How antisemitism is being politicized in Washington

At a time when Jewish people in the United States are facing “the worst crisis of antisemitism in a generation,” according to the ADL, congressional Republicans are speaking out and advancing new legislation on the issue.

They’ve focused on anti-Jewish bias in the wake of pro-Palestinian campus protests, and have chosen to take up the cause of Jewish students who they said are being victimized by encampments at a hearing Thursday convened by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, aimed at “stopping antisemitic college chaos.”

But as committee members grilled three university presidents about how they addressed allegations of harm from Jewish students and faculty, some Democrats and left-leaning academics criticized Republicans for hypocrisy and for using the hearings as an opportunity to continue their attack on what they see as higher education’s “woke agenda.”

U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, (D., Oregon), referenced a video posted to former President Donald Trump’s social media account that included the phrase “unified Reich” headlining a hypothetical news story that might be written if he wins a return to the White House in November.

“Did any of my colleagues call that out?” she asked. “It baffles me that some people are opposed to antisemitism when it’s politically convenient, instead of wherever it rears its ugly head.”

The hearing was “grandstanding, and not about keeping Jews safe,” Lila Berman, a Temple University historian who teaches a course on antisemitism and runs the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, said in an interview. “Meanwhile, on the right, white nationalists tap into Nazi ideas.”

Here’s what to know about how antisemitism is being fought — and politicized — in Washington, D.C.

On May 1, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted 320 to 91 to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which codifies an expanded definition of antisemitism and delineates how the federal government should combat it. The legislation would allow the Department of Education to enforce antidiscrimination laws and deny universities funding because of antisemitism as it defines the term. The measure is a response from lawmakers to pro-Palestinian student protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

The bill, now in the Senate, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal statute that bars discrimination based on shared ancestry, ethnic characteristics, or national origin.

It defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews” and gives examples of the definition’s application, which includes “accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagine wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group” and making dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective.”

The bill also expands the definition to include language that critics — including the ACLU and Jewish lawmakers such as U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) — say could restrict free speech by conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Those portions of the bill describe antisemitism as “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” and claiming that Israel’s existence is a “racist endeavor.”

“If you are protesting,” Sanders said, “or disagree with what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his extremist government are doing in Gaza, you are an antisemite.”

Republicans such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she opposed the bill because it would, in essence, “outlaw” part of the Bible: It “could convict Christians of antisemitism for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews.”

When the campus protests started, Republicans rallied to condemn students constructing encampments, and took up the cause of their Jewish counterparts who had experienced bias and physical danger.

“Antisemitism is a virus,” House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said at a news conference in April. “And because the administration and woke university presidents aren’t stepping in, we’re seeing it spread. We have to act …”

Speaking at the protests at Columbia University the same week, he said, erroneously, that Hamas “backed” the protesters in a CNN interview.

That same kind of misinformation appeared to permeate the hearing on Thursday. As they took turns to speak, various Republican lawmakers described protesters, without evidence or explanation, as: “a left-wing mob,” “goons,” “anti-American,” and “pro-Hamas students.”

Republican committee chair Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, who opened the proceedings with an excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises — described by a UCLA English professor as containing “one of the most notorious antisemitic caricatures in American literature” — addressed university encampments as “pro-terror protests.”

At one point, Republican Pennsylvania Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R., Lancaster) criticized Rutgers University president Jonathan Holloway for “negotiating with a mob” on his campus.

“I wasn’t negotiating with a mob,” Holloway said. “I was talking to students.”

While Oregon’s Bonamici referenced the video posted to Trump’s social media account that included the phrase “unified Reich,” others called back to the controversies of the last Trump presidency.

At one point in the contentious three-hour-plus hearing, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Washington), who chairs the House progressive caucus, said that many Republicans “didn’t say a word when Trump and others in Charlottesville and other places were saying truly antisemitic things.”

Trump said there were “good people on both sides” when white supremacists marched through the University of Virginia campus on Aug. 11, 2017, bearing torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us.”