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May 4, 2025
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
1) Today, May 4, is 576 days since October 7, 2023. The Hamas-led attack on Simchat Torah resulted in 1,182 fatalities (including 44 Americans) and over 4,000 wounded. 251 hostages (210 alive, 41 dead bodies) were taken during a day of brutal savagery and sexual violence. It was the largest single massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, with more than one in every 10,000 Israelis killed, and the third overall deadliest terrorist attack in the world to date.
2) The 59 remaining hostages include five Americans. Edan Alexander is the only remaining American believed to be alive. Hamas holds the bodies of Omer Neutra, Itay Chen, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Gad Haggai. Releasing all the hostages might not be priorities for Trump and Netanyahu, but it's a top priority for us. We must continue to speak out.
3) Trump's first 100 days were not good for the Jews.
4) Trump uses antisemitism as a pretext to establish his "right" to deny due process at will and to wage war on universities.
5) Trump fired Doug Emhoff, Alan Solomont, and others from the United States Holocaust Museum Council. This is unprecedented.
6) Senate Republicans showed the Antisemitism Awareness Act for the sham that it is last week, and the bill did not advance out of committee.
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Hi Steve,
Trump has been threatening Hamas with "hell" for months if the hostages were not released, but the 59 hostages remain in brutal captivity, including five Americans. Trump is leaving Americans behind. Trump is leaving all of them behind.
According to hostage Itay Chen's father, releasing the hostages is not a priority for Netanyahu. Promises made, promises broken, on both sides of the Atlantic.
We are better than Trump and Netanyahu. Don't let anyone tell you that we don't have time to advocate for immediate release of the hostages and advocate for an immediate end to Trump's policy of deportation and imprisonment without due process. We can and must do both.
Trump's first 100 days: Not good for the Jews. Arno Rosenfeld wrote a special report that reminds us of Trump's pardons of antisemitic January 6 insurrectionists, Trump's "many appointees with ties to far-right and white supremacist groups," Trump's freezing all federal grants, including nonprofit security grants for Jewish institutions administered through FEMA, the Defense Intelligence Agency pausing the observance of Holocaust Days of Remembrance as part of Trump's anti-DEI campaign, and more.
JDCA has well-sourced summaries of Trump's record on Israel and antisemitism.
Trump is mainstreaming antisemitism, not fighting it. How can anyone believe that any of what Trump is doing is about protecting Jews? Michelle Goldberg writes that Trump and his allies have "mainstreamed antisemitism to an astonishing degree" and that it defies reason to believe that Trump will not turn on us when it suits him.
Two parents of students at Cornell and Columbia wrote last week that Trump's "actions do not protect Jews — they endanger the very freedoms and institutions that have made Jewish life in America possible."
Trump fired Doug Emhoff and others from the United States Holocaust Museum Council. Doug Emhoff said on Tuesday, "Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized. To turn one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue is dangerous — and it dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve."
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington said that the "sudden dismissal of trustees well before their terms expired — without any apparent cause and just days after Jewish people around the world commemorated Yom Hashoah — is an unwarranted intrusion into the museum’s operations, which by design and in practice are strictly nonpartisan."
JDCA CEO Halie Soifer termed the firings "unprecedented and reprehensible."
Ambassador (Ret.) Alan Solomont was among those fired. Solomont told me on Friday, "The Holocaust Memorial Museum Council is a bipartisan group made up of individuals appointed by presidents of both parties. The term of appointment is five years to assure a balance of Democrats and Republicans.
"We met in Washington, the week before last, to mark the Days of Remembrance when we recall the murder of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis. I was shocked when, a week later, I received a two-sentence email from the Office of Presidential Personnel, informing me that my 'position as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council is terminated effective immediately.'
"I was surprised that even Donald Trump could stoop so low, and engage in such pettiness, to fire nearly a dozen Council members who were appointed by President Joe Biden. It is profoundly appalling that the President of the United States would politicize an institution, created and supported by the federal government, to honor the victims of one of the worst atrocities in human history and to ensure they are never forgotten.
"It is doubly astounding that this would be done by a President at the same time that he claims to be fighting antisemitism, when in fact, he is using that fight as cover for an attack on free speech, higher education, and our very democracy.
"As we toured the Museum’s exhibits, during the Council meeting, I could not help but see the chilling parallels between the early days of Hitler’s rise to power and what we are witnessing in our country today. It was a sad and frightening realization."
A travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery. That's what Republicans revealed the Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA) to be last week. They started by placating Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
As Emily Temkin recounts, "On Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee took up [the AAA] with a remarkable last-minute amendment from committee Chair Bill Cassidy of Louisiana: protection for the right to say that Jews killed Jesus."
The AAA codifies the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Greene and other Republicans were offended by one of the IHRA definition's few examples of antisemitism unrelated to Israel: "Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis."
Accusing Jews of deicide is one of the oldest antisemitic tropes in the book. It has led to centuries of pogroms and massacres. But last year, Greene voted against the AAA because in her view, the bill rejects the “gospel” that “the Jews” handed Jesus over to his crucifiers.
So Republicans amended the bill to clarify that it would not infringe on religious liberty. In other words, if you think your religion condones antisemitic tropes, go for it! And antisemitism is okay--wait for it--if it falls under the First Amendment.
The irony is not only that antisemitic speech is already protected under the First Amendment, but that this amendment was unnecessary. The IHRA definition is, as David Schraub wrote, “vague to the point of incoherency, and riddled with so much imprecision and hedging that it could justify labeling anything or nothing anti-Semitic.”
The Republican amendment tells us how Republicans would use the AAA: not to fight antisemitism but to fight speech critical of Israel by using accusations of antisemitism to shut down the criticism.
The Senate committee approved the amendment on a party-line vote with all Republicans voting for and all Democrats voting against.
But haven't proponents of the AAA said that it's about fighting antisemitism, not shutting down criticism of Israel? They have! You've been paying attention. Now get this:
There were more amendments and more votes. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and sometimes Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voted with the Democrats to pass amendments making it clear that people can't be labeled antisemitic just for criticizing Netanyahu, opposing Israel's actions in Gaza, or talking about the humanitarian impact of Israel's actions.
The approved amendments protect students' rights to make and share materials on campus, hold protests (as long as they follow campus rules), and engage in speech that doesn't include real threats or trying to incite violence. They prohibit federal agencies from forcing schools to violate students', faculty's, or staff's free speech rights and prohibit the government from punishing people (including immigrants) at colleges just for exercising their free speech rights.
What's not to like if it's true that the AAA was not about stifling free speech or criticism of Israel? Apparently a lot, because after the committee approved those amendments, Cassidy refused to call the AAA for a vote because he feared that not enough Republicans would vote to pass it as amended.
If what went on during this committee meeting did not kill the bill, it at least showed the hypocrisy behind the AAA.. It was never about antisemitism. It’s about protecting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government from criticism, and when those protections were removed by the amendments that passed, Republican support for the bill evaporated. Hence no committee vote on the AAA as amended.
Even before last week, it was clear that we should oppose the Antisemitism Awareness Act (I have not yet updated this to include the latest developments). Earlier in the week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) issued a strong statement of opposition. Now that the Republicans revealed that the emperor indeed has no clothes, no excuse remains for supporting it.
Corrections. I'm entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts, so I appreciate it when readers bring errors to my attention. In last week's newsletter, I misattributed an article written by Matt Bai to Max Boot.
In Case You Missed It:
1) Secretary of State Rubio is considering eliminating the U.S. security coordinator role for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) said doing so would be "unwise and self-defeating."
2) Arms control expert Kesley Davenport on creating the conditions for a nuclear deal with Iran.
3) Jewish faculty/staff at Northwestern and Jewish students at Columbia wrote letters describing antisemitism on their campuses and how to address--and not address--it. Maybe they believe their own eyes instead of the incendiary movies and hysterical Instagram posts that our right-wing friends would have us believe.
4) Harvard issued reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias. The answer is not to crack down on speech but, as Harvard President Alan Garber said, to nurture "vibrant debate and open speech in ways that encourage everyone to express their ideas freely; preserving the right to protest and dissent while avoiding disruption, harassment, and threats; and, when our policies are violated, ensuring that our disciplinary processes are fair, consistent, and effective.”
5) Contradicting himself, Trump now says that he could bring mistakenly deported Kilmar Armando Ábrego García back from El Salvador but he won't. Trump should be impeached and convicted, and he would be if Republicans placed loyalty to the Constitution above loyalty to Trump.
6) Fact-checking the inaccurate statements Trump made in his Time magazine interview.
7) Light amid the darkness at JDCA’s Leadership Summit.
8) Rob Eshman contrasts JB Pritzker's rhetoric with Josh Shapiro's.
9) Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) introduced the West Bank Violence Prevention Act in response to Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the United States.
10) The German Foreign Office schooled Marco Rubio. This is real. Click here and then scroll up. And this from Ron Kampeas.
Social Posts of the Week. Dan Shapiro, David Frum, and Ian Bremmer.
Thread of the Week. David Pepper.
Video Clip of the Week. This man is a genius.
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. The Emperor's New Clothes.
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder (yes, I wrote it). If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
I periodically update my posts on the IHRA definition of antisemitism and on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism. My definition of "pro-Israel" is here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
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