The recent mass murder at a Pittsburgh synagogue makes us realize that even in the most enlightened societies, there are anti-Semites.  They just keep quiet.  They only show their true nature when society sends them signals encouraging Jew hatred.  Have our leaders shown Jew hatred?  Let us examine our presidents.

President Trump is no anti-Semite.  He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  It became the capital in 1980, but the six US Presidents who could have recognized Jerusalem declined.  I will give some of them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they were cowards, not evil.  Relative to them, Trump is heroic for his support of Israel.

President Obama seemed to have animosity for Israel.  In his first presidential Middle East trip, he carefully avoided visiting that country.  He infamously walked out of White House negotiations with Prime Minister Netanyahu because it was dinner time.  Did it ever occur to Obama that sharing a dinner is a great way to loosen up a negotiating rival?

Obama also sent our tax money to an Israeli group to campaign against Netanyahu's re-election.  This means that Obama did what Russia and Trump were accused of doing.  These actions do not prove anti-Semitism, but they send the message that showing contempt for the world's only Jewish country is fashionable.

President Clinton gets points for cheating on his wife with a Jew named Monica Lewinsky, but that is as positive as he gets regarding anti-Semitism.  He also tried to help Netanyahu's opponent, Shimon Peres, win the election for Israeli Prime Minister because he saw Peres as more likely to negotiate with Yasser Arafat than Netanyahu was.  Clinton cared more about brokering a deal for his legacy than about Israeli security.  To be fair, Clinton does not hate Jews.  He merely cares about himself to the exclusion of everyone else.

President Carter showed his anti-Semitism with his book:  "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."  Apartheid is the word that was used to describe South Africa's rampant discrimination against its blacks.  By using that word, Carter implied that the Israelis are doing something just as evil to the Palestinians.

President Franklin Roosevelt was fully aware of Nazi Germany's methodical extermination of the Jews, known today as the Holocaust.  He could have ordered bombing raids for the railroads leading to the death camps and saved millions of lives.  His advisors, including his wife, tried to talk him into this.  Roosevelt was quite content to let the Jews die.

In most of the above examples, I use animosity toward Israel as examples of anti-Semitism.  Many Jews, notably Theodor Herzl, have long believed that a Jewish state is the best way to keep anti-Semites in the closet.  The desire for a Jewish state is called Zionism.  It reached a tipping point with the Holocaust.  This led to the formation of Israel in 1948.  Those who are against Jews probably realize that Israel's existence restricts anti-Semitic behavior.  In 2015, Pope Francis said as much.  Acts of violence against Jews are called pogroms and the Pittsburgh massacre is an example of one.  Israel keeps the problem from getting worse.

It is impossible to convert all anti-Semites.  The best that we can do is to keep them silent.  We do this by supporting leaders who believe in freedom for all, like Trump.  We must also identify those who are against Israel, whether it be out of hate or mere demagoguery.  They are the ones who feed anti-Semitism.