|
June 4, 2023
Key Takeaways:
- A segment of our community is obsessing over the views of a law student no one heard of two weeks ago when an entire political party, the Republican Party, is infected with antisemitism. Those guards at our synagogues are not there to protect us from anti-Zionists; they are there to protect us from the right-wing extremists who have shot up our synagogues in the past. Don't get distracted. Don't take the bait.
-
Supporters of the IHRA definition of antisemitism proved its inefficacy by failing to cite it to back up their assertions that CUNY law student Fatima Mousa Mohammed's commencement address was antisemitic. If there is any value in spending time on her speech it is that it provides a useful, if extreme, framework for analyzing accusations of antisemitism.
- The IHRA definition cannot stand on its own; this episode proves that the Biden administration was right not to codify or adopt it and to welcome other definitions and tools.
- Biden's strategy states that when Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel, when Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity, and when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism. I would add the logical corollary: Criticism of Israel, however harsh or offensive, not accompanied by the preceding factors is not antisemitic.
- I found Mohammed's speech offensive, inaccurate, anti-Israel, unfair, and embarrassingly out of touch with reality. Read the definitions, watch Mohammed's speech, and decide for yourself whether you agree with the CUNY School of Law Jewish Law Students Association that it was not antisemitic. Don't take any person's or organization's word for it either way, including mine.
- The Biden administration did not consult CAIR in the formulation of its strategy to counter antisemitism but it welcomed CAIR's commitment to help. That is known as building alliances.
- A new study confirms that antisemitism is much more prevalent on the right than on the left, especially among younger Americans. Ignoring that fact in the name of nonpartisanship will not make it go away. If we are serious about antisemitism we cannot ignore the real antisemitism on the right by exaggerating or making up antisemitism from the left. All apologies to the "both sides" crowd. Sometimes it's not both sides.
Read to the end for corrections, what you may have missed last week, fun stuff, and upcoming events.
You're welcome to read for free, but if you want to chip in to help defray the cost of the newsletter, click here to pay by credit card or PayPal. Just fill in the amount of your choice. Or Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (if it asks, the last four phone digits are 9479).
Hi Steve,
The problem with "unity"--who could be against unity--is that in practice, unity usually means everyone uniting around whatever the person calling for unity wants. The Jewish community is deeply divided on whether and to what extent to define "antisemitism" pursuant to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism (the IHRA definition).
The Biden administration included a definition of antisemitism not that different from the IHRA definition in its National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. It spoke positively about the IHRA definition and welcomed other definitions and tools. Isn't that unity? Isn't that the common ground we claim to want? The administration's definition is not exactly the IHRA definition and it did not codify or "adopt" the IHRA definition but no country has made the IHRA definition legally binding (not surprising with respect to a definition that by its own terms is a "non-legally binding working definition").
But that wasn't good enough for some people. Unity for thee but not for me I guess. Now we'll find out. Days after supporters of the IHRA definition criticized the Biden administration for not adopting the definition as the sole definition of antisemitism, a video surfaced of Fatima Mousa Mohammed, a student at CUNY School of Law, delivering a May 12 commencement speech harshly critical of Israel.
Members of Congress, heads of organizations, and others quickly deemed the speech antisemitic. Some faulted the Biden administration for not focusing on this type of speech in its strategy. Yet to my knowledge, none cited the IHRA definition as proof that Mohammed's speech was antisemitic. If the IHRA definition was the gold standard then this would have been a golden opportunity to use a real-life example to show the value of the IHRA definition.
A theme that runs through this newsletter is that we should not rely on paraphrases or reports about controversial statements. We should first go to the source material. As of yet, I have not been able to find a transcript of Mohammed's speech, which would be the best way to analyze it. But we have video. If you want to watch the entire 13-minute speech, click here. If you don't, at least watch the part about Israel in this three-minute clip (the remainder of the speech covered other topics).
What do you think? I thought it was offensive, inaccurate, anti-Israel, unfair, and embarrassingly out of touch with reality. It was mainly empty slogans. I felt extremely uncomfortable watching it. I cannot and will not defend it. The content was inappropriate for academic discussion, even more so for a commencement address. The speaker seemed to me to be smug and her tone was mocking, also not befitting a serious academic discussion or commencement address.
How would you have felt if you were in the audience and witnessed that speech? It would have ruined the ceremony for me, although the CUNY School of Law Jewish Law Students Association did not seem to have any problems with it and called accusations of antisemitism "disingenuous."
But was it antisemitic? Whether it was or whether it wasn't, she was wrong about Israel and her speech was out of bounds. Whether it was or whether it wasn't, her speech was indefensible. But was it antisemitic? Is the Jewish Law Students Association correct or are those who claim that the speech was antisemitic correct?
One approach is to say that we know in our kishkes that it was antisemitic, presumably because we identify strongly with Israel, the speech strongly attacked Israel, and the speech made us feel uncomfortable. In her mind she might have been attacking the State of Israel but in our minds it felt like we were being attacked. But I am aware of no definition of antisemitism that includes hurt feelings as a criterion. We certainly cannot expect the government to counter antisemitism based on application of a kishkes test.
Instead, let's start by doing what supporters of the IHRA definition have not done. Please read the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the gold standard, the definition that some people think should be adopted as the sole definition. It provides 11 examples of antisemitism. Seven of the examples pertain to Israel. Do you think any of the examples apply to anything in her speech?
She opposes Zionism. The IHRA definition does not mention Zionism. If only we had a definition that did...we are in luck! The Nexus Document, which Biden's strategy welcomed, specifically addresses when criticism of Zionism is and is not antisemitic. The answer, to the consternation of those who prefer to view the world as black and white, is that sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Read the Nexus Document and decide for yourself which side of the line Mohammed is on.
I am a Zionist. Anti-Zionism is antithetical to what I believe, but is not necessarily antisemitic. Ken Stern, the lead author of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, asks us to “imagine you are a Palestinian whose family was displaced in 1948—and not merely displaced but also dispossessed from your home and from a sense of control over your own identity and life. The exercise of Jewish self-determination clearly had a negative impact on you and your family, not only on your past but your future. Is your objection to Zionism because you see a Jewish conspiracy [which would be antisemitic], or because someone else’s national expression harmed you and your national aspirations?”
Stern then asks what if you are not Palestinian but you support Palestinian national aspirations. “If your priority is to support Palestinians, but you then gleefully embrace hateful tropes about Jews that is antisemitism. But is it antisemitism if you do not consider Jewish claims to the land as having equal merit to the Palestinian ones?”
As Hadar Susskind reminds us, “many Israelis (and American Jews) vehemently deny the legitimacy or the validity of the Palestinian national movement, but they are not all necessarily Arab haters or Islamophobes.” The same holds true of those who deny the Jewish national movement.
Watch the speech, read the Nexus Document and decide for yourself whether any of the speech was antisemitic. I know it's hard without a transcript because you have to keep going back to the video.
I understand if you think it's not worth your time to focus on what one student said at one commencement ceremony at one law school when the entire Republican Party is steeped in antisemitism. The most dangerous form of antisemitism is not from the right or left per se but antisemitism from government officials--Donald Trump's long history of antisemitic rhetoric should consume our attention far more than the anti-Israel views of one law student.
It's almost as if this is a manufactured controversy designed to distract us from the most significant antisemitic threats, the threats Biden's strategy will prioritize and counter.
Let's reserve accusations of antisemitism for unambiguous cases of antisemitism. For example, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, citing the Biden strategy, tweeted that "when Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel [or when] Jews are targeted because of their beliefs or their identity [or] when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism. And that is unacceptable."
I hope we can at least unify around that.
We can't fight antisemitism alone. Jews are roughly 2% of the U.S. population. Part of the genius of the Biden plan is its fourth pillar, which recognizes the importance of building "cross-community solidarity and collective action to counter hate."
To that end, the administration's fact sheet included a long list of external commitments that stakeholders have committed to take, including a commitment from the Council on American-Islamic Relations to "launch a tour to educate religious communities about steps they can take to protect their houses of worship from hate incidents, such as instituting appropriate security measures, developing strong relationships with other faith communities, and maintaining open lines of communication with local law enforcement."
What could possibly be wrong with that? Well, some groups objected to even the mention of CAIR because of accusations of antisemitism against CAIR years ago. So now that CAIR wants to help we should say no? Don't we want organizations with whom we have previously disagreed to join us now? Imagine if other organizations applied the same standard to Jewish organizations. You don't have to look too far or too hard to find instances of Jewish and pro-Israel organizations inviting and welcoming speakers with questionable views on other issues to their events and sometimes of the organizations themselves taking questionable positions.
CAIR is not in mentioned in Biden's 60-page plan and CAIR was not consulted in the creation of the strategy to counter antisemitism. The administration reached out to many organizations after the plan was drafted to see if they were willing to take action as part of the administration's efforts to raise awareness. That is why CAIR was mentioned in the fact sheet--as a matter of fact, they committed to help.
Please: Read the fact sheet. Read Biden's plan, all 60 pages, not summaries or articles about the plan, before you form an opinion.
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. No one brought any mistakes to my attention last week, so it looks like last week's newsletter was perfect.
In Case You Missed It:
- Pursuant to President Biden's plan, the U.S. Department of Education launched an antisemitism awareness campaign and the Office for Civil Rights released a letter addressing discrimination against Jewish students.
- A new study shows that anti-Jewish beliefs are far more popular in right-wing circles, particularly among young people, and clarifies that while some groups often lumped into leftist demographics, such as Blacks and Hispanics, tend to hold more antisemitic views, those groups are split politically, and those within those groups who identify as conservative have by far the highest rate of agreement with antisemitic statements. Read the summary and read the entire study.
- On May 31, the House unanimously passed Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's (D-FL) resolution condemning the rise of antisemitism and calling on elected officials to identify and educate others on the contributions of the Jewish American community.
Tweets of the Week. Ariel Edwards-Levy and Andrew Bates.
Twitter Thread of the Week. Rebecca Makkai.
Video Clip of the Week. “Such a fine line between stupid and clever”--"these go to 11" is not the only great line.
This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved 2022 and 2023 Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder. If someone forwarded this to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
My most popular Times of Israel posts are How Not To Define Antisemitism and Pro-Israel Or Pro-Bibi? I periodically update my Medium posts on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism. You can read my most recent effort to define "pro-Israel" here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
I hope you enjoyed today's newsletter. Donations are welcome (this takes time to write and costs money to send). If you'd like to chip in, click here and fill in the amount of your choice. The link lets you use a credit card or PayPal. If you'd rather pay by check, that's fine too. Or you can Venmo to @Steven-Sheffey (last four digits of phone number are 9479).
I accept advertisements. Let me know if you're interested.
| 
