Can the Biden Administration Define Anti-Semitism? The federal government should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition, which includes attacks on Jewish identity. By Alvin Rosenfeld and Leslie Lenkowsky
The Biden administration announced in mid-December the creation of an interagency working group to develop “a national strategy to combat antisemitism.” This effort, which will span both domestic and foreign policy, is overdue. Anti-Semitism has been on the rise globally since the turn of the century, and the U.S. isn’t immune to the harm it causes. To succeed, however, the working group must first answer a basic question: What is anti-Semitism?
One answer is affirmed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a group of 35 countries (including the U.S.). The IHRA defines the term as “rhetorical and physical manifestations” of hatred toward Jews. Defacing synagogues and cemeteries, harassing people wearing Jewish religious symbols and, at the extreme, assaulting or murdering people because they are Jewish are examples. These kinds of incidents have been rising in the U.S. and elsewhere.
But another expression of anti-Semitism has recently grown more common, especially in higher education and parts of popular culture. It takes forms such as Holocaust denial or minimization, comparing Israeli policies to those of the Nazis, and denying the Jewish people “their right to self-determination” by claiming that Israel is a “racist endeavor.” According to the Amcha Initiative, a nonprofit focusing on campus hostilities, these kinds of attacks on “Jewish identity” occurred during the 2021-22 academic year at 60% of schools with large populations of Jewish students.
The IHRA’s definition, which includes both types of anti-Semitism. is widely endorsed by governments and numerous private organizations. But it isn’t legally binding. Even so, in 2019 the Trump administration issued an executive order aimed at extending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cover discrimination “rooted in anti-Semitism.” It called on federal agencies to “consider” using IHRA’s definition while keeping in mind the First Amendment’s protection of speech. The State Department has also been using the IHRA’s definition in reporting on anti-Semitic activities throughout the world.
But an executive order can easily be undone. With the stroke of a pen, a future president can modify it to use a narrower definition of anti-Semitism or revoke it. Against the evidence, critics of the IHRA definition routinely charge that it proscribes legitimate criticisms of Israel. Its defenders respond that such charges are spurious and delegitimize the right of Jews to live in their own state.
That is why the first question Mr. Biden’s working group should answer is whether it supports the IHRA definition. With clear guidance about what anti-Semitism means, federal agencies, as well as other jurisdictions and organizations such as colleges and universities, would then know what they should be looking out for. The public would also have a better understanding of how, when and where anti-Semitism is arising.
The Biden administration has already shown some receptivity toward the IHRA definition. Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s special envoy on anti-Semitism, affirmed in her confirmation hearings that the IHRA definition is a “useful” tool for distinguishing between legitimate criticism and anti-Semitism. Last spring the White House Office of Management and Budget announced that the Education Department planned to issue a regulation incorporating Mr. Trump’s executive order, but the department has twice delayed doing so.
The interagency working group gives the Biden administration a new opportunity to move forward with the IHRA definition and make it a much-needed and more effective tool in the long fight against anti-Semitism.
Mr. Rosenfeld is director of Indiana University’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. Mr. Lenkowsky is an emeritus professor at IU.
Comments are closed.
