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Hundreds of rabbis say Biden’s plan to fight antisemitism should embrace a disputed definition
WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than 550 rabbis are calling for the Biden administration’s forthcoming strategy on fighting antisemitism to include a definition of anti-Jewish bigotry that has come under debate.
The letter was sent as progressive groups are seeking to dissuade the administration from using the definition because they believe it chills legitimate criticism of Israel. The letter’s signatories disagree with that assessment.
“IHRA is critically important for helping to educate and protect our congregants in the face of this rising hate,” said the rabbis’ letter, which was sent to the White House on Friday via the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The acronym IHRA refers to the 2016 working definition of antisemitism crafted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
“We believe it is imperative that in its National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, the administration formally embrace the IHRA Working Definition as the official and only definition used by the United States government and that it be used as a training and educational tool, similar to European Union countries’ use of the definition in their Action Plans,” the letter said.
The IHRA document consists of a two-sentence definition of antisemitism followed by 11 examples of how antisemitism may manifest. Most of those examples concern speech about Israel that the IHRA defines as antisemitic. Israel critics, and some progressive supporters of Israel, say two of those examples are so broad that they inhibit robust criticism of Israel: “Applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” and “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
The letter’s signatories hail from all three major Jewish denominations, though the list of names includes few leaders of the movements. The Reform movement has said IHRA is a useful guide but has opposed using it in legislation.
Among the signatories are rabbis known to be close to President Joe Biden, including Michael Beals, a Delaware rabbi who played a prominent role campaigning for the president in 2020, and Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, the rabbi who protected his congregants during a hostage crisis at a Texas synagogue last year.
If the Biden administration does include the IHRA working definition in its plan, it won’t exactly be a surprise. Soon after his inauguration, a Biden administration official called the IHRA document an “invaluable tool,” and one month later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the administration “enthusiastically embraces it.” The working definition has been endorsed by past administrations of both parties and, in 2019, Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Education to consider it when weighing civil rights complaints concerning Jews. It has been adopted in varying forms by a range of national and local governments, universities, professional sports teams and other bodies.
But now, according to Jewish Insider, progressive groups are asking the Biden administration to forgo including the definition in a soon-to-be-published strategy to combat antisemitism. Biden said at an event on Tuesday that the strategy would have 100 recommendations for action, and insiders say it may be published as soon as next week.
A number of coalitions have proposed alternative definitions that contain more limited definitions of when anti-Israel speech is antisemitic. The letter from the rabbis does not mention Israel, but cautions against adopting a definition other than IHRA’s.
“We believe the adoption of any definition less comprehensive than the IHRA definition would be a step backwards for this administration and make our work on the ground significantly harder,” it said.
In a meeting this week with members of the press, Biden’s lead antisemitism monitor, Deborah Lipstadt, who is a member of the administration’s antisemitism task force, would not say if the IHRA definition would make it into the strategy, accordin. She said it was “effective” and helped her in her work, but added, “I’m not going to preempt what the White House is going to say or not say.”
William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents, said the notion that the IHRA working definition inhibits Israel criticism has been belied by the “slew of people critical of Israeli policy [who] have not been muted because of the IHRA definition.” Daroff pointed in particular to widespread criticism of the Israeli government’s plan to weaken the judiciary, which critics have said would undercut Israel’s democracy and remove a curb on human rights abuses.
“A comprehensive report on antisemitism might not be comprehensive without defining antisemitism,” Daroff told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “It might undercut American efforts to combat antisemitism abroad by weakening the clear importance of the IHRA definition.”
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Nearly half of young Americans view US relationship with Israel as a burden, survey finds
(JTA) — Nearly half of young Americans, 46%, believe that the United States’ relationship with Israel is mostly a burden to the United States, according to a new survey from the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The Harvard Youth Poll, which polled 2,018 Americans aged 18 to 29, found that just 16% of those surveyed described the U.S. relationship with Israel as mostly a benefit.
Respondents were asked about their view of other U.S. alliances, including Canada, which 53% saw as beneficial, and Ukraine, which 21% saw as beneficial. Israel received the lowest perceived benefit of any country tested.
The survey also found that 55% of young Americans believe the U.S. military action in Iran is not in the best interest of the American people.
It comes as attitudes about Israel among young Americans in recent years have grown sharply negative. Earlier this month, a Pew Research Center survey found that 70% of Americans aged 18 to 49 held a somewhat or very negative opinion of Israel. That view was split among partisan lines, with 84% of Democrats in that demographic holding a negative view of Israel, compared to 57% of Republicans.
The Harvard survey was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs between March 26 and April 3 and had a margin of error of 2.74 percentage points.
The post Nearly half of young Americans view US relationship with Israel as a burden, survey finds appeared first on The Forward.
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Long Island father and teen son arrested after investigation into swastika drawn in school bathroom
(JTA) — A father and his teenage son were arrested Wednesday after an investigation into swastika graffiti at the teen’s school led police to search their home, where authorities said they found chemicals used to make explosives.
The arrests stemmed from an investigation into swastika graffiti found in a boys’ bathroom at Syosset High School on Long Island. After police determined that a 15-year-old student had drawn the swastika, the Nassau County Police Department sent officers to his home.
There, the teen told the officers about the explosive materials, according to prosecutors. He said his father had purchased the chemicals for him to build rockets.
During the subsequent search of the home, police found “highly unstable” materials that had been combined to make explosives, including nitroglycerin, multiple acids, oxidizers and fuels. They began to evacuate people in adjacent homes, fearing an explosion.
The teen was not identified by police due to his age. Francisco Sanles, 48, who was arrested at the scene, has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal counts, including criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child. His son was charged with five counts, including criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief, aggravated harassment and making graffiti.
Swastika graffiti is relatively commonplace in schools, with the Anti-Defamation League reporting over 400 incidents in 2024: Syosset High School itself was hit by a spate of antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas, in 2017. But it is relatively rare that incidents result in arrests.
In an email to the school district Wednesday night, the Syosset School District — which enrolls a large number of Jewish students — said its investigation had identified the student for the police, and he would face “serious consequences pursuant to the District’s Code of Conduct.”
“Antisemitism and hate speech have no place in our communities or in our schools,” the district said. “Syosset has long been proud of being a welcoming, empathetic, and inclusive community and those values remain firm. We protect those values and this community by confronting and holding accountable those who traffic in any form of hate.”
In January, New York City Police arrested and charged two 15-year-old boys suspected of spraying dozens of swastikas on a playground in a heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime.
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Tucker Carlson calls campaign to shame a country club for barring a Jewish toddler ‘repulsive’
(JTA) — Catherine Rampell, the economist and pundit, likes telling the story about how her father once launched a public campaign against a Palm Beach country club when it banned his 4-year-old son from attending a birthday party because he is Jewish.
Now, Tucker Carlson has turned the anecdote into a sinister and “repulsive” tale of a crusade against folks who just want to hang out together.
Carlson substantially misrepresented Rampell’s anecdote, turning it into what Rampell on Wednesday said was “a coded story in defense of antisemitic and racist country clubs.”
Carlson, the far-right firebrand who sits at the center of the Republican Party’s schism over antisemitism, on Tuesday interviewed his brother Buckley on his streaming show about their shared disaffection for President Donald Trump over launching the Iran war. Tucker Carlson was until recently close to Trump, and Buckley Carlson was a speechwriter for the president.
The brothers in the podcast discussed Trump’s purported distaste for WASPs, shorthand for White Anglo Saxon Protestants who are descended from immigrants who arrived in the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries. Trump’s grandfather was German-born, and his mother was Scottish.
“He’s very fixated on the WASP thing, and does talk about it a lot,” Tucker Carlson said.
“There’s another group in America that’s kind of fixated on the WASPs too,” his brother responded.
“I’ve noticed that,” Tucker said. And his brother continued: “With equal fervor and hostility.”
That led into a discussion of “status anxiety” driving social change, which Tucker Carlson says “everyone lies about.” That’s when Carlson recalled meeting Rampell at Fox News about a decade ago, when he was a host at the network and she was a guest commentator.
Referring to Rampell, who graduated with honors from Princeton University and who was then about 30, as a “girl” and a “liberal neocon person” who was “not smart,” he recalled asking her about her upbringing. She told him she grew up in Palm Beach, the wealthy Florida enclave where Carlson has also spent a lot of time.
“And she’s like, ‘Yeah, we moved there, and my dad sued the Bath and Tennis club for discrimination because they wouldn’t let him in,’” Tucker Carlson recounted.
“Like, that’s repulsive to me,” he continued. “A club should have, you should have the right to hang out with whoever you want to hang out, on whatever basis you want to make that decision. She was, like, bragging about it, and I was like, the hatred behind that, the desire to destroy something is so evident. This girl’s a hater.”
Rampell, who scould only vaguely recall the encounter, set the record straight on Wednesday on the Bulwark podcast. Rampell works for the Bulwark, a centrist political outlet, as well as for the liberal cable news channel MSNOW.
“My father didn’t sue country clubs,” she said. “Tucker is actually right that freedom of association is allowed under the law.”
Instead, Rampell’s father, Richard, a CPA, was moved in 1990 to launch a publicity campaign against clubs in the area that excluded on the basis of race, religion or gender, after his toddler son was told he would not be invited to a preschool classmate’s birthday party.
“We learned this, or my family learned this, because my brother was in preschool at the time, and he was not invited to a birthday party, and was subsequently found out that the reason he was not invited is that the country club that Tucker is referring to, the Bath and Tennis club, did not allow Jews in its doors, even 4-year-old Jews, as it turns out,” Rampell said.
“When your own child becomes a victim, it awakens emotions you never knew you had,” Richard Rampell told the Palm Beach Daily News on May 16, 1993.
Carlson did not say “Jews” when he discussed the topic on his livestream. But Rampell said she detected plenty of codes, including his exchange with his brother about a group “fixated” on WASPs, and the ostensible oxymoron he uses to describe Rampell a “liberal neocon.”
“You’ll understand what that’s a euphemism for,” Rampell said.
“Neoconservative” or “neocon” are sometimes used as anti-Jewish pejoratives, on the left and the right. Rampell’s writing and commentary do not reflect the views of actual neoconservatives, who champion shrinking the welfare state as well as a robustly interventionist foreign policy.
Rampell noted that Carlson is no stranger to euphemisms for Jews, recalling that in his eulogy for the slain conservative leader Charlie Kirk last year, Tucker referred to the killers of Jesus as “a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus.”
Trump in 1993 sought assistance in turning the Palm Beach estate he had purchased, Mar-a-Lago, into a country club. One lawyer he consulted with advised Trump to emphasize that the new club would be open to all comers – it would not restrict Jews or Blacks or others.
“You’ve got an island with a lot of Jewish residents who have no club to go to,” said the lawyer, Paul Rampell — Catherine’s uncle, and her father’s partner in campaigning against country club bigotry.
Trump agreed and hired the lawyer, who helped him secure permission to launch the club.
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