A new book by Israeli-American writer Benjamin Kerstein argues that the surge in antisemitism since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks has been fueled not only by avowed Jew-haters but by a small, influential class of American Jews he calls “Jews of Privilege” β and that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has become its most politically powerful face.
In “Jews of Privilege: Elites, Anti-Zionists, and Our Secret Civil War,” Kerstein writes that the current wave of antisemitism differs from previous iterations in one important respect: it depends, to a striking degree, on the endorsement of a minority of American Jews who are deliberately pushed to the front lines. According to the Daily Wire, which published an excerpt and analysis of the book, Kerstein describes these figures as products of a specific economic, cultural, and social stratum β people who attended elite schools, hold prestigious jobs, and have risen to the top of their professions.
“They got in the door, passed, and received and covet the embrace of non-Jews, especially non-Jews who don’t particularly care for the Jews,” Kerstein writes, describing what he calls the American Jewish elite.
Zionism as a Threat to Privilege
Kerstein traces the tension between elite and working-class Jews back more than a century, arguing that Zionism β which he characterizes as a movement of the Jewish masses and often the Jewish poor β has long been viewed by the Jewish upper class as a threat to their standing. In his account, earlier generations of elite Jews opposed Zionism partly out of fear that it would complicate their assimilation and their self-appointed role as leaders of the community.
The book contends that a new generation of this class has now gone further, aligning itself with what Kerstein calls the first openly antisemitic mass movement in American history. To illustrate the dynamic, he points to Sanders, the Vermont senator and two-time near-winner of the Democratic presidential nomination.
Kerstein acknowledges the apparent contradiction: Sanders is the son of a Polish Jewish immigrant family, bears the legacy of the Holocaust in his family history, and was not born into wealth or class privilege. But in Kerstein’s telling, Sanders is now an elite in every practical sense β and, more importantly, ideologically aligned with the Jews of Privilege “in every way.”
The Omar Episode
Central to the book’s case against Sanders is his response to controversy surrounding Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). Kerstein writes that when Omar faced widespread criticism for comments that pro-Israel activists bribe members of Congress and are loyal to a foreign power β remarks widely condemned as invoking antisemitic tropes β Sanders came to her defense.
According to the excerpt, Sanders said at the time: “It is not antisemitic to be critical of a right-wing government in Israel,” even though, Kerstein argues, Omar had not been criticized for that. Sanders added that Omar might “need to do a better job speaking to the Jewish community,” while also asserting the right of “a Muslim member of Congress not to be attacked every single day in outrageous, racist remarks.”
Kerstein contends that it was Omar herself who made the remarks in question, and that criticism of her was based entirely on what she said rather than on her identity. In his reading, Sanders’s intervention amounted to “obfuscation and moral blackmail” β a suggestion that defending oneself against antisemitism is itself an act of racism.
The book portrays this as part of a broader strategic effort to shift the boundaries of acceptable discourse, using Omar as what Kerstein calls the thin end of the wedge. He notes that a congressional resolution to condemn Omar was significantly watered down, and she has since survived election challenges β outcomes he says Sanders’s defense helped make easier.
Tone-Deaf Damage Control
Kerstein also examines Sanders’s later attempt at damage control, published in the magazine Jewish Currents, in which the senator wrote that “opposing antisemitism is a core value of progressivism” and warned that “accusations of antisemitism” were being “used as a cynical political weapon against progressives.”
Kerstein dismisses that framing, arguing that many Jewish progressives had themselves criticized Omar and her defenders, and that Sanders’s attempt to tie the criticism of Omar to former President Donald Trump was a deflection. He also takes issue with Sanders’s statement that “it is not antisemitic to criticize the policies of the Israeli government,” writing that the issue was never criticism of Israel in general but the specific antisemitic manner in which Israel and its supporters were being attacked.
Perhaps most striking, in Kerstein’s account, is Sanders’s claim that “the forces fomenting antisemitism are the forces arrayed against oppressed people around the world, including Palestinians,” and that “the struggle against antisemitism is also the struggle for Palestinian freedom.” Kerstein characterizes this as a redefinition of antisemitism away from its targets and toward a political cause.
A Broader Argument
The excerpt published by the Daily Wire is a fragment of a larger argument in the book. Kerstein positions Sanders not as an outlier but as an emblem of a much older internal Jewish conflict β one he says has reemerged with force since October 7 and now plays out inside the Democratic Party, on college campuses, and in the broader American left.
Sanders’s office has not responded publicly to the book’s claims as described in the excerpt. The senator has repeatedly rejected accusations that his criticism of Israeli government policy crosses into antisemitism, and he has framed his position as consistent with a long tradition of Jewish advocacy for justice and human rights.
Whatever the outcome of that dispute, Kerstein’s book adds a pointed voice to a debate that has divided American Jewish communities since the October 7 attacks β one that turns on a question the book poses directly: who gets to speak for Jews, and on whose behalf.
Source: www.dailywire.com β https://www.dailywire.com/news/bernie-sanders-and-the-rise-of-the-jews-of-privilege