On Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee took up a bill on antisemitism with a remarkable last-minute amendment from committee Chair Bill Cassidy of Louisiana: protection for the right to say that Jews killed Jesus.
That bill — the Antisemitism Awareness Act — would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism as the sole definition to be used by the Department of Education when investigating allegations of antisemitic discrimination.
Trump is weaponizing, distorting, and exploiting the reality of antisemitism to attack academic freedom.”
Since 2018, the Education Department has used the IHRA’s definition — which the organization itself describes as “non-legally binding” — as a tool to think through thorny subjects around antisemitism. But elevating it to the only definition under the law, some critics (admittedly including me) warn, would lead to it being used to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism.Of the 11 examples of antisemitism the IHRA definition offers, six are about Israel. “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” reads one example. There are many Jews to whom that is indeed a deeply offensive statement. But let’s say a Jewish studies professor writes that she’s abandoning Zionism because she’s come to believe that its application in real life is effectively racist. Would that professor have broken the law, if the law of the land is IHRA? Is she an antisemite, making campus less safe for her students?
These warnings — that this definition, if made law, could be used to chill free speech and criticism of Israel — predate Trump’s second term. For the bill’s critics and even some former supporters, however, the warnings have taken on a new urgency given that the Trump administration is already detaining and attempting to deport student activists for their criticism of Israel. As Rep. Jamie Raskin, who voted for the bill last spring, put it Tuesday, “Trump is weaponizing, distorting, and exploiting the reality of antisemitism to attack academic freedom … the Senate should oppose Trump’s further transparent moves to undermine American democracy under the banner of opposing antisemitism.”
But when this legislation came before the House last spring, there was another line of criticism, too: Some of the 21 Republicans who voted against it, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, did so because one example from the IHRA says that it is antisemitic to accuse Jews of killing Jesus. The trope is widely considered antisemitic, but to these Republicans, not being able to say so infringed on their religious liberty. Which brings us to Cassidy’s “manager’s amendment,” introduced the day before the committee meeting. The bill’s original text, as introduced by Sen. Tim Scott earlier this year, said, “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” At the end of that sentence, Cassidy’s amendment added, “including the free exercise of religion.” As the Forward noted, the “language on religious liberty could reassure Republicans that their rights as Christians won’t be violated and potentially secure their votes.”
The legislation fits perfectly with the Trump administration’s broader approach to fighting antisemitism.
Though Wednesday’s markup failed and the committee adjourned without voting on the bill, Cassidy’s amendment, at time of this writing, remains in the text. This language gives the game away.I think it’s obviously antisemitic to say that Jews killed Jesus (at the risk of being anti-Roman, that was on them). I also, however, understand that Christians are within their constitutionally protected rights to say so.
Likewise, I’m sure there are many who felt that a 2024 essay from historian and Israel Defense Forces veteran Omer Bartov outlining how his research of Nazi Germany informed his concerns about Israel, was antisemitic. Indeed, that article would likely have been in breach of the IHRA’s definition, which includes the example of “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” That does not mean it should be illegal.
The Cassidy carve-out, however, corrected for only one of the two. In doing so, it revealed that this legislation, if passed, would not be used to tackle antisemitism across the political spectrum, but would focus specifically on the political left and criticism of Israel.
In this way, the legislation fits perfectly with the Trump administration’s broader approach to fighting antisemitism, including its attempted deportations of students it deems terrorist sympathizers. That approach, many have observed, seems to be following Project Esther, a blueprint published last fall by the rightwing Heritage Foundation. As the Forward reported when Project Esther was unveiled, the blueprint was written largely without input from Jewish groups and focused solely on antisemitism from the political left (including Jewish Voice for Peace) and in fact accused American Jews of “complacency.”To put it another way: A plan to fight antisemitism grounded in reality and an actual desire to protect Jewish safety would protect the pluralistic liberalism that has allowed American Jews to thrive in this country. It would recognize that antisemitism can be found along and across the political spectrum. And it would acknowledge that rising Christian nationalism is a particular threat to our ability to participate fully in society as Americans and as Jews. On the other hand, a plan to fight antisemitism that is actually about boosting Christian nationalism while chilling speech around Israel would look a lot like what the Trump administration is doing, bolstered by legislation that renders free speech illegal — unless it’s to say that Jews killed Jesus.