Fall 2025 on the NYC Runway: The ‘Care for Jews’ Capsule

From the President’s Desk
The Anti-Semite Corner of the Week

All the right words plus a label you’re not meant to read

By: Anat Vidor, WIZO President

New York’s main runway just unveiled Fall 2025’s must-have: the “We’ll protect the Jews” coat. On the hanger it looks reassuring tailored, modern, even compassionate. But turn the garment inside-out and the lining tells a different story: an anti-Zionist weave, neat BDS stitching, and a care label that reads: Jewish identity yes; Zionism ,preferably off-label.

You don’t need to shout to understand what changed. The city has elevated a leader whose public record has been consistently framed as anti-Zionist, who has backed boycotts of Israel, and who has, at key moral junctures, declined to draw a clear line against extremism aimed at Israelis. In some cases, even remembrance, the kind that should unite democrats of any stripe was treated as optional. And yet the winning message sounds so gentle: “We will look after the Jews.” That isn’t a contradiction; that’s the plot.

Why the shock in Israel? Not only because it’s New York ,a city where Jews were once about a quarter of the population and are now a much smaller share but because this feels like a national beta test. What takes off on the Manhattan runway rarely stays on the rack. If anti-Zionism is the new ticket to power in America’s cultural capital, expect the look to spread.

“But he promised to fight antisemitism,” some say. Indeed and history is littered with elegant assurances to “protect the Jews,” usually with a footnote about which Jews qualify. You don’t need melodrama to be wary; memory suffices.

Vichy’s “order” became registries and Vel d’Hiv; Stalin’s “anti-antisemitism” birthed the anti-cosmopolitan purges and the Doctors’ Plot; Italy’s 1938 “national character” meant jobs and rights stripped; Britain’s 1939 White Paper “balance” shut the door on refugees; U.S. elite “harmony” quotas capped Jewish admissions; Horthy’s “restraint” ended in 1944 trains to Auschwitz. Same promise, same footnote.

There is organization behind the aesthetic. A disciplined movement proudly progressive, loudly anti-Zionist has been designing the pattern for years. It isn’t fringe; it’s a strategy. Not a secret; a program. The vocabulary is familiar: one state “from the river to the sea,” boycotts dressed up as ethics, and a steady campaign to turn Israelis into default defendants in the court of public life.

Then comes the part that really stings: a sizable slice of Jewish voters signed the receipt. Not out of amnesia about antisemitism, but out of everyday arithmetic: rent, subways, safety, schools. A promise to freeze housing costs and run the trains on time can feel more tangible than an atlas. That’s the quiet genius of the new politics: offer a cheaper tomorrow, ask for a smaller identity.

What happens next? Remember the beta test. A mayor doesn’t set foreign policy, but New York is a microphone with its own foreign reach. Language here becomes norms in media, academia, philanthropy. And norms migrate.

Yes, the other camp will clap. Some will point and say, “See? That’s where the party is heading.” But the real question is for American Jews themselves: can a community entrust its civic safety to leaders who ask for a signed waiver on Zionism wrapped, of course, in the gentlest possible concern?

So what do we offer New York’s Jews right now? Not panic and not denial clarity. A Jewish-Zionist presence that is unafraid and unprovocative; a civic demand for equal protection without footnotes; coalitions with other minorities built on rights, not on self-erasure. As for neighbors who voted the other way they’re not enemies. They’re partners in a hard conversation. Let’s meet again in a year and see whether “We’ll protect the Jews” was a hug or a bear hug