With the recent explosion of antisemitism worldwide, some in the US have been speaking of a “Golden Age” of American Jewry that supposedly lasted from the end of World War II until the ’60s or ’70s (though I would have said the ’90s).

In her new book Antisemitism, an American Tradition, author Pamela S. Nadell shows that despite increased acceptance of Jews in some ways during that period, antisemitism never truly stopped.

Chapter 6 of her book is in fact entitled “No Age is Golden.” If you studied Jewish history, did you ever hear about the Golden Age of Spain, that long-gone medieval period when Jews and Muslims lived in harmony—and a creative flowering of poetry, prose, astronomy, and mathematics all came together in a heady stew of human flourishing?

Not exactly. That age may have been golden in terms of the intellectual life, but not otherwise. Says Nadell:

Those looking nostalgically back to a golden age of Jews in Islam skipped over the persecutions that had forced Maimonides to flee his birthplace of Cordoba and wander across Spain and North Africa for more than a decade before making his way to Cairo. Maimonides remembered that injury, writing of “the troubles of the time” that had forced him into “exile” and “burdened” his heart.¹

When we come to the 20th century, though antisemitic acts in America did decrease in the so-called “Golden Age,” American Jews still saw antisemitism as a serious problem. Nadell surmises this could have been due to the growing place of the Holocaust in American Jewish memory or the attention being paid to the plight of Soviet Jewry. Maybe it was the breakdown of the Black-Jewish alliance during the fight for civil rights and the growth of anti-Zionism in some segments of the Black community.

The point is that we all look back longingly and wistfully to an imagined time when “things were better.” That time could be medieval Spain. Or, closer to home, it could be the post-World War II decades when quotas on Jewish college admissions and Jewish employment fell away; when many colleges were safe havens for Jewish students instead of places of intimidation; when Jews flocked to the suburbs, built Conservative Jewish congregations, and led relatively placid lives.

Perhaps the Golden Age par excellence is found at the beginning of the Bible in the book of Genesis. That would be the Golden Age not just of American Jewry but of humanity. There, back in the Garden of Eden, life was good, harmonious, and fulfilling. Until the famous moment when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit—tradition tells us it was an apple, but the biblical text never says—and the Golden Age ended. It reminds me of how the twelfth century brought an end to Spain’s golden era, and how 1970, roughly, ended America’s Jewish Golden Age.

Then there is the optimistic start of King Solomon’s reign over Israel: he was granted wisdom from God, he achieved great wealth, and he built the Jerusalem Temple. Was this a golden age for the nation? If it was, it didn’t last long. Solomon’s own story ended with his marriages to foreign wives who led him into idolatry. His failures and those of the many following kings intensified the hope for a Messiah, a son of David who would usher in a permanent golden era.

And that’s what we find in the New Testament, which also ends with a golden age, and this time one that lasts. And one not just for the Jews, but for all the nations of the world. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

To some, that is another variant on nostalgia—just a future, utopian one. To others, it is a divine promise from God that one day things will, in fact, be different.

Living in the here and now of the twenty-first century, we know that we need to be vigilant and fight against the antisemitism that never seems to go away. Yet we can also rely on God’s promise that the nations of the world “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4). It’s no coincidence that Jesus is called “Prince of Peace,” the one who will be instrumental in bringing about this final Golden Age.

Billy Joel once sang, “The good old days weren’t all that good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”² Maybe he was onto something.

Endnotes

[1] Pamela S. Nadell, Antisemitism, an American Tradition (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2025), 211, Kindle.

[2] “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” Wikipedia, accessed November 18, 2025.