Jews Cannot Stay Silent in the Face of Islamophobia

“Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” A young white man, "Tommy," asked Dr. Abdul El-Sayed this at a campaign event in Michigan. El-Sayed’s answer was a question of his own: “Why are you asking that question? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?”

Though Tommy asserts he’s asking because he hasn’t heard Dr. El-Sayed disavow this terrorist group, Dr. El-Sayed knew—as did a whole lot of folks in that room with them—that the real reason Tommy was asking is because Dr. El-Sayed is Muslim.

It has since been revealed that “Tommy” is Thomas Teepell, and not only is he a former employee of a far-right Republican senator who openly identifies as a Christian nationalist, and is himself directly connected to a white Christian nationalist group, but both he and his father are Republican strategists. And that actually matters, because this wasn’t just some misguided citizen asking his possible future senator a question; this was a political operative deploying anti-Muslim bigotry as a strategy to win an election.

Jews should be on the front lines of pushing back on Islamophobia when we encounter it, and feel both an empathy and a personal stake in the safety of our neighbors.

As a Jewish leader, that chills me to my bones, because it is the other side of the coin of the intentional strategy to appropriate and twist Jewish fear of antisemitism in order to win elections and divide communities. President Donald Trump’s administration is going on tour in battleground states talking about fighting antisemitism, while on that same tour they are using supposed concerns about antisemitism as a smokescreen to justify their dangerous immigration policies in ways that meaningfully threaten Jewish safety.

The right’s antisemitism and Islamophobia come from the same ideology: white Christian nationalism. In this ideology, both Jews and Muslims are the “other,” the threats to society and a way of life. This ideology holds Jews responsible for the “great replacement” of white people with immigrants, Muslims, and other people of color and uses antisemitism to deflect blame for the failures of those in power, to remove fundamental freedoms, and to weaken democracy. It is a certain brand of Christianity that seeks to supersede the Constitution, while wrongly accusing religious minorities of holding dual loyalty to their texts and teachings.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are intertwined in the white Christian nationalist ideology, and Jews and Muslims must be intertwined in our collective fight for our safety. That means Jews should be on the front lines of pushing back on Islamophobia when we encounter it, and feel both an empathy and a personal stake in the safety of our neighbors.

Tommy is unfortunately the avatar for far too many people. It is incumbent upon each of us to fight the dangerous conflation of the beliefs and actions of everyday American Muslims with those of terrorist organizations. As Jews, we can certainly understand that danger when far too many people regularly conflate us with the beliefs and actions of the Israeli government.

The Islamophobic rhetoric being levied against Dr. El-Sayed—or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani or Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for that matter—threatens Jewish safety, and threatens our neighbors with a precarity we know far too well. Our community must reject it.

Even more importantly, we must see Tommy for what he truly is—a cog in a political machine that weaponizes our fear and thrives on our division. We must dismantle that machine by fighting antisemitism and Islamophobia together and making bigotry a losing strategy. This November, let’s elect leaders who will work for our collective safety, rather than for our division.