Last week, the House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act. But American Jews who care about fighting antisemitism should be against it.
HR 6090, the Antisemitism Awareness Act, passed 320–91. Seventy Democrats and 21 Republicans voted against it (including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who noted that she was against antisemitism but wanted to protect her Christian right to say that Jews killed Jesus). The legislation would see the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.
There are some who have long opposed codifying this particular definition because it comes with troublesome examples, most of which have to do with Israel. These include things like “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,” “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,” and “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” Under this definition, then, Masha Gessen’s New Yorker essay on Holocaust memory and Israeli policy in Gaza would be considered antisemitic under the law. Gessen is a Jewish descendant of Holocaust survivors and victims.
There are many, including Zionist Jews, who have long warned that the IHRA standards could be used to chill pro-Palestinian speech. After the House passed the bill, Americans for Peace Now CEO Hadar Susskind warned in a statement:
Antisemitism is the hatred of Jews. Unfortunately, one doesn’t need to look far to find it these days. But the supporters of this bill are looking in the wrong places. They aren’t interested in protecting Jews. They are interested in supporting right-wing views and narratives on Israel and shutting down legitimate questions and criticisms by crying “antisemite” at everyone, including Jews, who oppose the Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Smotrich government.
Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York also opposed the bill:
I will take lectures from no one about the need for vigorous efforts to fight antisemitism on campus or anywhere else. I am also a deeply committed Zionist. … But while this definition and its examples may have useful applications in certain contexts, by effectively codifying them into Title VI, this bill threatens to chill constitutionally protected speech. Speech that is critical of Israel—alone—does not constitute unlawful discrimination. By encompassing purely political speech about Israel into Title VI’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.
I agree with all of this. I think a bill that effectively restricts speech on the country’s foreign policy has no business being passed in the United States. This bill would be a problem if it only restricted Palestinian Americans from describing their families’ histories or present realities. That codifying this definition in a bill fighting antisemitism would also deem many Jews antisemitic—including the quarter of American Jews who in 2021 said Israel is an apartheid state—undercuts its stated reason for being.
But I also think you do not have to disagree with the IHRA—you can, in fact, feel that this definition is a sound one—to believe that this law is a mistake. All you have to do is remember that, as a minority in the United States, American Jews have been as safe and secure as we are because of liberalism, pluralism, and civil rights.
American Jews take pride in American Jewish participation in the Civil Rights Movement, and for good reason. But it isn’t just that some American Jews have stood up for civil rights, though that is true. Protection of civil rights has also helped American Jews. When American Jews stood up for freedom of expression and the right to be full political participants, they were also standing up for their own rights. In 1963, speaking before the March on Washington, Rabbi Joachim Prinz said, “America must not become a nation of onlookers. America must not remain silent. Not merely Black America, but all of America. It must speak up and act … not for the sake of the Black community but for the sake of the image, the idea, and the aspiration of America itself.”
He might have added “for the sake of every minority community.” Freedom of religion and the right to express that religion in public by, say, freely speaking out against prayer in schools has long protected Jewish equality in American life. The same goes for the freedom to protest American domestic or foreign policy—against, for example, the Vietnam War (as many American Jews did). These fundamental rights are a large part of why American Jews are free to participate in public life as both Americans and Jews.
So, this debate is about not just one piece of legislation or even freedom of speech. It extends to First Amendment rights more generally. A recent YouGov poll found that 59 percent of American Jews believe that colleges have not been harsh enough in their responses to pro-Palestinian, anti-war protests. Many may have thus been heartened to see police break up the protests. I can understand that some American Jews dislike the protests, filled as they are with calls of “From the river to the sea” and “intifada revolution,” which many American Jews hear as cries to violently get rid of Jews, even as most of those chanting insist that that’s not what they mean. Many Jews may think the protests are singling out Israel in a world full of atrocities, or that the protesters are failing to mention Oct. 7 and the hostages.
But even those who cannot admit that the students have been moved to protest by months of war and tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, including thousands of children, should remember that come January, it is entirely possible that the U.S. president will once again be Donald Trump. And when that happens, all of these rights may soon be tested not only on the issue of U.S. support for Israel in this war but in every facet of American life.
Under a second Trump administration, many Jews will want to protest its actions—not only the plight of Gaza’s civilians and of the Israeli hostages—and this law will endanger the right to do that. Trump has, for example, said that he would let states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who have abortions. American Jews overwhelmingly support the right to an abortion, which was, for many American Jews, a top electoral issue two years ago. (Some have even argued in court that protecting abortion rights is required by Jewish law.) But agitating against state policy on abortion and for abortion rights has historically involved protests—and will surely continue to do so. Sometimes that protest involves being places you have been asked to leave. Given the timing, it is difficult not to see the Antisemitism Awareness Act as at least in part a justification for police crackdowns on protest. Establishing a precedent for more violent crackdowns mere months before the arrival of an administration that will push policies opposed by most American Jews seems, at best, shortsighted.
But this isn’t about just the constitutional right to protest. It’s also about American Jewish autonomy. Indeed, there is another, self-serving reason for American Jews to oppose the government’s defining antisemitism or passing legislation that could be used to restrict speech around American policy: Stopping this bill from becoming law will protect the right of American Jews to define for themselves what it means to be American Jews in a pluralistic country.
Trump has repeatedly said that he feels that Jews who did not vote for him are disloyal and need to be spoken to, and he dined with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier. But even generously leaving that aside for a moment: Trump’s allies are, per Politico, planning “to infuse Christian nationalist ideas in his administration should the former president return to power.” They have listed Christian nationalism—the idea that, despite this country’s separation of church and state, Christianity should be prioritized through the government and in the public sphere—as a priority for his second term. This effort is reportedly being overseen by Russell Vought, Trump’s former Office of Management and Budget director, who is close to Trump administration official William Wolfe, “who has advocated for overturning same-sex marriage, ending abortion and reducing access to contraceptives.” (It is perhaps worth noting here that the current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, believes that separation of church and state is a “misnomer” and has ties to explicitly Christian nationalist groups.)
These are the people who could soon be back in power. There are already many American Jews who oppose the new proposed legislation because we believe in freedom of speech and because we know that imposing a definition on a particular type of hatred and combating that hatred are two different things. But for others, perhaps it is worth remembering that the people who will be in power come January may well care more about policing speech around the Jewish state than they do about the Jews who live here, in this country.
Biden, in his speech at the Capitol for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance on Tuesday, said, “On college campuses, Jewish students blocked, harassed, attacked while walking to class. Antisemitism, antisemitic posters, slogans, calling for the annihilation of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state.” He also said, “From the very founding, our very founding, Jewish Americans represented only about 2 percent of the U.S. population and helped lead the cause of freedom for everyone in our nation. From that experience, we know scapegoating and demonizing any minority is a threat to every minority and the very foundation of our democracy.”
Threats to minorities and the foundation of democracy can come in many forms. The Antisemitism Awareness Act imposes a definition of antisemitism. Actual awareness of antisemitism, on the other hand, means holding on to the civil liberties that have helped us fight antisemitism in this country—not hampering them.
