Ever since the Holocaust demonstrated the danger of appearing on state registries, many Jews have been wary of self-identifying to the government.

But a bill racing through California’s state legislature would let Jewish people do just that — and it was a coalition of Jewish groups who proposed it.

California’s SB 1387 would mandate that any California agency collecting demographic data on ethnicity — whether on unemployment forms or college applications — add an option for Jewish ancestry.

Its supporters say the benefits of having data about the Jewish population will allow the state and Jewish community groups to better support them. The increase in antisemitic hate crimes during the Israel-Hamas war provided the initial thrust, according to California State Sen. Henry Stern, who introduced the bill.

“We were reaching for data that we didn’t have,” Stern told the Forward. “We had the data on hate crime incidents, but we didn’t have the demographic data to show that for such a small population with this number of incidents, you’ve got a serious problem.”

The bill has already passed in policy committees in both houses of the California state legislature. Just one more committee review remains before the bill heads to the Senate and Assembly floors.

Passing the bill would make California the first state to track Jewish identity as part of its demographic data.

What good can come of tracking Jews? 

While many Americans think of Judaism primarily as a religion, many Jews have long understood themselves both as a religious community and as a people with shared ancestry.

That sentiment is reflected in a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, which found that American Jews are more likely to describe being Jewish in terms of culture (55%) or ancestry (52%) than religion (36%). According to the same survey, only one in 10 Jewish Americans say being Jewish is only a matter of religion.

David Bocarsly, CEO of Jewish California, a coalition of Jewish federations, synagogues and other nonprofits advocating for the bill, said collecting data on Jewish ethnicity would help challenge other common assumptions about the community.

“The assumption is often that the Jewish community is a monolithically white, wealthy, and successful community,” Bocarsly said. “I think there are a lot of Jewish community members who would fall into that category, and a lot who wouldn’t. This would paint that more complicated picture.”

Stern told the Forward the information could have practical applications across a range of policy areas, from public health to education.

He says the data could help public health officials identify communities that would benefit from targeted education and genetic screening programs for conditions that disproportionately affect some Jewish populations, such as Tay-Sachs disease and BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancers.

It also could close an education gap in California schools. Stern pointed to what he described as inconsistent Holocaust education across California districts. Knowing how many students identify as ethnically Jewish, he argued, could encourage districts to incorporate more Jewish history and culture based on the makeup of their student body rather than in response to state mandates.

“We know that good data creates good policy, so this will allow us to be able to inform better policy in the future,” said Bocarsly. “The goal of this isn’t to get more resources for our community; it’s to get the right amount of resources for our community.”

Opposition to the bill

Opponents and those who are wary of the bill cite concerns ranging from moral to technical.

Amid rising antisemitism, Bocarsly acknowledged concerns that the data would turn into a government-owned list of Jews. Some worry that a Jewish box would “flatten” multiethnic identities. And what about people who are religiously Jewish but not ethnically, like converts or adoptees?

Bocarsly said the law would account for that. Because the data collected on these forms is disaggregated, it can only be presented in statistical form and without personal identifiers — the same way sexual orientation or transgender identity is treated on state forms. Participation would remain voluntary, and respondents could select multiple ethnic identities. Checking any box remains optional, as per existing state law.

Most of the opposition has come from pro-Palestinian Jewish groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Bend the Arc.

In its statement of opposition, Jewish Voice for Peace-Bay Area said that treating only one religion as an ethnicity is “legally inconsistent and factually wrong.” The best way to count and analyze the Jewish population, it said in an official opposition letter, was through scientific polling by organizations like the Pew Research Center.

Diana Scott, chair of Workers Circle NorCal, a secular Jewish social justice organization, questioned both the cost and necessity of the proposal. She argued that demographic checkboxes were originally intended to advance diversity efforts in areas such as education and said she does not believe Jews currently face the same lack of representation that justified those programs.

“Why should this data suddenly be collected at a time when we are doing away with diversity programs?” Scott told the Forward. “The original purpose of these checkboxes, at least in education, was to make sure there were programs representing people who weren’t being represented. I don’t think that’s the case right now for Jews.”

Scott also said the bill would cost money that could be better spent on programs benefiting a broader range of Californians, including Jews.

But Stern, who is Jewish, said he believes some of the objections are more personal than based on the substance of the bill.

“They see a member of the Jewish caucus, especially me, who’s been very outspoken in support of Israel,” the senator said. “I think if this bill might have been carried by someone else, maybe it wouldn’t even have attracted that kind of opposition.”

Bocarsly said that surveys like Pew’s cannot provide critical information useful to policymakers. While Pew’s studies of American Jews are conducted only periodically and rely on sampling, the California data would be collected on an ongoing basis through state administrative systems.

More importantly, he said, Pew does not measure outcomes such as health, educational attainment, incarceration, or poverty among Jewish Californians – data that would be essential for informing state policy.

How will the data be protected? 

But the bill’s intention of collecting more detailed data on Jewish constituents to help produce better policy also raises a sensitive question: How securely can the government protect those who check the Jewish box?

John M. Abowd, an expert on privacy-protected data publication and the former chief scientist at the United States Census Bureau, told the Forward that he believes concerns about government collection of racial and ethnic data are legitimate.

Although any demographic data released publicly would be aggregated and would not identify individual Jews by name, Abowd said that alone does not guarantee anonymity. By combining geographic and demographic characteristics, such as age, sex, and household composition, a skilled analyst may still be able to identify individuals included in a statistical dataset.

At the same time, Abowd says there are several legal protections designed to control the government’s use of voluntary race and ethnicity data. “Those protections in California are frankly very strong,” he explained.

Bocarsly emphasized that any identifying information would remain within the records of the agency collecting it — be it a hospital, school district or law enforcement agency — and would not be released publicly. While he acknowledged the possibility one such organization could fail to abide by confidentiality laws, California’s longstanding privacy laws mean there are serious consequences for infractions.

“California has laws on the books that protect against individual information from being shared publicly — very restrictive laws that have been on the books for 50 years,” he said. “We trust the laws more than we trust the people to uphold the laws.”

The post Are You Jewish? California considers asking on official state forms appeared first on The Forward.

As Germany considers an unprecedented law that would criminalize denying Israel’s right to exist, American free speech advocates worry the proposal could spark similar efforts in the U.S. to curb Israel-related speech.

The proposed law, which passed Germany’s upper house of parliament last week, would make publicly denying Israel’s right to exist a crime, with a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

“We’ve now seen a trend of what’s been happening in Europe can come over to the United States,” said Kevin Rachlin, vice president of government relations at the Nexus Project, which describes its mission as both fighting antisemitism and protecting free speech.

He said denying Israel’s right to exist can be antisemitic, yes, but not always.

“If we are going that whole step of making it punitive and punishable by law — that’s why we have our First Amendment to protect us from that.”

The bill specifies that the speech would be criminalized only if it would reasonably encourage “a willingness to commit acts of antisemitic violence.”

But not everyone will agree on what that means, said Michel Rosenfeld, a professor of law and comparative democracy at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. A memo accompanying the bill includes as examples chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” or displaying maps in which Israel is replaced by a Palestinian state.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an American free speech watchdog, has warned that similar laws could come to American soil.

“We can expect similar bills and regulations to pop up across borders,” the foundation said in a statement. “That’s why the First Amendment is so vital — it can act as a bulwark against speech restrictions that have advanced in other nations from doing the same here.”

In the United States, such a law would be a blatant violation of the First Amendment, scholars say. But Germany, where Holocaust denial, Nazi symbols, and even public insults are already criminal offenses, has long drawn the boundaries of protected speech differently.

“Under German law, antisemitic pronouncements amount to hate speech and can be criminalized,” Rosenfeld said. “In the United States, you can say antisemitic things as much as you want. It’s free speech.”

In Germany, supporters of the bill have argued that antisemitism is occurring “openly on our streets” and pointed to the surge in antisemitic incidents post-Oct. 7 as evidence that stronger measures are needed. Just this week, a 65-year-old German man was assaulted and left with life threatening injuries after an argument over an Israeli flag pin he was wearing, according to German authorities.

Those incidents are why Shannon Seban, director of European affairs for the Combat Antisemitism Movement, hopes the German bill will serve as a model.

“Our judicial system needs to evolve in order to adapt to this new reality, and to the fact that you have contemporary forms of antisemitism,” Seban told the Forward. “I hope that plenty of other European countries will now adopt such a law.”

But that prospect worries some Jewish Americans, who argue that prison time for anti-Zionist speech is a bridge too far. Even organizations that have argued anti-Zionism can veer into antisemitism have generally not envisioned such speech as the basis for criminal prosecutions.

“I have a real issue of criminalizing any thought or speech, regardless of what it is,” Rachlin said.

The German context

According to Rosenfeld, the bill should be understood in the context of Germany’s postwar constitutional order. In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied powers outlawed the Nazi Party and banned its symbols as part of the country’s “denazification.” Those restrictions were later incorporated into German law, reflecting the country’s commitment to preventing the reemergence of Nazism.

That history shapes Germany’s relationship with Israel. The two countries maintain what German officials describe as a “special relationship,” borne out of Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust, with Berlin defining Israel’s security as part of its Staatsräson, or reason of state.

“In Germany, the Jewish state and standing for the Jewish state is particularly important in that it’s, if you wish, an inescapable outgrowth of the Nazi period,” Rosenfeld said.

Israel’s Ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, lauded the bill as a signal that “those who deny Israel’s right to exist and spread antisemitic incitement will not get away with it unpunished.”

The legislation may also reflect broader anxieties about Germany’s political trajectory. The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, whose leaders campaigned on belittling Germany’s efforts to atone for the Holocaust, is now the second-largest party in the country’s parliament. A campaign to ban the party as unconstitutional has gained momentum, though faces an uphill battle given the AfD’s popularity.

But even this latest bill to criminalize denying Israel’s right to exist might not pass Germany’s constitutional test.

According to Rosenfeld, whether German courts uphold the proposal will depend in part on how they characterize anti-Zionism. If judges conclude that denying Israel’s right to exist is necessarily antisemitic, they would be more likely to view the restriction as constitutional and a part of Germany’s historic responsibility, he said.

On the other hand, if a judge understands anti-Zionism as political speech, then the bill would likely be struck down.

“It would be unconstitutional because not only is that a political opinion, but it would single out Israel,” he said. “In other words, to say that the United States should not exist, or that Cuba should not exist and the United States should take it over, that Canada should be the 51st state of the United States — you can say all these things, but you can’t say that Israel should not exist?”

But others don’t see any inconsistency. Seban, a French politician who spoke out against antisemitic comments directed at her during her campaign, maintains she supports free speech as “a fundamental principle of our democracy.”

At the same time, Seban said she doesn’t view the language the bill targets as deserving of legal protection.

“When you would like to erase a country from the map, a country that has been recognized by international organizations and such, it’s no longer free speech. It’s a call to violence. It’s a call to destroy states. It’s a call to erase people,” Seban said. “So there is no free speech anymore.”

‘Non-legally binding’

For years, antisemitism watchdog groups like the Anti-Defamation League have advocated for U.S. states to pass legislation adopting a definition of antisemitism that treats most expressions of anti-Zionism as antisemitic.

But it was always with a caveat: the definition, written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, would be “non-legally binding.”

In practice, that meant institutions such as schools, branches of government, or law enforcement could use the definition as a training tool or guideline to help identify antisemitism — not for criminal prosecution.

For example, on its website, the ADL says it “does not support the adoption and application of the IHRA Definition in a manner that would create new categories of legally prohibited speech that are subjected to either civil or criminal penalties – something we believe the First Amendment and principles of free speech would prevent.”

The ADL did not respond to the Forward’s question about its stance on the German bill, instead directing the Forward to speak with the Central Council of Jews in Germany, which backs the bill.

“Freedom of expression is a fundamental right of the utmost importance and a vital safeguard of our democracy,” Katharina Glinder of the Central Council of Jews in Germany wrote in a statement to the Forward. “Yet it, too, is subject to legal limits and must yield where human dignity is violated. Anyone who calls for the annihilation of peoples or the destruction of entire nations must not be allowed to hide behind fundamental freedoms with impunity.”

Glinder added that the bill could “serve as a model for other liberal democracies to follow.”

Remko Leemhuis, director of the Berlin office of American Jewish Committee, which also supports the IHRA definition as “non-legally binding,” said in a statement that AJC supports the German bill, “provided it is designed to withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

Meanwhile, the Nexus Project — which wrote an alternative definition of antisemitism that does not classify all anti-Zionism as antisemitism — has argued that lawmakers undermine the premise that IHRA is “non-legally binding” when they codify it in legislation.

Rachlin said Germany’s proposed bill illustrates that slippery slope, calling it the logical next step after the country codified the IHRA definition into law in 2017. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if such a proposal to criminalize anti-Zionism cropped up in the U.S. — though that doesn’t mean it would pass constitutional muster.

“Could this happen at the federal level? Maybe. Could it happen at the state level? I could see that happening,” Rachlin said. “Would it be challenged? Yes.”

Yet Rachlin also acknowledged that his commitment to a more absolutist version of free speech stems from what may be a distinctly American tradition.

“I can hate what you say, but I’ll defend it because you have the right to say it,” Rachlin said. “That’s kind of the American viewpoint on this. In Europe, it’s a very different game.”

The post Germany could criminalize denying Israel’s right to exist. Could the U.S. follow? appeared first on The Forward.

If you, like so many American Jews this week, are focused on New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s video message urging protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the city in September, you’re missing the real story.

Pay attention, instead, to what is happening thousands of miles away — not in Manhattan, but in Israel, where the latest polls show Netanyahu and his ruling coalition trailing badly.

In New York, it’s the same old story: Israel guilty, Palestinians blameless, nothing in between. In Tel Aviv and Jerisalem, in Nazareth and Eilat, something else is brewing: change, maybe even hope.

Gadi Eisenkot — the former IDF chief of staff who broke with Netanyahu’s government over the Gaza War — now leads a new party, Yashar. Projections suggest his bloc would win 59 seats if the election were held today, compared to 51 for Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, according to the latest poll,

Eisenkot also beats Netanyahu head-to-head as the preferred prime minister, 43% to 37%.

If Eisenkot joins with Arab parties his coalition would receive 69 seats, substantially more than the 61 seats needed to govern. Though Eisenkot has not said yet whether he would link up with Arab parties, a plurality of Eisenkot’s potential voters (44%) said they would support such a move, in a country where Arab parties have only once been part of a governing coalition.

Eisenkot is no dove. He is someone who has concluded, rightly, that the threats Israel faces include the ones it’s inflicting on itself.

He has vowed to strengthen Israeli democracy and pursue diplomacy with Israel’s neighbors. His party’s platform calls for non-military national service for Arabs, something 75.8% of them favor. His likely coalition partners will include the Democrats, a smaller party expected to win 10 to 11 seats, for whom resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue is a defining issue. “I see the conflict and the continued occupation as the greatest tragedy of our lives,” Emilie Moatti of the Democrats said at a party rally last month. “The most moral and patriotic act is to end it.”

These are the most hopeful winds to blow through Israeli politics in memory, ahead of the Oct. 27 election — the closest Israelis have come to real, structural change in years. Meanwhile, in the United States, it’s Mamdani’s admission that he lacks the power to arrest Netanyahu — and call for the federal government to do so instead — that has captured the media’s attention and consumed American Jews all week. But one of these stories is theater, the other is real.

We’ve let ourselves become consumed by an empty threat from a politician with no power to carry it out, instead of doing everything we can to support those Israelis who actually have the power to change their country.

In this farce, Netanyahu and the anti-Israel movement each need a cartoon version of the other to keep telling their one-sided story.

Imagine if Mamdani used his platform to draw attention to Makom Lekulanu, “A Place for Us All,” the only Arab-Jewish party standing for election. Instead the mayor of the American anti-Israel movement keeps the focus relentlessly on Netanyahu — because a country full of Netanyahus is a much darker story to tell, and a much more useful foil, than the complicated, pluralistic reality the polls actually show.

Netanyahu and his American supporters need Mamdani for the same reason — to paint Israel as besieged and alone, and all of Israel’s critics as clownish and illegitimate. But Netanyahu’s real critics aren’t clowns. They’re serious, Israel-loving Israelis — a former army chief among them — and they are beating him at the polls.

With Netanyahu offering voters more of the same — attacks on the judiciary, fear-mongering over Arab citizens voting and deeper dependence on his religious and far-right partners — a growing number of centrist Israelis have concluded that a Netanyahu win would put Israel’s very future at risk.

“If Netanyahu wins, it’s going to be a significant crisis, maybe a final crisis for many segments of Israeli society,” journalist Nadav Eyal said on the Jonah Platt podcast.

In this context, Mamdani’s theatrics are one more sign of how untethered the American conversation about Israel has become from what’s actually at stake on the ground. American Jews should stop reacting to him and start paying attention to the people with the power to actually change Israel’s future.

They can’t donate to Israeli political parties, but they can support Israeli NGOs that fund get-out-the-vote and voter education campaigns. They can back U.S. nonprofits that help promote better Israeli policies. And they can do the simplest thing of all: talk about this election — online, in shul, at the Shabbat table, anywhere the conversation has gotten stuck on Mamdani, which is everywhere. Doing that will add real dimension to a very stale debate.

New York voters will, in time, vote on whether their mayor’s selective obsession with Israel is making their city a better, more affordable place to live. That’s their business. But anyone who cares about Israelis and Palestinians should put their energy and focus where it really matters: on the people and movements who haven’t been this close to real, positive change in years.

The post Mamdani isn’t the real resistance against Netanyahu — Israelis are appeared first on The Forward.