FUTURE OF JEWISH
Blue-square politics will not save Jewish children.
Leo Pearlman
February 9, 2026

On Sunday night, during the Super Bowl, one of the largest shared cultural moments on the planet, an advert about antisemitism reached tens of millions of homes. Funded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, it set out to “stand up to Jewish hate.” That really matters…Worse still, the advert’s internal message to Jews is profoundly troubling. We are shown an all-too-familiar caricature, a scrawny, bookish Jewish boy, the eternal Eastern European stereotype, being bullied in a school hallway. He is “saved” by an athletic Black teenager, who covers the hate message with a blue square sticky note. They hug, they walk off together into the light, problem solved. The message is unmistakable: The weak Jew is rescued by the strong non-Jew. Allyship arrives just in time, intersectional harmony prevails, the blue square to the rescue. Except this has never been the Jewish experience. Not historically, not now, and certainly not since October 7, 2023. READ MORE

YOUTUBE View the Sticky Note Advert

EJEWISH PHILANTHROPY Amid criticism, Kraft’s anti-hate group defends Super Bowl ad against antisemitism The head of the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate emphasized the ad was intended to persuade all Americans — not just Jews — and ADL survey research proved its effectiveness. A chorus of commentators criticized the advertisement, which is part of a $15 million media campaign that will also include ad spots during the Winter Olympics, for depicting Jews as victims in need of protection from non-Jews and for avoiding the reality that the source of many antisemitic incidents in schools stem from hostility toward or hatred of Israel. 

JNS American Jewish Committee’s annual “State of Antisemitism” There is a substantial gap between the ways that American Jews and the general U.S. public perceive the threat of anti-Jewish bigotry, according to the American Jewish Committee’s new annual poll on the state of antisemitism in America. The survey, released on Tuesday, found that nearly half of American Jews believe that antisemitism is a “very serious problem,” compared to only 28% of the general public. Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee, told JNS that “America needs to wake up to the reality of what their Jewish neighbors are experiencing.”