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HOW NOT TO RUN AN ANTISEMITISM COMMISSION  
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Michael Felsen
May 19, 2025
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_ Hatred of Jews because they are Jews is anathema wherever it rears
its ugly head, it should be called out. But anti-Israel statements
should not presumptively be equated with antisemitism, nor pro-
Israeli statements imply an absence of antisemitism _

President Trump at the Israeli American Council National Summit last
week in Hollywood, Fla., T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

 

In Massachusetts, where I live, a Special Commission on Combatting
Antisemitism, established as part of the state's 2025 budget, held its
first meeting a few days before Donald Trump was elected President.
The Commission's charge is ambitious. It includes "recommending
strategies, programs and legislation to combat antisemitism in the
commonwealth," along with making "recommendations for the
implementation of the United States national strategy to counter
antisemitism."

The Commission's aspirations to recommend state and national policy
are admirable, but with Donald Trump in the White House, are they even
relevant anymore? On January 29, 2025 Trump issued his executive order
on Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism, followed shortly
thereafter by the establishment of a multi-agency Task Force to Combat
Anti-Semitism. Next came headline-grabbing assaults on universities
Trump claims haven't done enough to protect Jewish students, and on
visa -holding students like Columbia's Mahmoud Kahlil and Tufts'
Rumeysa Ozturk who've been public with their pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Trump is seemingly determined to suck all the oxygen from the
combatting-antisemitism space.

But if the Massachusetts Commission, and others like it, sit back
quietly and cede to the administration's Task Force the framing of,
and solution to, the very real problem of increases in antisemitic
incidents in this country, it will do so at the peril not only of
Jews, but of all of Americans. Which is why antisemitism commissions,
I submit, should consider the following approach:

WE SHOULD EXPLICITLY CALL OUT THE ADMINISTRATION'S WEAPONIZATION OF
ANTISEMITISM

The Trump administration has cynically weaponized antisemitism. The
President's claim that he's cracking down on antisemitism to protect
Jews -- by cutting off universities' federal funding, including for
needed scientific and medical research, and deporting students whose
only crime is that they engaged in First Amendment-protected speech
– is patently disingenuous, as Wesleyan University president Michael
Roth cogently argues. Jews don't benefit when they're deemed the cause
of these catastrophic actions, whose actual purpose (see Project 2025
in general and Project Esther in particular) is to pry universities
away from their indispensable role as promoters of free speech,
critical thinking, and liberal ideals.

Antisemitism commissions should endorse the April 15 statement issued
by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and "a broad coalition
of mainstream Jewish organizations" and should expressly embrace its
words: "We reject any policies or actions that foment or take
advantage of antisemitism and pit communities against one another; and
we unequivocally condemn the exploitation of our community's real
concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms and rights,
including the rule of law, the right of due process, and/or the
freedoms of speech, press, and peaceful protest."

RECOGNIZE THAT THE IHRA DEFINITION OF "ANTISEMITISM" IS FUNDAMENTALLY
FLAWED AND THAT MORE USEFUL ALTERNATIVES EXIST

Having a common understanding of what constitutes "antisemitism" is
foundational for a commission whose purpose is to combat it. The
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) "definition," with
its examples ("the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a
Jewish collectivity" or "claiming that the existence of a state of
Israel is a racist endeavor"), has clearly been a source of
controversy. More than five years ago, Kenneth Stern, one of its
drafters, decried its weaponization by the first Trump administration,
which used it as a means to suppress protected speech regarding Israel
that it found distasteful. During Trump 2.0, students like Rumeysa
Ozturk have more shockingly fallen victim to its application, for
using what should be protected speech in a jointly-authored op-ed
intended to hold Israel accountable for its "oppress[ion of] the
Palestinian people and den[ial of] their right to self-determination."

Stern's message, which he has since reiterated, dovetails with an
important recent critique by Israeli law professors Itamar Mann and
Lihi Yona, regarding application of the IHRA standard to Jews: "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." The result is to delegitimize the
ethnic/religious identity of Jews who, as a matter of ethical and/or
religious belief, express a view of Jewish political existence and
self-determination that's other than Zionist.

Commissions and task forces would do well to reject the IHRA standard
as its basis for determining what is and what isn't antisemitic. The
alternative approaches taken by the Jerusalem Declaration and the
Nexus Document provide far more useful guidance. These two documents
caution that when addressing antisemitism we need to focus on hatred
of Jews because they are Jews, and not on political views such as
whether one supports Palestinian rights or opposes Zionism.
Antisemitism Commissions should invite discussion by proponents of
these analytical tools, including members of the Concerned Jewish
Faculty and Staff -- along with IHRA advocates -- before they
determine which "definition," or guidance, best serves the cause of
combating Jew-hatred.

CONSIDER THAT THE ASSAULT ON GAZA IS A SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTING FACTOR
IN THE RISE OF ANTISEMITISM HERE AND ABROAD

The Israeli government's response to the horrendous events of October
7, 2023 needs to be recognized as contributing to the rise of
antisemitism since that date. Hamas' brutal killings and kidnappings,
awful as they were, are broadly viewed by the international community,
and under international law, as not justifying Israel's clearly
disproportionate retaliation and its horrific consequences.

The terrible, observable toll of Israel's assault on the Palestinian
people, and the infrastructure and cultural institutions in Gaza, feed
the perception that Israel is a powerful bully intent on subjugating,
and even destroying, an underdog. And since Israel is widely perceived
as either the Jewish state, or the state of the Jews, Jews
collectively, wherever they live, and however opposed they may be to
Israel's behavior, are viewed by many as perpetrators, or, at a
minimum, guilty by association. Indeed, and unfortunately, it
shouldn't be surprising that antisemitism among at least some
Americans has increased when our country has spent more than $20
billion in one year arming the "Jewish state," resulting in death and
serious injury to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians,
including primarily women and children.

In a similar but less extreme context, I wrote about this in the
Jerusalem Post several years ago, during an earlier, less cataclysmic
Gaza war.

Moreover, when scholars like the Israeli-born-and-raised Omer Bartov,
Dean's Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown
University, call Israel's assault on Gaza a "genocide," it would be
irresponsible for the Commission to fail to engage with his views on
the subject. Bartov should be invited as a member of a panel
addressing the impact of Israel's conduct on the proliferation of
antisemitism, along with other speakers who have both similar and
contrary views.

WHITE SUPREMACIST AND CHRISTIAN ZIONIST ANTISEMITISM MUST BE CLOSELY
EXAMINED

Hatred of Jews because they are Jews is anathema wherever it rears its
ugly head, and it should be called out. But, as noted above,
anti-Israel statements should not presumptively be equated with
antisemitism, nor should pro-Israel rhetoric automatically imply an
absence of antisemitism.

As reported in an influential 2021 study, "antisemitic attitudes are
rare on the ideological left but common on the ideological right." The
study notes that "it is clearly possible for one to support Israel
while also harboring anti-Semitic views, such as that Jews as a
collective seek to dominate institutions of finance, media, or
government. Pro-Israel attitudes on the right can even stem from
antisemitism: ...white nationalists may want Israel to thrive
precisely so that Jews will leave the United States and go there."

The JCPA's April 15 statement warns: "Dangerous antisemitic tropes and
conspiracy theories that over the past decade have already fueled a
cycle of hate crimes and violence — including the deadliest attack
on the Jewish community in U.S. history in Pittsburgh — have been
mainstreamed by too many political leaders, civil society influencers,
social media platforms, and others." Consider, among many examples,
Donald Trump's characterization of some of the Charlottesville
tiki-torch bearers as "very fine people", third-ranking House
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik's invocation of the "great replacement
theory," and Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salutes and cozying up to
Germany's far-right AfD party. These warning flags all need to be
taken seriously, and strategies should be developed to address them.
Likewise, there's ample reason to examine the pro-Zionist agenda of
the many millions who consider themselves Christian Zionists: what
explains their zealotry, and what are its implications for Jews
anywhere? Commissions should seek answers to these questions, as they
consider the effect on antisemitism of the aggressive and
annexationist behavior these allies of the Israeli government promote.

COMMISSIONS AND TASK FORCES SHOULD BROADEN THEIR SCOPE

Effective operation of the rule of law, and effective enforcement of
both federal and state civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination
against whoever is the target, are the best means for ensuring the
safety of all, including Jews. Antisemitism task forces that single
out hatred of Jews, when others suffer comparable attacks, don't
benefit Jews, but rather set them apart for special treatment.

Any such commission or task force would be markedly improved by
expanding its scope to study and combat not only the extent and causes
of antisemitism, but also of other forms of stereotyping and hatred,
and in particular hostility toward Muslims, which has similarly
increased since October 7 and its aftermath. The Commissions should
especially take a close look at recent studies that found far-right
online hate groups have been leveraging the current conflict as an
opportunity to spread both antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric, and
that the Americans most hostile to Jews also tend to be hostile to
Muslims.

These are compelling reasons to study, and combat, both forms of
hatred together, something I've written about, from a local
perspective. It's also worth noting that Harvard University, which has
forcefully said "no" to the invasive, overwrought demands of Trump's
antisemitism task force, wisely last year convened not only a Task
Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias but also one on
Combating Anti-Muslim, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Palestinian Bias. Reports
from these committees have just been released, and are illuminating.
State and local task forces would be wise to study the reports, and
even emulate that model.

CONCLUSION

Donald Trump's antisemitism task force is generating a great deal of
heat and very little, if any, light on this fraught subject. Its
sledgehammer approach is hardly designed to intelligently study the
causes and useful means to address anti-Jewish sentiment, and, in
fact, is far more likely to exacerbate hatred of Jews than to stanch
it. Which is why state and local commissions – like the one in
Massachusetts -- need to step up, and push back against the Trump
model. Instead, they should chart a course forward that targets
individuals or groups who express hatred of Jews or Muslims on account
of their being Jews or Muslims, and not on those who are moved to
voice a protected political or ideological belief. Failing that,
unfortunately, we can expect even less light and a lot more heat.

===

_After a federal government career as a senior executive and
attorney, MICHAEL FELSEN [[link removed]] is
currently a worker protection advocate, consultant, and an opinion
writer. _

* Anti-Semitism;
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