Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick speaks at “Coalition- and Bridge-Building Post-October 7th: A Jewish Communal Summit”
Amy Spitalnick recently passed her one-year mark as CEO of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, (JCPA), which supports America’s Jewish community relations network in promoting a democratic and pluralistic America that is fully inclusive of all people, including Jews, and free from discrimination and hate. Taking over just five months before October 7th and the surge in antisemitism that followed, she did not get much of a grace period to settle into the role. However, the need for JCPA’s leadership in fighting bigotry and forging connections across communities has never been more urgent.
The Russell Berrie Foundation joined with the Jane and Daniel Och Foundation and UJA-NY to help JCPA bring together more than 150 Jewish community relations professionals on June 17 to address how challenging and painful it has become since October to strengthen ties and seek solidarity across faith and identity groups. The event, called “Coalition- and Bridge-Building Post-October 7th: A Jewish Communal Summit,” aimed to help community builders nationwide operate from a place of renewed strength in uniting diverse groups around the reality that antisemitism threatens not only Jews but all communities — and the future of America’s inclusive, pluralist democracy.
We are sharing Amy’s welcome remarks from the summit, which remind us that the fight to counter antisemitism is inextricably linked to the fight for all communities’ rights and safety.
More than 150 community relations leaders gathered at the Summit to explore effective ways to strengthen ties across faith and identity groups after October 7th.
“I’m so grateful to UJA for its partnership on this summit and in so much more, and to the Russell Berrie Foundation and the Jane and Daniel Och Family Foundation for making today possible. Thank you to the incredible JCPA team: Karen, Rori, Betsey, Elana, Ben, and Elisa, as well as Leslie and our amazing board.
And I’m so grateful to all of you from traveling here from all corners of the country — JCRC and Federation professionals and lay leaders, other Jewish communal professionals, and so many other partners and allies for this summit.
Look, this is not what I hoped the world would look like when we came together for the first time under the banner of the new JCPA. And I know how challenging that last eight months have been for all of you. What you carry when this is both your professional AND personal reality. The isolation you can feel doing this work at a time when the loudest voices in all directions are working against us — telling us that community relations and bridge-building don’t matter.
Long before October 7th, we already knew antisemitism was a crisis. Increasingly normalized conspiracy theories and tropes, rising hate crimes, a cycle of mass violence targeting Jews and other communities.
And after October 7th — the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust — we saw this normalization of antisemitism expand and accelerate in new and dangerous ways.
It’s relatively easy to understand this crisis as a threat to the Jewish community — a form of religious, racial, or ethnic prejudice that targets Jews — simply because we’re Jews.
But what is too often lost in the conversation is that it’s also a threat to each and every American and our democratic norms — because unlike other prejudices, antisemitism uniquely also operates as an overarching conspiracy theory, rooted in lies about Jewish power and influence — painting other communities and institutions as pawns of Jewish control, pitting communities against one another, and sowing distrust in our democracy.
…the public conversation about antisemitism has been largely disconnected from conversations on democracy, racism, and other forms of bigotry and extremism, treating antisemitism as a particularistic challenge for the Jewish community — despite its universal impact.
Precisely because it functions as a conspiracy theory, antisemitism poses a threat far beyond the Jewish community. And as threats to inclusive, pluralistic democracy increase, so too does antisemitism flourish.
It is systemic, both fueling and fueled by other forms of hate and extremism. The research tells us that those who support political violence are far more likely to believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories. Similarly, belief in conspiracy theories is among the best predictors of antisemitism AND the biggest driving motivations for broader extremism.
We have seen clearly what this looks like on the right: neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us;” white supremacist mass shootings in Pittsburgh, Poway, El Paso, Buffalo, and beyond — targeting not just Jews but also Black, Latino, immigrant, and other communities; neo-Nazis recruiting in anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion spaces. And increasingly normalized antisemitism from politicians and other voices who use “invasion” and “replacement” rhetoric, or election denial, or other conspiracy theories to advance anti-democratic, dehumanizing policies and further embolden violent extremists.
We also need to be clear eyed about how these conspiracy theories about Jewish power and control manifest in left-wing spaces, particularly as it relates to Israel. Language about “Jewish” or “Zionist” influence, control, and power. Efforts to hold the Jewish people collectively responsible for Israel’s actions — like my own synagogue, targeted in October. Just last week here in New York, a wave of hate including the targeting of a Jewish museum director’s home and a horrific protest outside the Nova festival memorial. Calls to bar “Zionists” from certain spaces and institutions or ban or boycott “Zionist” authors or musicians.
Make no mistake: 80 to 90% of American Jews have a relationship with Israel, and see it as a key part of our Jewish identity. These calls to target and ban “Zionists” are nothing less than antisemitic discrimination and hate — period.
All of this is meant to pit Jews against others, to separate us from the very coalitions we need in order to counter rising hate and extremism.
That is why extremists of all stripes are exploiting the Israel-Hamas war to further fuel antisemitism, disinformation, and hate — not just against Jews, but also against our Arab American and Muslim neighbors — from bigots, trolls, and foreign influence campaigns on social media aimed at sowing division; extreme voices on campus turning protests into platforms for bigotry, discrimination, and eliminationist rhetoric; and so much more.
In other cases, we’ve seen politicians and others exploit our community’s real pain and fear around antisemitism to try to advance their own extremist agendas aimed at eliminating DEI, defunding education and other liberal institutions, and more. Or, while railing against campus antisemitism, also espousing dangerous antisemitic conspiracy theories out of the other side of their mouth.
This will only become more urgent as we enter election season, when bigotry, conspiracy theories, and extremism will surely be given bigger and more frequent platforms.
So what does this all tell us? Antisemitism does not exist in isolation. Rather, antisemitism and other forms of hate and extremism animate and fuel each other in a constant feedback loop —with deadly consequences for all marginalized communities and for our democracy.
And yet antisemitism is generally not understood this way. As a result, the public conversation about antisemitism has been largely disconnected from conversations on democracy, racism, and other forms of bigotry and extremism, treating antisemitism as a particularistic challenge for the Jewish community — despite its universal impact.
This has multiple implications:
It prevents non-Jewish communities from understanding their own self-interest in combating antisemitism. At a moment when we as Jews are already feeling isolated and abandoned, it sometimes makes it harder for us to see broader democracy and civil rights work as fundamental to our own safety.
And it keeps our communities apart at a moment when solidarity is critical to our mutual safety.
For those of us who do this work, the path forward must be rooted in building a shared understanding of how antisemitism functions as a tool to fuel broader hate, violence, and anti-democratic extremism — bringing together communities that are under threat in pursuit of solutions that advance an inclusive, pluralistic democracy where we are all safe.
That is, of course, at its core community relations. This room knows this better than anyone.
Now, some will argue that the aftermath of October 7th is proof of failure for community relations and this broader work of bridge-building, that the isolation and abandonment many Jewish Americans understandably feel right now means that we should put up walls and give up on building relationships between communities in pursuit of Jewish safety and a more inclusive democracy.
But in reality, the aftermath of October 7th is proof of need: that we need to invest MORE deeply. That a siloed, narrow approach to countering antisemitism is insufficient, and that deeper investment in a different approach — one that leans into the hard conversations, that illustrates the interconnection of Jewish safety with the safety of other communities and the future of our democracy — is needed.
This requires us to do the challenging work of community relations and coalition building — dispensing with the zero-sum frameworks and false binaries so often advanced by the loudest voices and, instead, leaning into our relationships across communities to help allies and potential allies understand antisemitism and how its impact extends well beyond the Jewish community — animating and fueling broader extremism and hate.
And so too must we remind ourselves that Jewish safety is most assured in inclusive democracies where all communities are safe and free. History shows us over and over again that where extremism and authoritarianism are given license, antisemitism flourishes.
This is at the core of our work at the JCPA. Last month, we launched two action networks focused on protecting and strengthening democracy and combating antisemitism and deeply interconnected forms of hate and extremism. These action networks bring together national Jewish organizations and non-Jewish allies, with local Jewish Community Relations Councils and other partners, enabling us to mobilize on the national and local levels in support of state and city legislative solutions, civic engagement, education and advocacy, and more.
By working with all of you — and Jewish communities across the country — we will make the case to our neighbors on why the fight against antisemitism is inherent to the fight for other communities’ safety and for our democracy — because the research tells us that message is most effective, and because our reality tells us that it’s existential.
The fight to counter antisemitism IS the fight for all communities’ rights and safety — and our democracy.
And the fight for all communities’ rights and safety — and our democracy — IS the fight to counter antisemitism.
Ultimately, this is a fight that will be won on the state and local levels. And that means the work you’re doing together can have an outsized role — engaging allies and partners, providing models for how other communities can navigate these challenges, and mobilizing together in support of the inclusive policies we need to protect the Jewish community — and all communities — at this critical moment.
Fighting antisemitism means fighting it in all its forms, wherever it shows up and rears its ugly head. Because Jewish safety depends on it, and because our safety is inextricably linked with the safety and rights of each and every group — and with democracy itself.
The fight to counter antisemitism IS the fight for all communities’ rights and safety — and our democracy.
And the fight for all communities’ rights and safety — and our democracy — IS the fight to counter antisemitism.
This is a defining moment for the Jewish people, for all marginalized communities, and for democracy. It requires us to reject efforts to tear our communities apart and, instead, find a way to move towards one another and connect the dots between our safety and our futures.
It’s only by doing so that we can advance a future in which Jews — and all people — are truly safe and free.
Thank you, and I’m looking forward to being in conversation and learning from all of you today.”