUNY for two decades and someone who declares himself to be a “Proud Zionist Jew,” has taken the brave and bold position of directly confronting antisemitism on CUNY’s many campuses over the years. Without question, antisemitism has flourished on many of CUNY’s campuses. In 2024, for instance, the Muslim Student Association of Queens College hosted Daniel Haqiqatjou, an anti-Israel writer who “gave an entire presentation to a group of students asserting that ‘hate and racism’ is central to Judaism.” In the case of Lax, he has spoken truth to this hate declaring that a recent anti-Israel graduation speech by Fatima Mousa Mohammed was “the most disturbing commencement speech I have ever heard in my entire life” and noted that the school was “condoning, OK’ing and pushing this forward.” Lax has even debated Peter Beinart and held him accountable for refusing to call Hamas a terrorist group because “terrorist” is a “racially loaded” term. Lax has been an example of strength and moral clarity on one of the most antisemitic campuses in the nation.
The positives of Professor Lax aside, too many who could have an impact are folding and the biblical theme of relying on a higher power to solve the collective problems of the Jewish community that is so prominent in the Haggadah is not a message that I am comfortable teaching my son or celebrating. While I am certainly not advocating for violence, I am pleading for the Jewish community to have agency and act in unison to confront those who are attempting to harm us. Otherwise, the Jewish people will continue to be threatened and taken advantage of by those on all sides of the political spectrum.
Perhaps my reading of the Passover story will change again next year when I engage with the text once again, but for now, the Jewish community cannot afford to sit idly by; we must stand up for ourselves and our humanity.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
