Portside

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.

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After a federal government career as a senior executive and attorney, Michael Felsen is currently a worker protection advocate, consultant, and an opinion writer.