NJ Democrat Says “ABOUT THAT ‘ANTISEMITISM’ BILL: It won’t stop antisemitism, but it might undermine free speech”

NJ Democrat Says “ABOUT THAT ‘ANTISEMITISM’ BILL: It won’t stop antisemitism, but it might undermine free speech”
by Bob Dreyfuss and Barbara Dreyfuss
Republished with permission from NJ Democrat.

Photo description: A 2024 protest over Gaza at Rutgers University.

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, triggered by the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7, the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, the subsequent, wholesale destruction of Gaza, and the killing of nearly 60,000 Palestinians, anti-Israel protesters have chanted slogans that have offended many American Jews, including “globalize the intifada,” “free Palestine,” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” And many protesters, following the lead of an international coalition of countries led by South Africa – which has brought charges to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) blaming Israel for “genocide” in Gaza – have similarly accused Israel of genocide.

There has also been a marked rise in antisemitic incidents, including violence, in New Jersey and around the country.

But under the terms of a bill now working its way through the state legislature, which “establishes a State definition of anti-Semitism,” none of those phrases or accusations – which, after all, pertain to Israel not to Jews generally – would explicitly fall under the definition under consideration. And hate crimes, including those targeting Jews, are already illegal under New Jersey law.

On Thursday, hundreds of New Jerseyans for and against the bill crowded into five rooms for a hearing on it before the Assembly State and Local Government Committee, and for nearly nine hours speakers, each having two minutes at the mic, testified. At the end, the committee voted unanimously in favor of moving the bill forward.

The bill, Assembly bill A3558, would have New Jersey adopt a definition of antisemitism based on a 2016 resolution by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Though IHRA’s definition has generated some controversy, dozens of U.S. states, nearly a hundred U.S. cities and counties, and other institutions have codified or endorsed it.

The core of the IHRA resolution isn’t controversial at all, and had the legislature in Trenton limited its bill to that alone – or chosen to adopt a widely available alternative definition (see below) – it’s virtually certain that both the supporters and opponents of A3558 would have had no objections. The preamble to IHRA’s antisemitism definition reads:

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

But the problem arises from the list of “illustrations” or examples of what counts as antisemitism. Unfortunately, at least two and possibly three of those examples have raised hackles among civil libertarians, free speech advocates, and Arab and Muslim groups who turned out in force in Trenton in opposition to the bill. Among those examples is one that precludes “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis,” and another that rules out “claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

Opponents of the bill argue that comparing countries or politicians to Nazis is standard fare in modern political discourse, and indeed in recent American history both Republicans and Democrats have accused presidents of the opposite party of acting like Nazis. Many supporters of Ukraine compare Russia’s brutal invasion of that country to the Nazi invasion of Ukraine during World War II. And Israel itself has accused the Palestinians in Gaza of Nazi-like behavior. Just this week an Israeli government minister said that Israel’s war in Gaza is “driving out the population that educated its people on the ideas of ‘Mein Kampf’,” Adolf Hitler’s 1925 manifesto.

And, while most Israelis disagree and many American Jews find it offensive, to say the least, it isn’t out of bounds to say that Israel’s self-identification as a “Jewish state,” under which non-Jews and Palestinians are often excluded and treated as second-class citizens, is racist and discriminatory. For decades, international institutions and U.S. politicians – including the late Jimmy Carter – have said that Israel resembles apartheid South Africa. An Israeli Jewish human rights group, B’Tselem, wrote a report as far back as 2002 saying that Israel’s policy in the occupied territories is “reminiscent of distasteful regimes from the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.”

Under A3558, statements such as those would fall under the definition of antisemitism and might be seen by authorities, from university administrators to local prosecutors, as instances of illegal and/or punishable offenses.

The New Jersey branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sent a representative, DaWuan Norwood, to the July 24 hearing to speak against A3558. In his testimony, Norwood said:

Enshrining this definition into New Jersey law will chill the First Amendment rights of New Jerseyans and set a dangerous precedent for free speech in the state. The IHRA definition of antisemitism conflates protected political speech with unprotected discrimination. … The bill adopts a definition of antisemitism that is likely to censor and penalize political speech protected by the First Amendment.

It isn’t entirely clear how A3558 and the IHRA definition of antisemitism might apply in criminal cases. The bill itself doesn’t address this, nor does it say anything about criminal penalties. But, in an interview with The New Jersey Democrat, the ACLU’s Norwood said prosecutors might indeed use the new law as leverage in charging critics of Israel with hate crimes. “In terms of the criminal justice system, this definition would be the standard working definition by which we investigate instances of bias or hate crimes,” he said. “Protected political speech [would be] brought in and used to understand what is a hate crime.”

At the very least, said Norwood in his testimony, A3558 would “significantly chill the exercise of free speech and protest,” adding – based on evidence from other states that have adopted the IHRA resolution – that the “chilling effect is not speculative.”

If legislators were concerned that a person shouting that Israel is acting in a Nazi-like manner, but saying nothing about Jews, might be arrested and charged with a hate crime, it didn’t deter them from supporting the bill.

At the podium on Thursday, legislators, including Assemblyman Robert Karabinchak, the chair of the State and Local Government Committee, listened patiently as speaker after speaker rose to applaud or to denounce the bill. Occasionally, outbursts, shouting, heckling and disruptions led Karabinchak to threaten to clear the room of spectators, but things usually quieted down. Speakers from the Rutgers University chapter of Hillel, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CPMAJO), the Jewish Bar Association of New Jersey, the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, and many other Jewish speakers, including rabbis and synagogue leaders, spoke out emotionally about harassment and antisemitic incidents.

Lisa Harris Glass, the Rutgers Hillel CEO, told the committee that nothing in the bill would stifle free speech, but added that it “clarified when [speech] crosses into hate.” And Judith Harrison, the Rutgers Hillel president, said, “There is an integral connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.” Other speakers from the New Jersey Jewish community echoed those comments, some pointing out that Jewish high school and college students have been harassed since October 7, 2023, over actions of the government of Israel.

But at a rally outside the committee hearing, a broad coalition of Muslim, Jewish, and civil rights groups held a press conference, including Jewish Voice for Peace, the ACLU, the Council on American Islamic Relations NJ, American Muslims for Palestine NJ, the Islamic Center of Passaic County, and others.

“The IHRA definition has been criticized by the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and hundreds of academics and Jewish organizations,” said their statement. “Civil libertarians argue that IHRA conflates legitimate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism and that codifying it into law threatens the free speech of advocating for Palestinian human rights and the religious liberty of Jews who express the view that Israel is a racist state that exists in violation of religious law.”

The IHRA’s version of anti-antisemitism is not universally popular, even among Jews and Israelis. According to the Times of Israel, more than 100 organizations in Israel and around the world forcefully opposed the use of IHRA definition of antisemitism because it could constrict freedom of speech and “curtail criticisms of Israel.”

Ironically, an alternate definition of antisemitism was put together several years ago that avoided the tangled issue of free speech. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism was issued in 2021, saying: “Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).” And it added a set of 15 guidelines that specify in great detail how to distinguish between actions or words that are antisemitic and those that are not. But, for whatever reason, the sponsors of A3558 did not consider adopting the Jerusalem Declaration as opposed the IHRA version.

Adding to the irony, the original author of the idea of creating a “definition” of antisemitism, Kenneth Stern, has spoken out against IHRA and its potential misuse. According to Wikipedia, Stern was the lead drafter of the IHRA “Working Definition of Antisemitism,” and from 1989 to 2014 he served as the director of antisemitism, hate studies and extremism for the American Jewish Committee. In 2019, in a piece for The Guardian, entitled “I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Right wing Jews are weaponizing it,” Stern criticized President Trump, the ultraright Zionist Organization of America, and other groups of “hunt[ing] political speech with which they disagree,” adding: “It was never intended to be a campus hate speech code.”

Stern also criticized Columbia University last year when the university moved toward adopting the IHRA definition as part of its disciplinary code. “People who believe they’re combating hate are seduced by simple solutions to complicated issues,” he said. “But when used in this context, it’s really actually harming our ability to think about antisemitism.”

After Columbia’s decision, Marianne Hirsch, the university’s leading genocide scholar and an expert on the Holocaust, said that she’d leave the school as a result. “A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic and threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry,” she told the AP. “I just don’t see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.”

Columbia, of course, has been the Trump administration’s principal target in a nationwide campaign targeting America’s colleges and universities.

One reason for the growing support for the IHRA version among pro-Israel groups is their alarm over the deterioration of support for Israel among Americans, especially among Democrats.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, support for Israel has fallen sharply, according to several recent polls. According to the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, a Gallup poll in February revealed that just 33 percent of Democrats hold a favorable opinion of Israel, as opposed to 83 percent of Republicans — a staggering 50 percent gap. And the paper reported:

The poll, published on Monday, is the latest stark sign that Democrats are losing their love for Israel. Previous polls taken during the Israel-Hamas war have shown that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to blame Israel for the fighting and to be more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to the Israelis.

By June 2025, the numbers had worsened for Israel. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA):

Sympathy for Israelis dropped 14% among Republicans over the last year, underscoring waning support for Israel as the country’s ongoing offensive in Gaza wages on, according to a new poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University. Among Republicans, the new poll found that 64% said their sympathies lay with the Israelis, while 7% said it was with Palestinians. In a May 2024 Quinnipiac poll, Republicans sympathy for Israel was at 78%.

The poll also found dwindling support for Israel among Democrats, who had already sharply trailed Republicans in saying they viewed Israel favorably. Just 12% said their sympathies lay more with Israelis, while 60% sympathized more with Palestinians. Last year, 30% of Democrats said they sympathized more with Israelis.

What happens next isn’t clear. To become law, the bill now has to be sent to the full Assembly for an up-or-down vote. With scores of co-sponsors, including many Democratic members of the Assembly, its passage seems certain. It would then have to go to the state Senate, and then to the governor to be signed. Given the opposition to the bill, however, it isn’t clear if the leaders of the state legislature in fact want it to move forward. (In June, a hearing on A3558 before a different committee, one that was widely expected to endorse it, ended the day without a vote, for reasons that weren’t explained. Critics of the bill suggest that their opposition to it led that committee to cancel a vote, to the great consternation of its supporters, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer.)

How soon any of that might happen also isn’t clear. With the legislature basically out of business for the summer, many observers believe that the IHRA bill won’t be considered again until after the November election, in a “lame duck” session.

And even then, Governor Murphy hasn’t signaled whether or not he’d sign it. Earlier this year, after a controversy over a very different bill, a flash-mob prevention bill, raised opposition from civil liberties advocates, Murphy vetoed it conditionally, asking for changes. Theoretically, Murphy could do that with the IHRA bill, too, asking the legislature to strip out the more controversial sections that would undermine free speech.

Or, the whole thing could be kicked down the road into 2026, when its future would be uncertain. Both Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic candidate for governor and frontrunner, and MAGA-linked Republican Jack Ciattarelli support the IHRA bill as it stands.