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THE NEW DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM IS TRANSFORMING AMERICA – AND
SERVING A CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST PLAN  
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Itamar Mann and Lihi Yona
March 23, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Redefining antisemitism in the law was never about Jewish safety.
It is about consolidating authoritarian power under the veneer of
minority protection. _

U.S. and Israel flag, (illustration credit: The Guardian),

 

In 1919, Jacob Israël de Haan, an Orthodox Jewish queer poet and
lawyer, arrived in British Mandate Palestine from the Netherlands.
Despite his initial sympathies with Zionism, within a few years de
Haan would become an outspoken critic of the movement. Driven by what
he called a “natural feeling for justice”, he advocated for
“another Jewish community in Palestine” – one that sought
cooperation with the Arab-Palestinian community. His steadfast
opposition to mainstream Zionism made de Haan a controversial figure,
drawing the ire of Zionist leadership. On 30 June 1924, de Haan was
assassinated by a member of the Zionist organization Haganah.

This political assassination represented not merely the elimination of
one man, but a portentous statement about which perspectives would be
tolerated in the emerging political landscape. A century later, we are
witnessing a similar troubling pattern. As attacks against
universities and intimidation of Palestinian activists become ever
more rife, those who challenge Zionist orthodoxy – whether out of
political conviction, religious belief or ethical principle – face
exclusion, vilification and worse. This time, the main tool is a
sweeping legal redefinition of antisemitism in American law and
policy.

Something unprecedented – and deeply unsettling – is unfolding:
under the guise of a legal redefinition of antisemitism, the basic
architecture of American public life is being radically transformed.
What appears, at first glance, to be a technical change in terminology
has become a powerful instrument for political control, solidifying
executive power to enforce a narrow, state-sanctioned definition
of Judaism [[link removed]]. In the name
of combating antisemitism, this effort threatens to reshape American
public life – and with it, the pillars of American liberalism. But
despite what some will have you believe, two things are clear: first,
this campaign does not protect Jews – it endangers them; and second,
this redefinition plays into a larger Christian nationalist project.

The clash over the definition of antisemitism

Following the horrendous Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, and the
subsequent war and utter destruction of Gaza, two sharply contrasting
positions have emerged. On the one hand, many Jewish organizations and
advocates have seen the emerging pro-Palestinian protest movement as a
manifestation of antisemitism, a classic example of the
over-scrutinization of Israel
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Israel’s right to defend itself.

On the other hand, many critics of Israel and of Zionism argue against
this conflation and in favor of their right to support the Palestinian
struggle. For them, labeling anti-Israel positions as antisemitic is a
way to silence dissenting opinions and to prevent an honest discussion
of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Even before this clash entered the mainstream in the last year and a
half, American decision-makers and institutions had already taken a
clear side, framing anti-Israel positions as antisemitic. A landmark
moment in the emergence of this new understanding of antisemitism is
no doubt the 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)
definition of antisemitism, which has rapidly become a legal benchmark
for defining antisemitism in the US and has a growing presence in both
state and federal law.  

The redefinition of antisemitism isn’t simply a policy shift –
it’s part of a deeper transformation of American democracy

While the core definition makes no explicit mention of Israel, the
examples of purported antisemitism that IHRA provides tell a different
story. Among the illustrative cases, it notes that antisemitism
“might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a
Jewish collectivity”. Other examples include “claiming that the
existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor”, and
“[d]rawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the
Nazis”.

Back in his first term, Donald Trump
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executive order directing federal agencies to consider the IHRA
definition when enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which
prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs, cementing this
problematic standard. It has been formally adopted in multiple federal
and state statutes, in which it is used to equate criticism of Israel
or Zionism with antisemitism. These laws have been applied in a range
of legal and policy contexts – restricting free speech, shaping
civil rights protections and even influencing the classification of
hate crimes in state criminal codes.

Trump’s January 2025 executive order on “Additional Measures to
Combat Antisemitism” marks a dangerous escalation in this trend. The
order directs multiple federal agencies to “prosecute, remove, or
otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic
harassment and violence”.

Just days after the order, the administration slashed $400m in
federal research funding from Columbia University
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what it claimed was a systemic tolerance of antisemitic activity and
demanded changes to the school’s policies – a move widely seen as
retaliation for pro-Palestinian campus activism, to which Columbia
has consented
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an extraordinary surrender of its academic freedom. Similar threats
have followed against numerous additional universities. In a recent
chilling development, the Department of Homeland Security
arrested Mahmoud Khalil
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a Palestinian permanent resident and student organizer whom the
government is now seeking to deport, with more arrests promised.
(Indeed, they
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begun.) The redefinition of antisemitism isn’t simply a policy shift
– it’s part of a deeper transformation of American democracy.

We have never been secular

No doubt, proponents of the IHRA definition raise an important point.
To understand why, we need to recognize something distinctive about
Jewish identity: it has always been deeply political. Unlike modern
Christianity, which developed alongside a strong liberal separation of
church and state, Judaism has never drawn such a sharp line. Jewish
identity has long resisted the tidy categories that liberal theory
prefers – religious or secular, ethnic or political, private or
public. From biblical times through the diaspora and into modernity,
Jewish communities understood religious life not just as a set of
spiritual beliefs but as the foundation of a political community.
Jewish religious leadership traditionally held legal and political
authority – issuing binding rulings on property, taxation, even
criminal law. This isn’t a historical anomaly – it’s a defining
feature of Jewish tradition. Zionism, despite the secular aspirations
of many of its founders, built on this legacy by channeling the
political dimension of Jewish identity into the framework of a modern
nation-state.
 
Guardian image
Accordingly, for many Jews, Israel is a crucial element of their
Jewish identity. As Noah Feldman writes in To Be a Jew Today, for many
American Jews, “Israel can function as the chosen focal point of
their Jewish identity and connection. Caring about and supporting
Israel can be constitutive of what makes them actively Jewish.” An
attack on that element, a denial of its legitimacy, feels to many like
an attack on who they are as Jews.

But this does not necessarily cast anti-Israel opinions as
antisemitic. When we criticize something important to someone’s
identity, it doesn’t automatically mean we’re attacking their
identity itself. When political positions become enshrined as
essential components of personhood, substantive disagreements risk
being recast as attacks on identity. The result, as the scholar
Richard Ford once put it, is the potential to “camouflage”
ideological conflict as discrimination.

Take male circumcision – a ritual at the heart of Jewish tradition
practiced by most Jewish families worldwide. When medical experts or
rights advocates question circumcision based on concerns about bodily
autonomy or health risks, most people understand they aren’t being
antisemitic. No matter where they stand on circumcision, they
recognize critics may be raising ethical questions that exist
independently of Jewish identity. This same logic must apply to
Israel. Criticizing Israeli policies may, for instance, reflect
genuine concerns about human rights rather than prejudice against
Jews, even as the criticism is directed at a defining feature of their
Jewishness.

The labeling of criticism against Israel as antisemitism has already
worked to quash serious discussions on Israel-Palestine in the United
States. Even Kenneth Stern, who drafted the original working
definition, argued in an opinion piece
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the Guardian that the IHRA definition has been weaponized against
legitimate political expression.

Silencing dissent

Federal measures such as Trump’s 2019 executive order have fueled a
wave of investigations by the Department of Education into
universities over pro-Palestinian activism, pressuring administrators
to police student speech. At NYU, political statements such as “Fuck
Israel” have led to antisemitism charges against students. At
Columbia, students faced disciplinary charges for acts as simple as
hanging Palestinian flags from dorm windows or displaying them on
campus statues, underscoring the growing constraints on
Palestine-related activism in academic spaces. Relatedly, recently New
York’s governor ordered Hunter College to remove a job posting for a
Palestinian studies position, claiming the need to “ensure that
antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom”. This
interference with academic hiring marks a dangerous precedent.

The pressure from federal and state authorities has led universities
to internalize this surveillance logic. Last week, Columbia University
unveiled an expansive compliance plan in response to the
administration’s $400m funding cut, pledging stricter enforcement of
student discipline, new security forces empowered to arrest
demonstrators, mandatory identification checks at protests and a
top-down review of academic programs, including scrutiny of hiring
decisions and curricula. These measures reflect not only institutional
capitulation, but the chilling normalization of ideological policing
on campus.  

The new definition of antisemitism imposes a straitjacket of Zionist
identity on American Jews

A similar pattern extends to Congress, where lawmakers such as Rashida
Tlaib have been formally censured with another censure effort against
Ilhan Omar introduced over statements critical of Israel, in effect
framing Palestinian advocacy as beyond the bounds of legitimate
discourse. Meanwhile, many individuals have lost jobs, been denied
opportunities, or faced disciplinary measures for expressing
pro-Palestinian views or criticizing Israeli policy. This dynamic
narrows the space for legitimate discussion on US foreign policy and
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The charge of antisemitism shifts
the focus from Israel’s actions to the credibility of its critics.
While combating antisemitism is imperative, the sweeping application
of this label to pro-Palestinian voices endangers dissenting voices
and erodes free expression, making open debate on one of the world’s
most enduring conflicts increasingly difficult.
Guardian image
But that’s not the only problem with the new definition of
antisemitism. By legally enshrining support for Israel as a defining
characteristic of Jewish identity, the new definition of antisemitism
imposes a straitjacket of Zionist identity on American Jews, in effect
telling them that certain political positions are incompatible with
being authentically Jewish. But, precisely _because _Jewish identity
has always also been political, we should not be delegitimizing those
whose Jewish identity entails a criticism or even outright rejection
of ethno-national Judaism.

The historical diversity of Jewish identity

Jewish communities have always been diverse and plural in their
orientations toward Jewish nationality. From the ultra-Orthodox Satmar
community that opposes Zionism on religious grounds to the socialist
Jewish Bund that promoted cultural autonomy without a state, to
current-day Jewish American organizations that oppose Israel’s
occupation and military control over Palestinians, anti-Zionist and
non-Zionist movements have always been central to Jewish identity.

Many anti-Zionist Jews aren’t rejecting Jewish political life or
denying Jews the right to self-determination. Rather, they’re
expressing different visions of Jewish political existence and
self-determination. Some of them view opposition to the state of
Israel as emerging from Jewish values and traditions – whether
stemming from religious beliefs about exile and redemption, or
interpretations of Jewish ethical traditions that emphasize universal
justice and opposition to oppression.

In his recent book The No State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto, the
religion scholar Daniel Boyarin reflects on how he moved from Zionism
into anti-Zionism, with “my commitment to Jewish identity and
identification, Torah study, scholarship, practice, literature and
liturgy, and modes of speech and thinking undiminished, even growing
stronger and stronger”. Criticism of Israel can stem from deep
Jewish religious commitment.

The real question, then, isn’t what the proper connection between
Israel and Jewish identity is, but rather how to allow for multiple,
sometimes competing interpretations of this relationship. By
bootstrapping the definition of antisemitism to Israel, IHRA narrows
the boundaries of legitimate Jewish identity. While Palestinians have
been, without a doubt, the primary targets of this effort, it also
takes aim at a rich Jewish tradition. It restricts the freedom of Jews
to define their own identity, limiting the ways in which Jewish
beliefs, thought and activism can be expressed.

And indeed, on college campuses and in workplaces, Jews who express
solidarity with Palestinians report being called “self-hating
Jews”, “un-Jews” or “traitors” by fellow students or
colleagues. In fact, just this month, Trump – our self-appointed
arbiter of religious authenticity – announced that the Senate
minority leader, Chuck Schumer, is “not Jewish anymore”.

Defining antisemitism in the service of conservative Christians

Smearing progressive Jews as “not real Jews” has ramifications
that extend far beyond the Jewish community, serving a conservative
Christian strategy to exploit religious liberties for the sake of
suppressing progressive values.

In recent years the US supreme court has taken a sharp turn towards
conservative Christianity, altering the basic liberal structure of
American constitutionalism. The court has upheld religious claims
challenging pandemic restrictions on gatherings and vaccination
requirements, LGBTQ+ non-discrimination laws, and the separation of
church and state in public education.

This strengthens conservative Christian influence by transforming
political views into constitutional protections – for example, when
the supreme court ruled the constitution allowed a Catholic foster
care agency to exclude same-sex couples on religious grounds. However,
as David Schraub, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, has pointed
out, this strategy faces a significant obstacle: progressive Jews.
Progressive Jews, and any other group whose religious commitments
might be threatened by conservative policies, could leverage the
expansion of precisely these religious protections to opt out of
conservative policy initiatives.  

This farcical performance of concern would merely be amusing were it
not for the very real possibility that it serves as a prelude for
persecution

Progressive Jewish communities have already begun to challenge
conservative policy agendas on religious freedom grounds – most
notably around reproductive rights. In the wake of the Dobbs decision
overturning Roe v Wade and the wave of state-level abortion bans that
followed, Jewish women, congregations and community leaders have filed
lawsuits asserting that such bans violate their religious freedom. In
some cases, plaintiffs have argued that Jewish law not only permits
but may even require abortion under certain circumstances. While many
of these cases are still pending, in a landmark ruling in April 2024,
the Indiana court of appeals recognized, for the first time, the
legitimacy of such claims.

One way conservatives can eliminate this risk to their project is by
questioning liberal Jews’ Jewishness. “If liberal Jews can be
erased – either pushed out of the public eye or denied as genuine or
authentic specimens of Judaism – then the challenge of liberal Jews
disappears with it,” Schraub explains.

This isn’t just a theoretical concern – it’s already happening.
Project Esther, a new initiative launched by the Christian nationalist
Heritage Foundation known for Project 2025, offers a blueprint for
combating antisemitism that targets not only pro-Palestinian groups
but what it calls a broader “coalition of leftist, progressive
organizations” – including Jewish groups – through tools such as
anti-terrorism prosecutions, deportations, public firings, and efforts
to “disrupt and degrade” dissenting movements. Despite its use of
Jewish religious language, the plan has virtually no Jewish authors
and is riddled with basic errors
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including misrepresentations of Jewish texts. It chastises American
Jews who don’t align with its worldview, calling them
“complacent” and their positions “inexplicable”.

This farcical performance of concern would merely be amusing were it
not for the very real possibility that it serves as a prelude for
persecution.

Reclaiming Jewish religious freedom from the state

The increasingly aggressive use of “antisemitism” as a political
instrument was never about Jewish safety
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It has always been about power: consolidating a political order that
merges religion, nationalism and authoritarianism under the veneer of
minority protection.

The ease with which progressive Jews have been thrown under the bus
makes this painfully clear. Their erasure is not a side effect – it
is the mechanism through which this agenda advances. Because once
Jewish identity is defined from above – even with the active
participation of some Jews – any Jew who resists can be disqualified
and delegitimized. This was true for de Haan, and it is true today.

The threat is immediate and ongoing. Already, whole sectors of society
– educators, students, artists, political activists and immigrants
– are paying the price. And if this continues, we can expect the
same logic to be applied across a wider range of policies: tightening
ideological control, redefining constitutional norms and
re-engineering public institutions in the image of an authoritarian
state.

But there is another path. The unique position of progressive Jews
offers a way to push back against the rise of the far right in the US,
both with regard to Israel-Palestine, but also more broadly.
Recognizing the unique harm caused to Jews by the new definition of
antisemitism allows us to develop new ways to combat it.

The establishment clause of the US constitution, for instance,
prohibits the state from intervening in religious disputes. By
adopting the IHRA definition into law, the US government has in effect
taken sides in an intra-Jewish debate, recruiting Zionist Jews to side
in a war against its ideological opponents. The redefinition of
antisemitism is therefore not only an attack on political dissent –
it is an intrusion into Jewish religious life. By codifying support
for Israel as a requirement for being Jewish, these laws function as a
state intervention in an ongoing Jewish theological and ethical
debate.

By pushing against the legal redefinition of antisemitism, Jews can
refuse to surrender their identity to the state. By continuing to
anchor it firmly in their communities, they can resist the
instrumentalization of Judaism against others.

Reclaiming religious freedom from the state, as part of this act of
resistance, would not just protect Jewish dissenters – it would
offer a broader framework for resisting state attempts to control
religious identity. No government – not the Israeli government, and
surely not the American government – should have the power to define
what it means to be a Jew.

_[ITAMAR MANN is an associate professor of law at the University of
Haifa, and currently a Humboldt fellow at Humboldt University. He
holds a doctorate from Yale Law School._

_LIHI YONA is an associate professor of law and criminology at the
University of Haifa. She holds a doctorate from Columbia Law School.
Her research focuses on antidiscrimination law in the United States
and Israel.]_

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