Addressing Gen Z Catholics and the New Jew-Hatred

By Peter Wolfgang ( bio - articles - email ) | May 15, 2026

Antisemitism, Jew-Hatred, and an animus that is not quite antisemitism or Jew-Hatred but is close enough to be mistaken for them, is on the rise among young people of many political and religious persuasions, including many young Catholics. Some of my favorite Boomer Catholics have risen to meet the challenge of setting the young ‘uns straight. Cardinal Dolan, Robby George and George Weigel have all penned articles in recent years responding to the rising tide of Gen Z Catholic hostility toward the Jewish people.

Maybe it’s a Gen X thing, having one foot in Boomer world and one in the world that comes after the Boomers. But much as I love Dolan, Weigel, George and others, they are not the best guys to respond to the New Jew-Hatred. The best guy is Gideon Lazar, a Gen Z Jewish convert to Catholicism. Because the New Jew-Hatred is not the Old Jew-Hatred and Gideon understands it way better than we do.

I came to this conclusion because of a recent incident with which Gideon and I were both involved. On April 22nd Benedictine College and the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism hosted the “Shoulder to Shoulder Conference: Strengthening Jewish-Catholic Friendship at a Moment of Crisis.” You can see the entire conference here. You can view the Gen Z panel, in which Gideon was one of the panelists and I was the moderator, here.

There was a generous amount of time for Q and A. Our panelists took some tough questions from the audience. The conference met its goal, meeting that “moment of crisis” mentioned in its title. Or so we thought. I’ll let Benedictine College describe what happened next:

In late April, Benedictine College was repeatedly leafletted with anonymous flyers from a group calling itself “Coalition of Catholics Against Jewish Supremacy.” The flyer claimed that one Benedictine College theologian spreads blasphemy, that those who attended [the conference] are “antichrists,” and suggested that Jewish people (including those in our community) are less than human.

The college is proud that our students took the initiative to remove these anonymous flyers from cars in campus parking lots, and we are also proud that our student groups were the first to respond to the attacks. For example, our student Latin Mass Society felt a responsibility to issue a statement declaring: “The Latin Mass Society expresses its disgust and utter disappointment at the content” of the flyer.

This is catnip to a few goofball would-be influencers on the Catholic internet who claim the students behind the anonymous memo have been suspended for just, you know, talking about Catholic stuff. Um, no. Benedictine College’s Latin Mass Society did not mince words about what that memo conveyed. In their response, they wrote: “Chiefly, we abhor the manifest hatred expressed toward the Jewish people.”

The infuriating thing about the students behind the memo is that we put the conference on precisely for people like them. During the Gen Z panel that I moderated, I teed up two questions for Gideon with precisely guys like them in mind. Beginning at about the 19:26 mark I asked Gideon to address Gen Z Catholics who see a disconnect between polite Boomer Catholic commentary on Catholic-Jewish relations and the Church’s more politically incorrect teachings on the topic. At the 36:10 mark I asked Gideon to address the differences between Protestant Zionism and the range of Catholic views on modern Israel.

The audience was given a generous amount of time for Q and A. A father and son from out of town did show up and asked some tough questions. But not the students behind that memo. Instead of being men, showing up, engaging us and asking us tough questions, these students stayed silent (if they were there at all) and then dropped their anonymous “Catholics Against Jewish Supremacy” memo all over campus. What awful, cowardly behavior. If it’s true that they have been suspended, the little creeps deserve it.

But not everyone who participated in the conference agrees with me on that. Which brings me back to Gideon Lazar. He could teach the “Catholics Against Jewish Supremacy” a thing or two about how to man up and engage. He can also show our more genteel elders how to address Gen Z Catholics who are troubled by discrepancies, or seeming discrepancies, between what the Church has historically taught about Jews and Judaism and what Boomers tell us the Church now teaches. The misbehavior of anonymous pamphleteers aside, these are legitimate questions being raised by the young that need to be addressed, not ignored or papered over. They are not, or not necessarily, motivated by animus against the Jewish people. But not answering those questions runs the risk of creating animus where it did not previously exist.

Gideon does answer those questions in a 3,400-word response to the “Catholics Against Jewish Supremacy.” Gideon’s response, which can be read here, is a model for all of us who engage these issues.