Perhaps more noteworthy than Kanye West’s recent anti-Semitic tirades and his subsequent dip in earnings is the sight of virtue signalling hastily being performed by corporate America and various celebrities. No one wants to be caught on the “wrong side” of the issue; hence the need to be seen condemning West’s bigotry. One serious school of thought is that anti-Semitism which emerges from any quarter needs to be forcefully condemned. While there is a logic to this perspective, the amount of ink and energy devoted to Mr. West’s outbursts also raises serious questions–despite his potential influence on his many millions of social media followers—as to whether the rest of us should sigh and basically ignore him.

This kind of question certainly engaged the author of the Book of Proverbs, who in Chapter 26 put forth a sequence of opposing verses: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.” We are left with a Catch 22. Will responding only further the perpetrator’s sense of self-importance and lower ourselves to his debased level; or will remaining unengaged embolden the fool’s continued harangues, as he interprets silence as legitimating his original remarks?

But perhaps there is a middle ground, where Ye should be addressed and criticized with just enough attentiveness, but no more, and certainly not for too long. In other words, let’s not overdo it. Ye will be forgotten in a few years after his 15 minute Warholian stay has expired. But if his prejudices are enough to wake up the public to the more serious kinds of anti-Semitic discourse and–more importantly–actions, that are taking place every day, then he will have perversely done Jews and Judaism a service.

Item – Jewish students do not feel safe, neither to express themselves academically nor at times even physically, across many North American and European campuses. Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, which presents itself on its website as “a place that inspires you · a community that embraces you.” Recently, the Wellesley College newspaper published an editorial endorsing The Mapping Project, an online database of Jewish organizations and public figures who are described as being engaged in or complicit in the oppression of Palestinians. The project contains names and actual addresses of these Jewish organizations and individuals. The tepid rejoinder from Wellesley College President Paula Johnson?: “While it is not my practice to comment on the newspaper’s editorials, I do feel the need to make it clear that Wellesley College rejects the Mapping Project for promoting anti-Semitism.”

Item – As the New York Times reported on February 17, 2020, “More than half of the hate crimes in New York City in 2019 were attacks on Jewish people. Orthodox Jews are particularly at risk.” By 2022, the Times was reporting that the level of anti-Semitic incidents, especially beating up Orthodox Jews in the street, was at its highest level in decades. Translation – it is risky to be visibly Jewish. This extends from obvious targets like Hasidim to someone who could be your daughter: “Emerson College [in Boston] student Bailey Allen said she has to gauge whether she should wear something that represents her Jewish identity. `It's still really, really hard to navigate. Do I wear my Hillel sweatshirt today? Do I wear my Star of David necklace today?’”

Item – At the United Nations, where Israel, alone among the 193 other member states, is often singled out for immoral behaviour, other paragons of pristine ethics—North Korea, Venezuela, the Congo, Iran—are left virtually unscathed. Witness these remarks issued in 2018 by Marc L. Hill, a Temple University professor and then CNN political commentator, during an address at a UN event marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People: “We have an opportunity to not just offer solidarity in words but to commit to political action…that will give us what justice requires, and that is a free Palestine from the river to the sea.” That swathe of land contained “from the river to the sea” includes the land of Israel inside the Green Line, not simply the occupied territories.

Unwittingly or not, Mr. Hill cited a slogan invented in 1964 with the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization and later invoked by anyone anywhere who wanted to see the elimination of all of Israel as a place for Jews to live. But almost worse than Mr. Hill’s original remarks was his obtuse rationalization afterwards, when he argued that “from the river to the sea” was a phrase still "used by many factions, ideologies, movements, and politicians." Your excuse for your ill-conceived remarks is that other people do it too? So goes the discourse of 5 year-olds in the playground, except this has become a very unsafe sandbox in which to play.

In a democratic society, calling out Ye’s latest rant is as reasonable as any other justified critique of a public figure. But do remember that there are serious problems that face Jews everywhere that won’t be solved by a tsunami of backlash on Twitter against celebrities who would not even be subjects for conversation if they were not celebrities. The firestorm around Ye is as much a comment on whose utterances we take notice of in our bowing to the gods of Tik Tok and TMZ, as it is a sober assessment of what really threatens Jews in an increasingly precarious world. May we all have the wisdom to know to whom to respond and in what way, and to recognize and vigorously defend what truly requires defending, as Churchill noted in the fight against the century’s most notorious Jew-hater, “we shall not flag or fail…whatever the cost may be.”