It’s been a busy few days for the Jew-haters. First, hordes of antisemitic lunatics formed a mob outside Russian-Israeli singer Eden Golan’s hotel prior to the Eurovision Song Contest final in Sweden, while attendees during the performance booed and jeered anytime Golan (or even the Israeli flag) dared to appear onstage. Former confused child and current clueless activist Greta Thunberg even made an appearance, presumably to educate us on Hamas’s revolutionary water pipe recycling scheme.
And closer to home, Duke University became the latest American educational institution to become marred in antisemitism, thinly veiled as anti-Zionism. During the commencement ceremony for Duke’s graduating class of 2024, a handful of students decided to leave to protest Jerry Seinfeld. Yes, Jerry Seinfeld.
Newman!
And no, they weren’t even protesting the final season of Seinfeld, for which they would have received my total support. Instead, they were the latest to attempt to hijack an educational institution in a supposed protest against Israel by refusing to witness a 70-year-old New York Jew receiving an honorary doctorate.
Ironically, Seinfeld probably worked harder for a degree he received just for showing up than many of the Palestinian flag-waving, keffiyeh-wearing future unemployed people protesting him.
Not only that, but his speech was laden with advice that would make these students’ lives infinitely happier.
“The slightly uncomfortable feeling of awkward humor is OK,” Seinfeld said. “It is worth the sacrifice of an occasional discomfort to have some laughs. Don’t lose that. Even if it’s at the cost of occasional hard feelings, it’s OK.”
But while we certainly need to address the explosion of antisemitism that has made life hell for Jewish students on campuses across the country (let alone on city streets across the world), we must also be sure to appreciate the full picture.
At Duke University, while a handful of students decided to walk out like petulant children who just couldn’t bear listening to the apolitical advice of a Jewish man, the vast majority stayed, listened, and drowned out the protesters by chanting, “Jerry.”
And while Golan endured far worse before, during, and after the Eurovision Song Contest, she received overwhelming support from the voting public, including maximum points from 14 different countries, many of whom are experiencing their own explosions of antisemitism.
None of this is to downplay what we’re seeing across the world. Life for Jews has become immeasurably worse in the West following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which somehow acted as a catalyst for further anti-Jewish hate here at home.
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But it does remind us that the people marching in the streets, the people making threats, and the people stomping their way out of their own graduation ceremonies are in the minority. An incredibly vicious and vocal minority, sure, but a minority nonetheless.
And while there is certainly work to do to ensure peace and safety for Jews in the West, we should take solace in the fact that while there are some people out there who refuse to listen to Jerry Seinfeld because he is Jewish, their voices are drowned out by the majority who wanted to hear from him and cheer obvious truths: “We’re embarrassed about things we should be proud of and proud of things that we should be embarrassed about.”
Ian Haworth is a columnist, speaker, and podcast host. You can find him on Substack and follow him on X at @ighaworth.
