On Antisemitism Defined and Lived
Towards the end of my time as a doctoral student at New York University, the issue of Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions against Israel came up for a vote in the graduate student union. The recent uptick in anti-Jewish incidents around the USA has me thinking about three different students I encountered during that episode and how certain aspects of BDS I observed then resemble larger dynamics within the world of the anti-Zionist left now.
Looking back, those encounters reveal a number of important things. They suggest, for one, that neither of the two reigning “antisemitism” definitions can satisfactorily account for the realities of Israel debates. For another, they stress how, in the present moment, we need a more vigorous commitment among all parties to listening to the concerns of Jews no matter their politics.
At the time, I was of the opinion that it would be a mistake for the union, which claimed to represent thousands of grad students, to undertake the vote. On a tactical level, I thought it would sew division within the union right after we had scored a major bargaining victory against the administration. On a philosophical level, I was skeptical then that the global BDS movement could achieve much beyond isolating the Israeli left and making a solution to the conflict less reachable.
Before the union was to vote on the BDS resolution, they held open town halls to discuss the issue. There I met three BDS activists who were advocating for the resolution (in the event, it passed by a thin margin).
Student 1: A non-Jewish grad student who believed that the contingent that was against the vote, most of whom were Jewish grad students, was ill-informed about wider Jewish support for BDS among American Jews. When we claimed that most Jews support Israel as a Jewish state and opposed BDS, the grad student replied something to the effect of: You’re wrong, BDS is becoming more mainstream among American Jews by the day, as evidenced by the burgeoning popularity of Jewish Voices for Peace.
Student 2: A grad student who firmly believed that Israel is an apartheid state and the only just way to resolve the conflict was via a one state solution that would invest all denizens with citizenship and equality. I got into a long conversation with this student about our differing views, and the student explained their outlook with patience and sobriety. I learned a lot from that discussion.
Student 3: A grad student who wrote in response to speeches the anti-BDS caucus gave at one of the town halls the following: “Updated Zionist talking points pay lip service to the desperate plight of Palestinians living under the Israeli jackboot but take issue with BDS as a means to achieve peace. The fact that Israel’s propagandists have already conceded this much ground confirms the longer-term and ongoing shift in public opinion toward a new common sense in support of Palestinian human rights and dignity.” (https://socialistworker.org/2016/03/17/building-bds-and-the-union-at-nyu)
Which of these are examples of antisemitism based on the two salient definitions, that of IHRA and JDA?
According to how many have interpreted IHRA, its Students 2 and 3. Student 2 denied Israel’s right to self-determination and student 3 lumped most American Jews with the Israeli government (see IHRA stipulations 7 and 11; https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism).
The JDA definition would likely affirm that Student 3 is an example of antisemitism, given that it qualifies as “[h]olding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s conduct or treating Jews, simply because they are Jewish, as agents of Israel” (See JDA B:7, https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/). A virtue of the JDA definition, moreover, is that it protects Student 2 from censure, thus encouraging a far greater degree of free debate on Israel-Palestine (see Section C).
One problem with the JDA’s approach, however, is that it ignores the realities of anti-Israel activism, which often look exactly like this case where you have Student 2, a principled and unbigoted supporter of BDS, making common cause with Student 3, who has more extravagant ideas about Jews and Israel.
I recall, in fact, bringing up Student 3’s article at one of the town halls. I used Student 3’s writing as proof that the BDS resolution vote had indeed imported strife within the union. I was roundly denounced by the BDS caucus for calling out someone personally for something that had transpired beyond the town hall, which was, in their view, a “micro-aggression.” None from the BDS caucus were willing to distance themselves from the article in question.
Can a definition of antisemitism that is careful to protect principled anti-Zionist speech account for this? I don’t know the answer to that, but it’s not unreasonable when some Jews argue that it’s incredibly difficult to separate principled anti-Zionism in the abstract from the anti-Jewish animus that can percolate in these campaigns. They’re sometimes sitting together in the same room, literally.
My experience in those town halls was discouraging but largely benign. It didn’t really matter one way or another whether the resolution passed, and the “antisemitism” I came across in the debates was minimal, rhetorical, and mostly harmless. But the same dynamic, I’d argue, is in evidence today on a much wider and more sinister scale in reaction to the latest violence in Israel. Over the past month, we’ve seen some anti-Israel protesters adopt the position that all Jews are representatives of Zionism and therefore worthy of protest. In a few alarming cases, we’ve seen synagogue vandalism, street intimidation of visibly-Jewish Jews, and real violence against Jews from LA to NY to London. And then there’s the torrent of anti-Jewish vitriol hurled at all manner of Jews on social media platforms of late.
To be sure, some on the left have denounced these hateful actions. That’s good and commendable, and hopefully it will inspire others to do the same. It’s worth asking, though: Has any major Pro-Palestine leader in the US actually thought through how the movement to liberate Palestine not only attracts but also has the potential to incite this sort of anti-Jewish hostility? Does the Pro-Palestine movement have an answer for this problem? Judging from the recent rhetoric of many on the left who are inclined to reduce all anti-Jewish activity in the US to Trumpism and white supremacy, the answer is ostensibly no.
And then there’s Student 1, whom I actually remember best even though the encounter escapes easy categorization. Student 1, who was not Jewish, engaged in the sort of rhetoric that would normally be condemned in progressive spaces as a form of “minority-splaining.” According to Student 1, their impressionistic views on Jewish communal politics were in fact more informed than the views of the students in the anti-BDS caucus who counted themselves as active members of Jewish communities. Suffice it to say, my attempts to disabuse Student 1 of the notion that JVP represented more than a sliver of Jewish communal life met with no success.
This behavior isn’t, as per IHRA or JDA, definitionally antisemitic, but for me it felt the most brazen. It broaches a separate issue that both definitions cannot really account for, let’s call it the Justice Potter corollary. Minorities know prejudice when they see it, and this felt like that to me. How would one go about incorporating this into a concrete definition?
In any event, the example of Student 1 has a current, large-scale cognate as well. There is no shortage of critics writing about the problem of antisemitism in the Pro-Palestine movement today. Some of that writing is conducted with obvious adversarial intent, but some of it is earnest. Will non-Jews and Jews in the Pro-Palestine movement listen to what Jews are telling them? Or will they insist that Jews are hopelessly misinformed, unwitting stooges of the state of Israel, or bad faith actors who take on the role of agents of the state? From the looks of the rhetoric over the last week, it can seems like we are sadly in the latter territory at the present time.
This leaves us in an unsatisfying place. If antisemitism is difficult to define, and if the IHRA and JDA definitions both have flaws, doesn’t that mean that some can overuse and abuse the word “antisemitism” to shutdown Israel-Palestine debate, and doesn’t that mean that others can minimize it completely in order to forgive real examples of anti-Jewish prejudice?
I don’t have any easy answers. I do think, though, that everyone would do well if they committed to listening more forthrightly and intently to the concerns of all Jews. There are Jews who think that a major organizational effort is afoot to stigmatize their speech on Israel-Palestine. The recent AP firing of Emily Wilder is only the latest indication that this is not an illusory fear and has major real-world consequences. But there are also Jews who think anti-Jewish attitudes and violence is a real problem in the Pro-Palestine movement that has yet to be satisfactorily addressed. This past week suggests that they are not wrong to worry about this.
Imploring people to listen might seem like a canned piece of advice, but there’s a paucity of genuine, generous listening nowadays. I am talking about the sort of listening that isn’t met with a “what about” or a “false dichotomy” knee-jerk response or a reactive assumption that your interlocutor has an ulterior agenda. The kind of listening that is open to hearing from all potential victims of antisemitism, not just the one’s who cohere with your political outlook. The kind of listening that suspends political expediency in the interest of taking all bigotry seriously.
People in positions of power and influence across the political spectrum could work harder to make this a priority. We’d all be better for it.
