A recent opinion piece by New York Times columnist Masha Gessen has generated debate by suggesting that two recent terror attacks—one targeting Israeli embassy staff in Washington, D.C., and another aimed at a Jewish group in Boulder, Colorado—should be viewed as politically motivated rather than anti-Semitic acts, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Gessen’s column contends that “violence that looks antisemitic may—even when it very effectively serves to scare a great many Jews—be something else,” and argues these incidents were driven by the political context of the ongoing war in Gaza. According to Gessen, neither attack was exclusive to Jewish gatherings such as synagogue services, but both were “inextricable” from the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The columnist notes that while the Boulder attack was broad in scope, the Washington shooting was more narrowly targeted at representatives of the Israeli government.
However, both assailants specifically targeted events likely to be attended by Jews. In Washington, Elias Rodriguez shot and killed two people outside the Capital Jewish Museum while shouting “Free, free Palestine” upon arrest. In Boulder, Mohamed Soliman threw Molotov cocktails at a group supporting Israeli hostages held by Hamas, injuring 15 people, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, and was reportedly heard yelling “end Zionists.”
According to the Free Beacon, “Gessen pointed out that Rodriguez didn’t mention ‘Jews’ or ‘Zionists’ in his 900-page manifesto, opening ‘the possibility that he had a different motive.’”
The attacks have unsettled Jewish communities nationwide, however. In Boulder, local Jews rallied after the firebombing but expressed fear and unease in the aftermath. Meanwhile, anti-Semitic incidents have surged across the United States, with the Anti-Defamation League reporting over 10,000 incidents in the year following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel—a more than 200% increase, according to the Free Beacon.
Gessen’s argument stands in contrast to the New York Times editorial board’s own recent statement that “no political arguments or ideological context can justify” rising bigotry against Jews, and that anti-Semitism has become an urgent problem, with Jewish Americans at higher risk of hate crimes than any other group.
Gessen also references a debate over the term anti-Semitism. According to the Free Beacon, “Gessen’s arguments were part of a broader piece, ‘The Attacks on Zohran Mamdani Show That We Need a New Understanding of Antisemitism,’ which asserted that New York City’s presumptive Democratic mayoral nominee has faced false accusations of anti-Semitism. Ahead of his primary win, Mamdani defended the phrase ‘globalize the intifada,’ a popular chant at anti-Israel protests that calls for violence against Jews worldwide.”
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance defines anti-Semitism as “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
A New York Times spokesperson defended Gessen’s column as part of the paper’s commitment to presenting diverse perspectives, emphasizing that the opinion section is designed to foster understanding of multiple viewpoints.
