Addressing Antisemitism
We want an equitable and effective approach to addressing antisemitism in MA. We have seen how the federal government is weaponizing charges of antisemitism to justify crackdowns and are concerned that the MA Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism’s actions will lead to similar silencing and policing of speech.
9/ 25/25, Ma Special Commission on CombatING ANTISEMITISM
In this video, Ben Allen, a math professor and parent of 5th grade students in Boston Public Schools, states, “The IHRA definition declares any comparison of contemporary Israeli policies to the Nazis to be antisemitic, but when I see children of Gaza being starved to death, medical personnel being stripped and handcuffed, or children and parents being shot in the streets by drones and snipers, it reminds me directly of the images I was shown as a child of what Nazis did to us.”
In this video, Pat Jehlen, State Senator states, "I have two asks: First, not to use the IHRA definition, at least not alone. By specifically including the examples, and by excluding other definitions despite requests, the recommendation will harm many people including Jews. At a recent judiciary hearing, well over a hundred people signed up to testify against adoption of the IHRA definition, almost all of them Jewish...Second, please train young people in civil discourse and dialogue across differences. This is especially important in the current environment."
In this video, Elana Wolkoff, School and educational psychologist, states, "I’m a Jewish woman who has had strong ties to Israel all my life. In that context, I want to state unequivocally that criticism of Israel is not antisemitic. It’s political...I am terrified that if the IHRA definition and its examples are codified or if a hotline for reporting any discomfort related to Judaism or Israel is established in schools, we Jews are the ones who will pay the biggest price."
In this video, social worker Bob Mason states that, "The IHRA definition presents a very real threat to me and other Jews who make a clear distinction between our religion and the nation state...I realize Jews are not unique in experiencing acts of prejudice that have also targeted African Americans, the gay and transgender community, Muslim Americans and many others. No one group of people is safe until all people are safe."
In this video, Alain Jehlen, from the Jewish Caucus of Somerville for Palestinians, states that, "We and many other Jews don’t identify with a country that places little value on the life of a Palestinian. Jews like us will continue to uphold the Jewish traditions of standing up for the victims of injustice even when the perpetrators are Jewish...Your proposal would punish comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany, but Israeli actions have much in common with the Nazis."
In this video, Hasia Diner, Professor Emerita NYU, Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and American Jewish Studies and three time winner of National Jewish Book Award, states that, "The political Zionist movement has always been a matter of deep, internal, heated, debate within Jewish communities. There was never a consensus among Jews about this...The equation of anti-Zionism or severe criticism of the state of Israel, the conflating of that and antisemitism, is historically fallacious. And in the contemporary world and in our Commonwealth of Massachusetts, it’s highly dangerous."
In this video, Mark Stern, a lawyer, stated that, "[by applying the IHRA filters] “what you’re left with is only the right to glorify or justify Israel’s killing more than 50,000 noncombatants because they’re Palestinian, disappearing more than a third of a million people, depriving the remainder of the 2 million people of food and water...This is intended to suppress free speech and to establish ONE religion over another. It’s completely unconstitutional."
Akiva Leibowitz, an Jewish Israeli American physician, stated that,
"In a 2017 Congressional Hearing, Kenneth Stern, a leader drafter of the IHRA testified against adoption of it for the Antisemitism Act, saying it was never intended to target or chill speech on a campus. While Stern believed that antisemitism could manifest as hostility to Israel, he also believed enshrining such a definition would have dangerous consequences, infringing on civil rights by delegitimizing lectures, protests, [or] programs that show Israel in a negative light."