The changing prejudice Jews face in America

(JNS) - To paraphrase a French maxim: "The more things stay the same ... the worse they get."

At least, as far as antisemitism is concerned.

This thought came to me early one recent morning, while I was channel switching my TV at home. I came across a broadcast of "Gentleman's Agreement," the ground-breaking 1947 movie, starring Gregory Peck, about discrimination against Jews in post-World War II, post-Holocaust, supposedly enlightened American society.

The film, in which Peck portrayed Philip Schuyler Green, a non-Jewish magazine journalist who posed as a Jew to investigate the extent of antisemitism in the country (the film also features several other sub-plots about Jews and bigotry), was ground-breaking because most of Hollywood's major movie studios, under Jewish control, were afraid to touch the topic.

It took Darryl Zanuck, the Protestant co-founder of 20th Century Fox (the only non-Jew who headed a major studio), to adapt Laura Z. Hobson's best-selling novel of the same name into a movie. In fact, he overcame the objections of several Jewish studio heads to touching that third rail of a movie theme.

Novelist Hobson-nee Laura Zametkin, hence the "Z" in her new name, which she had taken on to conceal her Jewish identity from antisemites in the United States and to further her career-wrote her exposé about antisemitism despite a publisher's suggestion that a Jew was not the proper person to write about it. Her novel showed antisemitism in this country without the venom. "Hobson managed to expose American antisemitism without alienating American readers who were riding a postwar wave of pride-in-country," Rachel Gordan wrote in Moment magazine.

The success of the book made it a natural source for a Hollywood movie. Zanuck agreed to bankroll its production because of a personal experience; he once had been rejected from joining a Los Angeles country club because of the mistaken belief that he was Jewish.

His decision was vindicated. Among several "problem pictures" made by Hollywood after World War II (including Edward Dmytryk's "Crossfire," also about antisemitism), "Gentleman's Agreement" was one of the top-grossing films of 1947, receiving largely favorable reviews. A "brilliant blow against racial and religious intolerance," wrote the New York Herald Tribune.

"Gentleman's Agreement" won three Academy Awards, including for Best Picture. More significantly, the production was a success in another way. At a time when films starring top movie stars played a role in shaping public opinion in this country, it opened the eyes of American culture to the problem of "restricted" hotels, resorts, private schools and YMCAs that-under the guise of catering to an exclusive gentile clientele-excluded Jews.

"Christians Only." "Gentiles Only!" In other words, no Jews. And, usually, no blacks either, even if they professed Christianity. The message was clear: You're not our type!

As "Gentleman's Agreement" showed, Green's money wasn't green enough for bigots.

Gentlemen? The allusion in the title of the novel and the film was to the understood-at-the-powerful-levels-of-Protestant-society that members of the Mosaic race were to be kept at a distance that did not threaten WASPish hegemony or "character."

How has the situation, as the French saying goes, changed?

Antisemitism is no longer restricted to hushed, euphemistic terms. Now it's out in the open, sort of. Now, people who hate Jews do it under the guise of anti-Zionism. But we know better.

What was politely called "country club" antisemitism in the early-to-mid 20th century, until that designation (and open expression) fell out of fashion (until Israel's triumph in the 1967 Six-Day War allowed unfettered verbal attacks on Jews), has given way, since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to unapologetic antisemitism.

At the beginning of the film, Green was naively surprised by the widespread undercurrent of Jew-hatred in the United States, particularly at the elite level of society where he concentrated his reporting.

As is often the case in cinematic presentation of social issues, antisemitism was presented through the eyes of a non-Jew; a Jew encountering rank bias would probably be too stark and less interesting for many people in a movie theater.

In the first half of the 20th century, quotas kept Jews-deserving Jews-out of many leading universities in the United States. As the admissions barriers fell, they attended these schools in disproportionate numbers. And they did not fear physical attacks. After Oct. 7, as the anti-Israel fervor increased on many campuses, the safety of Jews (unless they clearly identified themselves as "anti-Zionist" ones) decreased. Identified Jews were harassed in the classroom, library, streets, subways and on walks across campus. The "Goldene Medina" became tarnished.

Green wouldn't need to ask where he was welcome. The Jew-haters would let him know; today, they have no shame.

Who would be naive enough today to be surprised by the growing level of antisemitism in the United States?

Despite the public signs that in Green's time indicated that Jews need not apply/enter/enroll/etc., antisemitism was a relatively quiet, non-violent, "genteel" phenomenon, evident to affected members of the Jewish community but not always to the general population.

Now the superficially "polite," non-violent veneer has been removed, as witnessed by the physical attacks on Jews since Oct. 7. A few days after "Gentleman's Agreement" aired on TV in New York City, the ramming of a car into an entrance of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement's world headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. And, after during the same week, a rabbi walking to a Holocaust Commemoration ceremony in Queens' Forest Hills neighborhoods was assaulted by a man shouting "f**k Jews" and "Death to Israel!"

In short, what would Green find today? He probably would file a discouraging report: His type of investigative journalism about the omnipresence would not be required today-hatred of Jews not in the shadows and something to be denied, but now right out there in the open.

The antisemitism that was largely a matter of prejudice on the right has been co-opted, to a disturbing degree, by the left.

The covert has become overt. The fringe has gone mainstream. Antisemites no longer whisper; they shout.

FBI and ADL data show a rise in disproportionate numbers of antisemitic incidents.

The sympathy for the victims of the Holocaust has been turned into an ideological weapon used against the supporters of the Jewish state.

A reservoir of goodwill towards the Jewish minority in this country-the majority of which are active or tacit supporters of Israel-has to a large extent ebbed away.

On the plus side, the strain of "wink-wink" antisemitism that had the imprimatur of governments and laws that sanctioned discriminatory covenants is illegal, banned by legislation-at the local, state and federal levels-designed to outlaw outright anti-Jewish actions.

Bottom line: The more that the threat of antisemitism has remained, the worse it has become. Social media has made the malady easier to spread.

If Green were reporting today, he would find that he had the law on his side. But legislation cannot eliminate hatred. If he were to write the same sort of undercover story today, few people would be surprised by the results; antisemitism is daily headline news.

How Jewish was Philip Green? His clean-shaven appearance did not identify him as an Orthodox Jew. He did not identify himself as a Zionist. Only his DNA, which he asserted, and his Jewish-sounding name, which he did not change, made him Jewish. Which was Jewish enough at the time for antisemites to consider him inferior and keep him away, subject to prejudice.

Has that changed in 2026? The Jewish college students who are not willing to disassociate themselves from the Jewish community or to deny their identity since the atrocities of Oct. 7 can answer that question.

The strain of antisemitism depicted in "Gentleman's Agreement" reflected a veneer of well-mannered respectability. The hotel manager who let Green know that he-meaning, his type of clientele-was unwelcome couched his bias in terms of not offending the hotel's tony, largely WASPish guest base. "We won't attack you but know 'your place' in 'our' society," was the undertone.

That was the predominant type of bias Jews in America faced seven decades ago. And which Hobson wrote about and which Gregory Peck portrayed on the silver screen.

And which has changed, for the worse.

The extent of antisemitism in the wake of Oct. 7 is the subject of several recent documentaries affecting U.S. Jewry directly (among them, "October 8: The Fight for the Soul of America," "Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations," "October 8," "Blind Spot" and "The Encampments"), rather than dramatic movies. Reality has enough drama.

"Gentleman's Agreement" serves as a reminder of the continuity of antisemitism; nearly eight decades after it was released, it was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress' United States National Film Registry.

Today, the antisemitism we face is real. So is the fear.