Just finished watching the Senate Committee hearing on antisemitism on campuses. https://www.senate.
Much was said by Republican Senators and the three witnesses they called about what they saw as effective actions taken by the Trump Administration regarding antisemitism. To put the Trump team into perspective, Senator Sanders (at the 1:08:09 point) asked all five of the witnesses if the image on the right in the above picture from the Trump campaign was antisemitic. They ALL agreed it was. (Note: The parallel image on the left, provided by the U.S. Holocaust Museum, was from Hungary in the time leading up to the Holocaust.) This recognition of the Trump team's embrace of antisemitic tropes was utterly ignored by the Republican senators on the Committee.
The testimony of Director-Emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism David Saperstein (beginning at Minute 47) and Director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate Kenneth Stern (beginning at 53:30) was excellent. They eloquently supported freedom of speech, explaining that that disagreement with the policies of the Israeli government was not itself antisemitism. It was noted that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism specifically admonished that it not be codified into law. Yet, that admonition is being disregarded by the current Administration and other proponents of the Antisemitism Awareness Act; that proposal not only would enshrine the IHRA definition in law, but would require its use to the exclusion of any other definition of antisemitism. And Mr. Stern -- who was a principal author of the IHRA definition -- also referred to the definition’s misuse, as he has done for years.
In 2021, the Reform Movement recognized the danger that the IHRA definition could be used to shut down free speech. Sadly, these dangers are now being realized. See, for example, this 2022 discussion of a dispute over the definition in Montgomery County MD, citing Mr. Stern’s concerns and describing a dispute over the definition in Montgomery County MD. This dispute resulted in a County Council resolution using the definition – but only with the sorts of caveats many of us in Montgomery County sought. See here. It is this misuse of the IHRA definition by President Trump and others which have caused so much angst recently.
One of the excellent points that came out of the discussion was the disconnect between slashing federal offices charged with enforcing antidiscrimination laws while at the same time insisting that enforcement of charges of antisemitism increase. The Administration plan is clear: Limit investigations to antisemitism and thereby divide the Jewish community from all the other progressive groups whose constituencies will be ignored. This is a divide and conquer strategy. We should vigorously call it out for what it is.
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