I am cross-posting a recent op-ed in the Jewish Journal (Los Angeles) by Kenneth Marcus, the chairman of the Louis D Brandeis Center and formerly the head of the Office of Civil Rights of the US Department of Education. The Brandeis Center is a leading organization dedicated chiefly to combating anti-Semitism including within our universities.
In the below op-ed, Marcus asks whether President Joe Biden will meaningfully follow through on his recent pledge to combat anti-Semitism. Aside from words, Biden needs to follow through with action. Marcus argues that would mean codifying the inclusion of Jews under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Acts Act as a protected ethno-religious group. It would also include official recognition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism-as specifically opposed to the Jerusalem Definition, crafted by critics of Israel. The chief difference between the above two definitions arises when it comes to Israel. Under the IHRA definition, while criticism of Israel's policies per se does not constitute anti-Semitism, certain attacks against Israel would. For example, comparing Israelis to Nazis would be defined as anti-Semitic. In addition, assigning blame to Jews worldwide for the alleged faults of Israel, singling out Israel for alleged human rights abuses not applied to other democratic countries, denying the Jewish people a homeland, or accusing Jews living outside of Israel of having dual loyalties are considered forms of anti-Semitism. The Jerusalem Definition largely seeks to remove many of the above examples from their accepted definition. Links to both definitions are in the op-ed below.
Obviously, I concur with Mr. Marcus' statements. I also applaud him for pointing out the deficiencies in the recently-released FBI study that vastly understated hate crimes against Jews. Coming at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise, this error is inexcusable.
The importance of the Israel issue in any working definition of anti-Semitism is not to stamp out any criticism of Israel as being anti-Semitic in itself. The IHRA definition addresses that point. But as I have argued many times before, the focal point for the resurgence in anti-Semitism in the US has been on our university campuses, and that is a direct result of the pro-Palestinian movement in our universities, a movement that has made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a hot button issue on campuses across North America. That has now metastasized from the campuses to the community at large. The result is that Jews in large cities like New York and Los Angeles are being physically accosted on our streets. What we have witnessed in the past few years is a marriage between the pro-Palestinian movement and the far-left. In the process, many of the old tropes against Jews, like being in control of American institutions, have been dusted off.
As a further illustration, in the years I spent monitoring the anti-Israel movement on the UC Irvine campus, where I was teaching at the time, I heard many invited speakers cross the line from criticizing the policies of Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians into outright screeds against the Jewish people. Amir Abdel Malik Ali, Abdul Alim Musa, Hatem Bazian, and Mohamed al-Asi come immediately to mind. In 2008, I personally saw and photographed this poster on the so-called "Apartheid Wall" set up by the Muslim Student Union in their annual May week of anti-Israel events. It was a caricature of Ariel Sharon drawn in the stereotypical manner popularized by Julius Streicher's Nazi weekly, Der Stuermer, in the 1930s and 1940s in Germany.
I commend Mr Marcus for reminding President Biden that he has spoken out against anti-Semitism and that now he has the opportunity to take specific actions to back up those words.
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