If you are concerned about Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s sweeping, illiberal agenda for a second Trump administration, then you need to take a hard look at Project Esther, its manual for combating antisemitism.
Project Esther proposes a public-private plan for dismantling any domestic group that supports Palestinian rights — which they call the “Hamas Support Network.” The plan’s first targets are pro-Palestinian organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. But that’s just the start.
Project Esther has its sights on what it describes as a much broader “coalition of leftist, progressive organizations such as Open Society Foundations, Tides Foundation and numerous others.” It calls for using tools including anti-terrorism and anti-racketeering criminal prosecution; deportations; public firings; removal of tax-exempt status; blocking of funding; and campaigns to sow discord within movements to “disrupt and degrade” these organizations.
This plan against antisemitism has virtually no Jewish authors, as is evident from interviews with the Heritage Foundation, the plan’s use of uncommon phrases like “Reformed Judaism,” and its erroneous references to Jewish text. (Its first sentence incorrectly locates the Book of Esther in the Torah).
The writers chastise American Jews for not aligning with their views of antisemitism, or agreeing with their proposals for its solution, calling Jews “complacent” and our positions “inexplicable.” A leader on the Heritage Foundation’s antisemitism task force claimed in an interview that if Jewish organizations “were doing their job and they were being effective, we wouldn’t have the problem that we have.”
Project Esther has nothing to say about any of the explicitly antisemitic hate groups aligned with the far right. Ditto for one of the core drivers of antisemitic violence in the United States: conspiracy theories regularly promoted by figures within President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, Trump’s friends like Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson, and Trump himself.
No, its sole target is pro-Palestinian organizations, which it accuses of being not just “anti-Israel” but “antisemitic and anti-American.” The plan further claims that any organization working against “capitalism” is also aligned with “America’s overseas enemies” and should be a target. The opportunities for guilt by association are endless, and ultimately reveal the authors’ true McCarthyist intentions: dismantling any domestic organizing they deem “anti-American” under the guise of fighting “threats to Jewish safety.” Project Esther demonstrates that the right no longer needs any semblance of meaningful Jewish involvement or care for Jewish well-being to advance and expand their campaign.
It’s worth noting that some of the proposals put forward by Project Esther reflect policies that members of Congress have tried to advance under the Biden administration in small but meaningful ways, in large part due to the efforts of congressional Republicans. Since Oct. 7, Palestinians, anti-war activists, and progressive groups and funders in the U.S. have experienced unprecedented levels of harassment and repression, often under the cover of fighting antisemitism. Republicans have tried to chill First Amendment rights, under the misleading banner of protecting Jews, by submitting requests of the Treasury Department, conducting aggressive committee hearings and proposing numerous bills in attempts to repress political organization by groups and institutions they disagree with.
So far, congressional Democrats have blocked the most extreme of these efforts. But doing so will become much harder under a Trump administration, with Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress.
So American Jews must start now calling out Project Esther for what it is: a far-right, McCarthyist attack on our democratic norms and values. It will be increasingly critical for American Jews to say unequivocally that we will not be made safer by the erosion of American democracy through Project Esther, or any related efforts that wear away at constitutional rights in the name of our community’s safety.
The high levels of security and freedom that Jews have experienced in the U.S. are due to our constitutional democracy and protections for minorities. Supporting the unraveling of those protections in the supposed name of our safety would amount to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Under efforts like those proposed by Project Esther, there would be immense potential for abuse against free speech, the media, political organization, and political opponents across the spectrum. These are the kind of authoritarian conditions that we saw under McCarthyism, and that would threaten Jewish safety in this country.
The majority of American Jews, who voted against the return of MAGA, must be clear-eyed: We cannot effectively resist Project 2025 while acceding to Project Esther, which exhibits all the ominous excesses of Project 2025, for its supposed benefits to the Jewish community — whom Project Esther’s (non-Jewish) authors blame for the current state of affairs vis-a-vis antisemitism.
Resistance will demand that we defend the groups that are singled out for political prosecution in Project Esther, including Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. This is a new political moment. If we participate in the dismantling of our democracy, and accept the degradation of equality under the law because first on the chopping block are those we disagree with, we will threaten our own future. The American Jewish community, and all those concerned about democracy, must defend the fundamental rights of free speech and dissent. In order to effectively resist authoritarianism, our political alignments must be broad enough to include those with whom we might disagree about other things, and principled enough to understand who our bigger opponents are.
Dove Kent has two decades of experience in grassroots organizing, political education, and movement building. She teaches internationally on antisemitism.
