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    Trump fires Doug Emhoff and others from US Holocaust Memorial Council

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    The Trump administration has fired several members of the US Holocaust Memorial Council appointed by Joe Biden, including Doug Emhoff, the husband of Kamala Harris.Emhoff described the move as a political decision that turned “one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue”.He said he had been informed on Tuesday of his removal from the board, which oversees the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and other Holocaust commemorations.“Let me be clear: Holocaust remembrance and education should never be politicized,” Emhoff said in a statement. “To turn one of the worst atrocities in history into a wedge issue is dangerous – and it dishonors the memory of six million Jews murdered by Nazis that this museum was created to preserve.”Emhoff, who is Jewish and who led the Biden administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism, said he would continue to “speak out, to educate, and to fight hate in all its forms – because silence is never an option”.“No divisive political decision will ever shake my commitment to Holocaust remembrance and education or to combatting hate and antisemitism,” he added.His statement comes a day before Harris is due to deliver her first major speech since leaving office in January. The former US vice-president, who lost to Donald Trump in the November presidential election, is expected to offer a sharp critique of the Trump administration, in San Francisco.In addition, the Trump administration reportedly dismissed other Biden appointees to the council, including the former White House chief of staff Ron Klain; the former UN ambassador Susan Rice; the former deputy national security adviser Jon Finer; the former labor secretary Tom Perez; the former ambassador to Spain and Andorra Alan Solomont; and Mary Zients, the wife of the former White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, according to Jewish Insider.Anthony Bernal, who served as a senior adviser to the former first lady Jill Biden, was also fired from the council, the New York Times reported.Many of those reportedly fired on Tuesday had been appointed in January. Presidential appointments to the council typically serve for a five-year term.Solomont, who was appointed to the council in 2023, told Jewish Insider that he learned of his dismissal through an email from a staff member of the White House presidential personnel office.“On behalf of President Donald J Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council is terminated, effective immediately,” the email reads. “Thank you for your service.”The email provided no explanation for the dismissal and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.A statement from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reads: “At this time of high antisemitism and Holocaust distortion and denial, the Museum is gratified that our visitation is robust and demand for Holocaust education is increasing.“We look forward to continuing to advance our vitally important mission as we work with the Trump Administration,” it added. More

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      US federal agency texts Barnard College employees to ask if they’re Jewish

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      Employees from Barnard College received text messages this week from the federally run Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on their personal phones linking to a voluntary survey asking recipients if they are Jewish or Israeli and whether they have been subjected to harassment or antisemitism.The text, which was reviewed by the Guardian, states that the civil rights agency is “currently reviewing the employment practices at Barnard College” and invites current and former employees to complete the linked survey. It is not clear how many college employees received the survey, but it appears to have been sent to a sizable portion of the faculty and other staff.The survey, which appeared to be part of the Trump administration’s aggressive investigations into American colleges and universities over antisemitism allegations stemming from pro-Palestinian protests, sparked anxiety among some recipients.View image in fullscreen“Regardless of the stated intent, this survey in effect creates a list of Jewish faculty, staff and students at Barnard,” said Elizabeth Bauer, a Barnard professor and chair of the college’s biology department, who said she was alarmed by the message.“The government is also now requiring undocumented immigrants, including children, to register with DHS. I’ve seen this movie before and I’m horrified.”The survey asked whether the respondent currently works at Barnard or has ever been employed there and prompted respondents to select all that apply of the choices: “I am Jewish”, “I am Israeli”, “I have shared Jewish/Israeli ancestry”, “I practice Judaism” and “Other”.Another question asked: “While working at Barnard College, were you subjected to any of the following because you practice Judaism, have Jewish ancestry, are Israeli, and/or are associated with an individual(s) who is Jewish and/or Israeli?”Respondents could select from options including, “unwelcome comments, jokes or discussions”, “harassment, intimidation”, “pressure to abandon, change or adopt a practice or religious belief” and “antisemitic or anti-Israeli protests, gatherings or demonstrations that made you feel threatened, harassed or were otherwise disruptive to your working environment”.Other questions asked the respondents’ employment details, supervisor name, date of hire and more.Elizabeth Hutchinson, an associate professor of American Art History at Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, said when she received the message on her personal phone at 5.39pm ET on Monday, her initial reaction was: “This must be some kind of scam, because, how could the EEOC have my contact information.”The message addressed her by name and, initially, Hutchinson said, she didn’t open the links.“I was frightened, and wasn’t sure what it entailed,” she said.Celia Naylor, a professor in the Africana studies department at Barnard College, also received the message on Monday. She quickly discovered that “a lot of people I know – faculty and even some staff – also received it”.View image in fullscreenAs many faculty and staff tried to verify the message’s legitimacy in group chats on Monday evening, Barnard’s general counsel, Serena Longley, sent an email about the messages.Longley explained in the email, which was viewed by the Guardian, that the college had “received multiple reports that some employees have received text messages from the EEOC inviting them to complete a voluntary survey”. She also said Barnard, Longley “was not given advance notice of this outreach”.“Participation is entirely voluntary. If you choose to respond, please know that both federal law and Barnard policy strictly prohibit any form of retaliation,” she continued.Longley sent a follow-up email to Barnard employees on Wednesday, which was also reviewed by the Guardian, explaining that the EEOC launched an investigation last summer against Barnard “concerning whether or not the College discriminated against Jewish employees on the basis of their national origin, religion and/or race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”.“Barnard prides itself on being an inclusive and respectful workplace for all people, including our Jewish employees, and has been robustly defending the College against this EEOC inquiry,” Longley wrote, adding that the EEOC was “legally entitled to obtain the contact information of Barnard employees so that it could offer employees the option to voluntarily participate in their investigation”.“Barnard complied with this lawful request,” she said.The college heard from current and former employees in recent days who asked to be notified in advance before their contact information is shared, the email also noted.“Going forward,” she said, “if and when we are required to provide information about staff in connection with an investigation or litigation, we will provide you with advance notice unless we are subject to a court order that prohibits us from doing so.”Longley also emphasized that participation in the EEOC survey was voluntary.A spokesperson for the EEOC said: “Per federal law, we cannot comment on investigations, nor can we confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.” Barnard did not respond to a request for comment.After hearing others discuss its content, Hutchinson finally opened the survey on Wednesday and found it “utterly shocking”.“It’s very clearly a fishing expedition,” she said, before noting that the survey “is clearly presuming guilt and looking for very specific kinds of evidence for their case”.Hutchinson also said that while she was grateful for the information provided in Barnard’s emails this week, she felt that they did not “acknowledge the reality that the faculty are experiencing a heightened surveillance of our campus that is now intruding into our personal devices on our personal time”.To Hutchinson, the message on Monday was “unprecedented” has “really ramped up the unease on campus”, with faculty now feeling vulnerable both in their classrooms and now in their private spaces too.Naylor echoed that faculty, students and staff were concerned about how their personal information was being used by Barnard, and shared with federal agencies. They are unsure of what other personal details have been provided.Debbie Becher, a Barnard sociology professor who is Jewish, spoke to the New York Times this week about the text message and survey, saying that she found it “a bit terrifying” that the federal government “wants to know who the Jews are through some text message and Microsoft Office form”.Bauer said that not all of the Barnard faculty and staff received the message, adding that it was “unclear” why some did not receive it and others did.“It was obvious that the survey was a fishing expedition by the EEOC to find Title VII violations,” Bauer said.Colin Wayne Leach, a professor of psychology and Africana Studies at Barnard College, said that “as a dean focused on supporting our faculty”, he had been hearing from many colleagues this week who are upset about the messages.They were “surprised” that the EEOC “would choose this informal, unannounced, and intrusive way to ask employees to complete a survey on their experiences of such an important topic as anti-semitism at their place of work”.The Spectator, Columbia’s University paper, reported on Wednesday that several members of Columbia’s faculty also received the text message from EEOC.Rebecca Kobrin, co-director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies (IIJS), told the Spectator that she and other members of IIJS received the message. 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      in US Politics

      The new definition of antisemitism is transforming America – and serving a Christian nationalist plan

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      View image in fullscreenIn 1919, Jacob Israël de Haan, an Orthodox Jewish queer poet and lawyer, arrived in British Mandate Palestine from the Netherlands. Despite his initial sympathies with Zionism, within a few years de Haan would become an outspoken critic of the movement. Driven by what he called a “natural feeling for justice”, he advocated for “another Jewish community in Palestine” – one that sought cooperation with the Arab-Palestinian community. His steadfast opposition to mainstream Zionism made de Haan a controversial figure, drawing the ire of Zionist leadership. On 30 June 1924, de Haan was assassinated by a member of the Zionist organization Haganah.This political assassination represented not merely the elimination of one man, but a portentous statement about which perspectives would be tolerated in the emerging political landscape. A century later, we are witnessing a similar troubling pattern. As attacks against universities and intimidation of Palestinian activists become ever more rife, those who challenge Zionist orthodoxy – whether out of political conviction, religious belief or ethical principle – face exclusion, vilification and worse. This time, the main tool is a sweeping legal redefinition of antisemitism in American law and policy.Something unprecedented – and deeply unsettling – is unfolding: under the guise of a legal redefinition of antisemitism, the basic architecture of American public life is being radically transformed. What appears, at first glance, to be a technical change in terminology has become a powerful instrument for political control, solidifying executive power to enforce a narrow, state-sanctioned definition of Judaism. In the name of combating antisemitism, this effort threatens to reshape American public life – and with it, the pillars of American liberalism. But despite what some will have you believe, two things are clear: first, this campaign does not protect Jews – it endangers them; and second, this redefinition plays into a larger Christian nationalist project.The clash over the definition of antisemitismFollowing the horrendous Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, and the subsequent war and utter destruction of Gaza, two sharply contrasting positions have emerged. On the one hand, many Jewish organizations and advocates have seen the emerging pro-Palestinian protest movement as a manifestation of antisemitism, a classic example of the over-scrutinization of Israel, and the denial of Israel’s right to defend itself.On the other hand, many critics of Israel and of Zionism argue against this conflation and in favor of their right to support the Palestinian struggle. For them, labeling anti-Israel positions as antisemitic is a way to silence dissenting opinions and to prevent an honest discussion of Israel’s actions in Gaza.Even before this clash entered the mainstream in the last year and a half, American decision-makers and institutions had already taken a clear side, framing anti-Israel positions as antisemitic. A landmark moment in the emergence of this new understanding of antisemitism is no doubt the 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which has rapidly become a legal benchmark for defining antisemitism in the US and has a growing presence in both state and federal law.
      The redefinition of antisemitism isn’t simply a policy shift – it’s part of a deeper transformation of American democracy
      While the core definition makes no explicit mention of Israel, the examples of purported antisemitism that IHRA provides tell a different story. Among the illustrative cases, it notes that antisemitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”. Other examples include “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor”, and “[d]rawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”.Back in his first term, Donald Trump issued a 2019 executive order directing federal agencies to consider the IHRA definition when enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs, cementing this problematic standard. It has been formally adopted in multiple federal and state statutes, in which it is used to equate criticism of Israel or Zionism with antisemitism. These laws have been applied in a range of legal and policy contexts – restricting free speech, shaping civil rights protections and even influencing the classification of hate crimes in state criminal codes.Trump’s January 2025 executive order on “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” marks a dangerous escalation in this trend. The order directs multiple federal agencies to “prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence”.Just days after the order, the administration slashed $400m in federal research funding from Columbia University over what it claimed was a systemic tolerance of antisemitic activity and demanded changes to the school’s policies – a move widely seen as retaliation for pro-Palestinian campus activism, to which Columbia has consented in an extraordinary surrender of its academic freedom. Similar threats have followed against numerous additional universities. In a recent chilling development, the Department of Homeland Security arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian permanent resident and student organizer whom the government is now seeking to deport, with more arrests promised. (Indeed, they have begun.) The redefinition of antisemitism isn’t simply a policy shift – it’s part of a deeper transformation of American democracy.We have never been secularNo doubt, proponents of the IHRA definition raise an important point. To understand why, we need to recognize something distinctive about Jewish identity: it has always been deeply political. Unlike modern Christianity, which developed alongside a strong liberal separation of church and state, Judaism has never drawn such a sharp line. Jewish identity has long resisted the tidy categories that liberal theory prefers – religious or secular, ethnic or political, private or public. From biblical times through the diaspora and into modernity, Jewish communities understood religious life not just as a set of spiritual beliefs but as the foundation of a political community. Jewish religious leadership traditionally held legal and political authority – issuing binding rulings on property, taxation, even criminal law. This isn’t a historical anomaly – it’s a defining feature of Jewish tradition. Zionism, despite the secular aspirations of many of its founders, built on this legacy by channeling the political dimension of Jewish identity into the framework of a modern nation-state.View image in fullscreenAccordingly, for many Jews, Israel is a crucial element of their Jewish identity. As Noah Feldman writes in To Be a Jew Today, for many American Jews, “Israel can function as the chosen focal point of their Jewish identity and connection. Caring about and supporting Israel can be constitutive of what makes them actively Jewish.” An attack on that element, a denial of its legitimacy, feels to many like an attack on who they are as Jews.But this does not necessarily cast anti-Israel opinions as antisemitic. When we criticize something important to someone’s identity, it doesn’t automatically mean we’re attacking their identity itself. When political positions become enshrined as essential components of personhood, substantive disagreements risk being recast as attacks on identity. The result, as the scholar Richard Ford once put it, is the potential to “camouflage” ideological conflict as discrimination.Take male circumcision – a ritual at the heart of Jewish tradition practiced by most Jewish families worldwide. When medical experts or rights advocates question circumcision based on concerns about bodily autonomy or health risks, most people understand they aren’t being antisemitic. No matter where they stand on circumcision, they recognize critics may be raising ethical questions that exist independently of Jewish identity. This same logic must apply to Israel. Criticizing Israeli policies may, for instance, reflect genuine concerns about human rights rather than prejudice against Jews, even as the criticism is directed at a defining feature of their Jewishness.The labeling of criticism against Israel as antisemitism has already worked to quash serious discussions on Israel-Palestine in the United States. Even Kenneth Stern, who drafted the original working definition, argued in an opinion piece for the Guardian that the IHRA definition has been weaponized against legitimate political expression.Silencing dissentFederal measures such as Trump’s 2019 executive order have fueled a wave of investigations by the Department of Education into universities over pro-Palestinian activism, pressuring administrators to police student speech. At NYU, political statements such as “Fuck Israel” have led to antisemitism charges against students. At Columbia, students faced disciplinary charges for acts as simple as hanging Palestinian flags from dorm windows or displaying them on campus statues, underscoring the growing constraints on Palestine-related activism in academic spaces. Relatedly, recently New York’s governor ordered Hunter College to remove a job posting for a Palestinian studies position, claiming the need to “ensure that antisemitic theories are not promoted in the classroom”. This interference with academic hiring marks a dangerous precedent.The pressure from federal and state authorities has led universities to internalize this surveillance logic. Last week, Columbia University unveiled an expansive compliance plan in response to the administration’s $400m funding cut, pledging stricter enforcement of student discipline, new security forces empowered to arrest demonstrators, mandatory identification checks at protests and a top-down review of academic programs, including scrutiny of hiring decisions and curricula. These measures reflect not only institutional capitulation, but the chilling normalization of ideological policing on campus.
      The new definition of antisemitism imposes a straitjacket of Zionist identity on American Jews
      A similar pattern extends to Congress, where lawmakers such as Rashida Tlaib have been formally censured with another censure effort against Ilhan Omar introduced over statements critical of Israel, in effect framing Palestinian advocacy as beyond the bounds of legitimate discourse. Meanwhile, many individuals have lost jobs, been denied opportunities, or faced disciplinary measures for expressing pro-Palestinian views or criticizing Israeli policy. This dynamic narrows the space for legitimate discussion on US foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The charge of antisemitism shifts the focus from Israel’s actions to the credibility of its critics. While combating antisemitism is imperative, the sweeping application of this label to pro-Palestinian voices endangers dissenting voices and erodes free expression, making open debate on one of the world’s most enduring conflicts increasingly difficult.View image in fullscreenBut that’s not the only problem with the new definition of antisemitism. By legally enshrining support for Israel as a defining characteristic of Jewish identity, the new definition of antisemitism imposes a straitjacket of Zionist identity on American Jews, in effect telling them that certain political positions are incompatible with being authentically Jewish. But, precisely because Jewish identity has always also been political, we should not be delegitimizing those whose Jewish identity entails a criticism or even outright rejection of ethno-national Judaism.The historical diversity of Jewish identityJewish communities have always been diverse and plural in their orientations toward Jewish nationality. From the ultra-Orthodox Satmar community that opposes Zionism on religious grounds to the socialist Jewish Bund that promoted cultural autonomy without a state, to current-day Jewish American organizations that oppose Israel’s occupation and military control over Palestinians, anti-Zionist and non-Zionist movements have always been central to Jewish identity.Many anti-Zionist Jews aren’t rejecting Jewish political life or denying Jews the right to self-determination. Rather, they’re expressing different visions of Jewish political existence and self-determination. Some of them view opposition to the state of Israel as emerging from Jewish values and traditions – whether stemming from religious beliefs about exile and redemption, or interpretations of Jewish ethical traditions that emphasize universal justice and opposition to oppression.In his recent book The No State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto, the religion scholar Daniel Boyarin reflects on how he moved from Zionism into anti-Zionism, with “my commitment to Jewish identity and identification, Torah study, scholarship, practice, literature and liturgy, and modes of speech and thinking undiminished, even growing stronger and stronger”. Criticism of Israel can stem from deep Jewish religious commitment.The real question, then, isn’t what the proper connection between Israel and Jewish identity is, but rather how to allow for multiple, sometimes competing interpretations of this relationship. By bootstrapping the definition of antisemitism to Israel, IHRA narrows the boundaries of legitimate Jewish identity. While Palestinians have been, without a doubt, the primary targets of this effort, it also takes aim at a rich Jewish tradition. It restricts the freedom of Jews to define their own identity, limiting the ways in which Jewish beliefs, thought and activism can be expressed.And indeed, on college campuses and in workplaces, Jews who express solidarity with Palestinians report being called “self-hating Jews”, “un-Jews” or “traitors” by fellow students or colleagues. In fact, just this month, Trump – our self-appointed arbiter of religious authenticity – announced that the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, is “not Jewish anymore”.Defining antisemitism in the service of conservative ChristiansSmearing progressive Jews as “not real Jews” has ramifications that extend far beyond the Jewish community, serving a conservative Christian strategy to exploit religious liberties for the sake of suppressing progressive values.In recent years the US supreme court has taken a sharp turn towards conservative Christianity, altering the basic liberal structure of American constitutionalism. The court has upheld religious claims challenging pandemic restrictions on gatherings and vaccination requirements, LGBTQ+ non-discrimination laws, and the separation of church and state in public education.This strengthens conservative Christian influence by transforming political views into constitutional protections – for example, when the supreme court ruled the constitution allowed a Catholic foster care agency to exclude same-sex couples on religious grounds. However, as David Schraub, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, has pointed out, this strategy faces a significant obstacle: progressive Jews. Progressive Jews, and any other group whose religious commitments might be threatened by conservative policies, could leverage the expansion of precisely these religious protections to opt out of conservative policy initiatives.
      This farcical performance of concern would merely be amusing were it not for the very real possibility that it serves as a prelude for persecution
      Progressive Jewish communities have already begun to challenge conservative policy agendas on religious freedom grounds – most notably around reproductive rights. In the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade and the wave of state-level abortion bans that followed, Jewish women, congregations and community leaders have filed lawsuits asserting that such bans violate their religious freedom. In some cases, plaintiffs have argued that Jewish law not only permits but may even require abortion under certain circumstances. While many of these cases are still pending, in a landmark ruling in April 2024, the Indiana court of appeals recognized, for the first time, the legitimacy of such claims.One way conservatives can eliminate this risk to their project is by questioning liberal Jews’ Jewishness. “If liberal Jews can be erased – either pushed out of the public eye or denied as genuine or authentic specimens of Judaism – then the challenge of liberal Jews disappears with it,” Schraub explains.This isn’t just a theoretical concern – it’s already happening. Project Esther, a new initiative launched by the Christian nationalist Heritage Foundation known for Project 2025, offers a blueprint for combating antisemitism that targets not only pro-Palestinian groups but what it calls a broader “coalition of leftist, progressive organizations” – including Jewish groups – through tools such as anti-terrorism prosecutions, deportations, public firings, and efforts to “disrupt and degrade” dissenting movements. Despite its use of Jewish religious language, the plan has virtually no Jewish authors and is riddled with basic errors, including misrepresentations of Jewish texts. It chastises American Jews who don’t align with its worldview, calling them “complacent” and their positions “inexplicable”.This farcical performance of concern would merely be amusing were it not for the very real possibility that it serves as a prelude for persecution.Reclaiming Jewish religious freedom from the stateThe increasingly aggressive use of “antisemitism” as a political instrument was never about Jewish safety. It has always been about power: consolidating a political order that merges religion, nationalism and authoritarianism under the veneer of minority protection.The ease with which progressive Jews have been thrown under the bus makes this painfully clear. Their erasure is not a side effect – it is the mechanism through which this agenda advances. Because once Jewish identity is defined from above – even with the active participation of some Jews – any Jew who resists can be disqualified and delegitimized. This was true for de Haan, and it is true today.The threat is immediate and ongoing. Already, whole sectors of society – educators, students, artists, political activists and immigrants – are paying the price. And if this continues, we can expect the same logic to be applied across a wider range of policies: tightening ideological control, redefining constitutional norms and re-engineering public institutions in the image of an authoritarian state.But there is another path. The unique position of progressive Jews offers a way to push back against the rise of the far right in the US, both with regard to Israel-Palestine, but also more broadly. Recognizing the unique harm caused to Jews by the new definition of antisemitism allows us to develop new ways to combat it.The establishment clause of the US constitution, for instance, prohibits the state from intervening in religious disputes. By adopting the IHRA definition into law, the US government has in effect taken sides in an intra-Jewish debate, recruiting Zionist Jews to side in a war against its ideological opponents. The redefinition of antisemitism is therefore not only an attack on political dissent – it is an intrusion into Jewish religious life. By codifying support for Israel as a requirement for being Jewish, these laws function as a state intervention in an ongoing Jewish theological and ethical debate.By pushing against the legal redefinition of antisemitism, Jews can refuse to surrender their identity to the state. By continuing to anchor it firmly in their communities, they can resist the instrumentalization of Judaism against others.Reclaiming religious freedom from the state, as part of this act of resistance, would not just protect Jewish dissenters – it would offer a broader framework for resisting state attempts to control religious identity. No government – not the Israeli government, and surely not the American government – should have the power to define what it means to be a Jew.

      This article was amended on 23 March 2025 to clarify that Ilhan Omar was not formally censured by Congress

      Itamar Mann is an associate professor of law at the University of Haifa, and currently a Humboldt fellow at Humboldt University. He holds a doctorate from Yale Law School

      Lihi Yona is an associate professor of law and criminology at the University of Haifa. She holds a doctorate from Columbia Law School. Her research focuses on antidiscrimination law in the United States and Israel
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      in US Politics

      UK populists mix faith and politics with parroting of ‘Judeo-Christian values’

      by

      The splendours of the Parthenon, Colosseum and Great Pyramid of Giza were in stark contrast to the utilitarian conference centre in London’s Docklands, but they were there to make a point.As 4,000 people from dozens of countries filed in for a three-day jamboree of rightwing discourse this week, the images were a reminder that great civilisations of the past had risen, declined and fallen. A commentary warned that western civilisation was at a tipping point, in crisis because it had lost touch with its “Judeo-Christian foundations”.The message greeted those attending a sold-out conference for politicians, policymakers, businesspeople and “culture formers” organised by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (Arc) at the ExCeL centre in east London, where non-discounted tickets cost £1,500.The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, and the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, addressed the gathering in person. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, and the billionaire entrepreneur Peter Thiel joined via video link from the US.It was not explicitly a faith-based event, but a distinctly religious flavour ran through the proceedings. The Arc’s co-founders and principal faces are Philippa Stroud, a Tory peer and devout Christian, and Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist whose lectures draw heavily on the Bible.Among the group’s known funders is the GB News investor Paul Marshall, a hedge fund boss and media tycoon whose worldview is shaped by his evangelical Christian faith. According to one well-connected former Conservative MP, Marshall’s influence on UK rightwing discourse is growing, not just through GB News but also his ownership of the Spectator magazine and the Unherd website.Marshall is not a member of any political party and said in a pre-conference interview last week that faith and politics were a “dangerous combination”. But some rightwingers – energised by Donald Trump’s victory and beguiled by the rhetoric of his Catholic vice-president, JD Vance – see populist potential in advocating for “Judeo-Christian values”.View image in fullscreenThe meaning of this phrase, much repeated at the Arc conference, is the “moral foundation of western civilisation” based on the shared values of Christianity and Judaism, according to Dennis Prager, an American conservative talkshow host. He added: “The ultimate embodiment of Judeo-Christian values has been the United States of America.”The term, drawing on both faiths’ biblical roots, was first used in the early 19th century to refer to Jewish converts from Christianity. Much later, it was adopted by conservative Christians in the US. The former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has fought court battles in an attempt to set up an academy for the Judeo-Christian west – a “gladiator school for culture warriors” – in an Italian monastery.Some believe the phrase has become code for Islamophobia. During Trump’s first term as US president, Meredith Warren of the University of Sheffield said it was a dog-whistle myth peddled by the far right “to draw a line between imagined Christian values and a perceived (but false) threat of Muslim immigration”.Farage, whose populist brand of politics has rarely made reference to the Christian faith, told this week’s conference that Britons should have more children to restore traditional Judeo-Christian culture. “We’ve kind of forgotten that what underpins everything is our Judeo-Christian culture and that’s where we need to start. And if we recognise that, and if we value that, then I think everything comes from that,” he said.Badenoch did not use the phrase in her speech to the conference but has often described herself as a “cultural Christian”. She understands the “importance of Christian values as the foundation of family and community life”, David Burrowes, a former Tory MP and co-founder of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, said last year.View image in fullscreenThe influence of evangelical Christianity in the Conservative party remains relatively marginal, but it has grown in recent years via two prominent voices: Danny Kruger, an MP since 2019 who has become a leading opponent to legalising assisted dying; and Miriam Cates, who was elected to parliament in 2019 but lost her seat last year, who is a vocal proponent of traditional family values. Kruger and Cates are on the Arc’s advisory board.Georgina Waylen, a professor of politics at the University of Manchester who has been researching the influence of evangelical Christianity on British politics, said it had “grown in recent years, and most notably in the Conservative party, following the election of a small number of rightwing socially conservative evangelical MPs who were well organised, knew what they wanted to achieve and oppose, and have been aided by the increasing influence of evangelical Christians in the rightwing ecosphere.”She added: “The evangelicals work effectively with others, including some rightwing populists, and have taken advantage of the chaos in the Conservative party. They have been active around gender identity issues and oppose assisted dying.”Evangelical conservative Christian groups have been active in lobbying MPs on issues such as abortion and assisted dying, although their involvement has not always been explicit. In November, an Observer investigation found that Christian pressure groups were secretly coordinating and funding anti-assisted dying campaigns ostensibly led by grassroots healthcare workers and disabled people.Organisations on the US Christian right have been accused of “infiltrating” the UK, lobbying MPs to restrict women’s reproductive rights. Last year, the UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom provided “briefing material and legal analysis” to MPs before a vote on introducing buffer zones to prevent anti-abortion activity outside abortion clinics.One reason for the sometimes covert involvement of such groups is the resistance of many people in a largely secular society to religious individuals or organisations seeking to impose their worldview on others. Evangelical Christians have fared poorly in UK politics whenever their views have come into conflict with principles fundamental to British liberal democracy.“Religion is much less of a factor in politics here than in the US,” said Nick Spencer of Theos, a Christian thinktank. “But the Christian right is gaining momentum. I don’t think the Arc conference would have got off the ground 10 years ago.”Those speaking at the conference appeared to be a mixture of conservative Christians, social conservatives, libertarians and “Maga-types”, he said. “It is clear what they’re against – internationalism, net zero, the denigration of national history – but these aren’t necessarily theological positions.”Rob Ford, a professor of politics at the University of Manchester, said there was “no comparison whatsoever between the US and UK. Britain is one of the most secular societies in the world. Very few people go to church. The largest group are the people who say they have no religion at all. The kind of highly polarised debate that the Americans have had over abortion is inconceivable in the same way.”But he added: “At the level of political elites, that’s where you get the most interesting similarity that is also a difference. In the US, evangelical Christians are a huge part of politics because they are a huge part of US life. Here you have quite a remarkably high density of evangelical Christians in elite politics.”Some evangelical Christian organisations have sought to nurture potential high-flyers in order to ensure a Christian presence in the upper reaches of public life. Half a century ago, the Iwerne Trust’s Christian holiday camps, mainly for boys attending elite public schools, had precisely this goal. Holy Trinity Brompton, London’s foremost evangelical church, has counted many high-flyers among its congregation – including Marshall.Not all evangelical Christians share the same political views. Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader who resigned in 2017 saying the role was incompatible with his Christian faith, said the use of the term “Christian values” was sometimes “a proxy for things that aren’t very Christian at all”.He said: “People who talk about the loss of Christian values often have actually lost touch with Christian values themselves. It’s really dangerous when political parties seek to appropriate Christianity for their own ends.” More

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      ‘I’m a Christian for trans rights’: pro-LGBTQ+ Missouri pastor runs for office

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      When Phoenix Lemke was in his final year of high school, he had nowhere to go.The family of the teenager from O’Fallon, Missouri, had long disapproved of him being queer, and in December 2021, at age 17, he left home without a clear plan. He spent several days couchsurfing with friends until he found refuge with an unlikely figure: a local pastor.The Rev Susan Shumway, a minister at a nearby church, had known Lemke for years through his friends and offered him a room as soon as she learned of his predicament.“She has a history of letting people stay here when they are struggling,” Lemke, now 20, said on a recent evening, seated with Shumway in their living room. “She was adamant in letting me know she supported me, and at some point I just started calling her mom.”Shumway is something of an anomaly in this deep red state: a clergy member advocating for LGBTQ+ equality.Missouri in recent years has been at the center of a national push to limit the rights of trans and queer people. State officials have pushed to outlaw healthcare for trans youth, block trans kids from sports, restrict trans people’s bathroom access and censor LGBTQ+ content.As in other parts of the country, those efforts have found the support of Christian nationalist groups, and Missouri officials have explicitly pointed at their faith while enacting trans restrictive policies. Mike Moon, the state’s senator and author of its trans youth healthcare ban, has referenced God and the Bible to support his bill (and defend child marriage). The Missouri attorney general, Andrew Bailey, as well as the Missouri US senator Josh Hawley, who embraces the idea of America as a “Christian nation”, have promoted the anti-trans talking point that God “doesn’t make mistakes”, falsely suggesting children cannot be trans.Shumway has a very different view. “I’m a Christian who believes in trans rights. And I’m going to be loud and make sure legislators hear from Christians who are not spewing hate,” she said.Shumway’s now campaigning to become a state representative, hoping to be a strong opposition voice in a legislature that has become one of the most hostile in the nation toward queer and trans people.“The Christian right has not had a challenge from the Christian left, and we need to join together and make some noise,” she said.Shumway traces her LGBTQ+ rights advocacy to 1999, when she was in seminary, leading a youth group. As she prepared to move away, one of the young members confided he was gay, telling her last-minute and worried she would disapprove. “I said, ‘So what? I love you,’” she recalls.The interaction taught her about how coming out feels risky to many kids, she said. “And I knew that wouldn’t be the last youth to come out [to me].”Shumway is a member of the United Church of Christ, a Protestant denomination with 770,000 members, which promotes inclusivity.Over the years, she has helped lead numerous churches through the process of becoming “open and affirming” congregations that support LGBTQ+ members. She acknowledges non-queer congregants’ discomfort and tries to help them grasp what it might be like to struggle with dysphoria. She emphasizes the importance of treating people like Lemke with respect, even if they don’t understand them. “I affirm God’s love for this person,” she said. “I believe God created Phoenix to be a wonderful person of God just as he is.“I believe it’s my job to kick open the doors that have been closed and allow Phoenix and others the opportunity to walk through if they want to,” Shumway added.Moving in with Shumway was transformative for Lemke, he said. He came out as trans after he started living with Shumway, and began transitioning soon after. “Here, I could do what I want, be who I want and kiss who I want without being called a slur.”View image in fullscreenLast year, he posted a joyous photo holding his court paperwork confirming his legal name change: “I just felt so much better and happier.”Lemke said he’s estranged from most of his relatives, who have resisted acknowledging his transition. “By insisting they had a daughter, they lost the opportunity to have a son,” he said. “I wish I could get them to understand that – as much as you think you know me, you don’t live in my body. You didn’t live the first 17 years of your life looking at it and knowing something is wrong but not being allowed to say it, because you know you wouldn’t be safe.”Lemke said he still feels unsafe using public bathrooms in Missouri. While he was grateful to turn 18 so he could access gender-affirming healthcare, he has also had distressing conversations with his doctor about how hard it has become to support trans patients in the state.Lemke scoffs at the idea that Republicans are “protecting children” with bills restricting trans existence – laws that have been linked to sharp increases in suicide attempts among trans youth. “They want to die because they aren’t allowed to be themselves,” Lemke said of some of his peers. “I genuinely feel I am alive because I was able to put my foot in the door.”Shumway said watching Lemke blossom had inspired her to keep fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. “It’s such a privilege seeing these shackles that were holding him down fall off, and seeing him become such a confident young man.”Lemke isn’t religious, but sometimes makes food for Shumway’s congregation. When friends learn he lives with a pastor, “they say, ‘Are you okay? Blink twice,’” he said, noting how many of them have come to associate religion with intolerance.Shumway added: “The corporate church has done such harm, and there needs to be healing.”Shumway’s statehouse race is an uphill battle in a district dominated by Republicans. Whether she’s elected, she said she’ll advocate for the passage of a nondiscrimination law in Missouri, where state law does not prohibit employers from firing people for being LGBTQ+.Other Missouri faith leaders have organized against anti-trans bills, some motivated by their own trans children.Daniel Bogard, a St Louis rabbi, has pleaded with lawmakers to preserve the rights of his 11-year-old trans son. He cited sacred Jewish texts that scholars interpret as referencing nonbinary identity. “Legislators pretend like being queer is new, and it’s not,” he said. “There have always been queer people. It’s just another incredible way of being human.“I used to believe, if I could show them that, they would leave my family alone. I don’t believe that anymore,” he continued, saying legislators now won’t acknowledge his family. “They stopped looking us in the eye, because it just hurt them too much to see us as humans … It works for these Christian nationalist politicians to get people to be fearful of and disgusted by my child.”While disillusioned by the political process, Bogard said he will continue to encourage faith leaders to “stand up for the dignity and sacredness of trans kids.“These kids need to know there are people who love them and are fighting for them.” More

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      Trump bemoans lack of support from Jewish voters and blames ‘Democrat curse’

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      Donald Trump has complained bitterly to Jewish donors that a majority of Jews vote against him in US presidential elections, suggesting that the Democratic party has a “curse on you”.The Republican presidential candidate made the remarks during a speech on Thursday at the Israeli-American Council national summit in Washington, where he used hyperbolic language to warn that victory for his opponent Kamala Harris would result in Israel being wiped off the map.Airing grievances at the end of a disjointed speech, with US and Israel flags behind him, Trump claimed that his support among Jewish voters went from 25% in 2016 to 29% in 2020. “And based on what I did and based on my love – the same love that you have – I should be at 100,” he carped.Trump asserted that he had been “the best president by far” for Israel but a new poll shows him still below 40% among Jewish voters. “That means you’ve got 60% voted for somebody that hates Israel. And I say it – it’s going to happen – it’s only because of the Democrat hold or curse on you. You can’t let this happen. Forty percent is not acceptable, because we have an election to win.”Trump has been criticised for associating with extremists who promote antisemitic rhetoric, such as the far-right activist Nick Fuentes and the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. When the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke endorsed Trump in 2016, Trump responded that he knew “nothing about David Duke, I know nothing about white supremacists”.But during his four years in office, Trump approved a series of policy changes long sought by many advocates of Israel, such as moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, officially recognising the Golan Heights as being under Israel’s sovereignty, and terminating Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.At Thursday’s donor event, entitled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America”, Trump told the mostly supportive audience: “My promise to Jewish Americans is this: with your vote I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House. But in all fairness, I already am.”He criticised Harris over the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, and for what he branded antisemitic protests on college campuses and elsewhere. “Kamala Harris has done absolutely nothing. She has not lifted a single finger to protect you or to protect your children.”But the former president returned again and again to what is evidently a political sore point: his persistent struggle among Jewish voters. He repeated a talking point that Jewish people who vote for Democrats “should have their head examined”.He went on: “I will put it to you very simply and gently. I really haven’t been treated right. But you haven’t been treated right because you’re putting yourself in great danger and the United States hasn’t been treated right.”He claimed that Israel “will cease to exist” within two or three years if he does not win the election. “I have to tell you the truth and maybe you’ll be energised because there’s no way that I should be getting 40% of the vote. I’m the one that’s protecting you. These are the people who are going destroy you and you have 60% of Jewish people essentially voting for that.”Trump claimed that a recent poll in Israel was 99% favourable towards him, though it was unclear what poll he was citing. He went on to boast: “Everybody loves me. I could run for prime minister but I’d have to learn your language. That’s a tough language to learn … I’m the most popular person in Israel. But here it doesn’t translate. It is a strange thing.”Concluding his remarks, the former president reiterated: “I believe that Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth if I don’t win.” He described, without evidence, Harris as “anti-Israel” and “anti-Jewish”, even though the vice-president is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff.Trump was introduced by the megadonor Miriam Adelson, a co-owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team and the widow of billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Critics have likened the Adelsons’ ability to pull public policy on Israel away from public opinion to the National Rifle Association’s influence on gun laws.Miriam Adelson praised Trump’s “beautiful Jewish daughter” Ivanka and urged the gathering to support him. “All of us Jews must vote for him,” she said. “It is our sacred duty in gratitude for everything he has done and trust in everything he will yet do.”Earlier on Thursday, leaders of the Uncommitted Democratic protest vote movement said the group would not endorse Harris for president, but also urged supporters to vote against Trump. The group, which opposes the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to US weapons transfers to Israel. More

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      Trump tells Jewish donors they would be ‘abandoned’ if Harris is elected

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      Donald Trump told Jewish donors on Thursday that they would be “abandoned” if Kamala Harris becomes president.In his speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, the Republican presidential candidate also said he would ban refugee resettlement from “terror-infested” areas such as Gaza and arrest “pro-Hamas thugs” who engage in vandalism, an apparent reference to the college student protesters.While Trump sketched out few concrete Middle Eastern policy proposals for a second term, he painted a potential Harris presidency in cataclysmic terms for Israel.“You’re going to be abandoned if she becomes president. And I think you need to explain that to your people … You’re not going to have an Israel if she becomes president,” Trump said without providing evidence for such a claim.Under both Trump and Joe Biden, similar numbers of Palestinians were admitted to the US as refugees. From fiscal year 2017 to 2020, the US accepted 114 Palestinian refugees, according to US state department data, compared with 124 Palestinian refugees from fiscal year 2021 to 31 July of this year.Trump also said US universities would lose accreditation and federal support over what he described as “antisemitic propaganda” if he is elected to the White House.“Colleges will and must end the antisemitic propaganda or they will lose their accreditation and federal support,” Trump said, speaking remotely to a crowd of more than 1,000 donors.Protests roiled college campuses in spring, with students opposing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and demanding institutions stop doing business with companies backing Israel.Republicans have said the protests show some Democrats are antisemites who support chaos. Protest groups say authorities have unfairly labeled their criticism of Israel’s policies as antisemitic.The Association of American Universities, which says it represents about 70 leading US universities, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In the United States, the federal government does not directly accredit universities but has a role in overseeing the mostly private organizations that give colleges accreditation.The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s speech.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Democratic presidential candidate has hewed closely to the president’s strong support of Israel and rejected calls from some in the Democratic party that Washington should rethink sending weapons to Israel because of the heavy Palestinian death toll in Gaza.She has, however, called for a ceasefire in Gaza, calling the situation there “devastating”.Health authorities in Gaza say more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault on the enclave since the 7 October 2023 attacks led by Hamas.Approximately 1,200 Israelis were killed in the surprise attack and about 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.The subsequent assault on Gaza has displaced nearly its entire 2.3 million population, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the world court that Israel denies. More

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      Washington is pushing policies to combat antisemitism. Critics say they could violate free speech

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      Against the backdrop of demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza on college campuses, the White House and Congress have announced a string of policies and commitments aimed at addressing what Joe Biden warned was a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the United States.Antisemitism was on the rise in the US before Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing roughly 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage. But the ensuing war has exacerbated the problem, with the law enforcement officials recording a spike in threats against Jewish Americans.Several of the proposals coming out of Washington DC have converged around college campuses, where hundreds of students have been arrested as part of pro-Palestinian demonstrations against Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and caused catastrophic levels of hunger.Many Jewish students have said that rhetoric common to the protests – for example, their denunciations of Zionism and calls for a Palestinian uprising – too often veers into antisemitism and poses a threat to their safety. A number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers, as well as the president, have echoed their fears, condemning documented instances of antisemitism on campus.But critics say some of the actions and polices under consideration threaten free speech and are part of a broader effort to silence legitimate criticism of Israel.“The view that these encampments, these student protests, are per se antisemitic, which I think some people have, is leading to very aggressive repression,” said Genevieve Lakier, a professor of law at the University of Chicago law school and an expert in the first amendment. “I also think it is incorrect, particularly when the student movement is being populated and led in many ways by Jewish students.”​The wave of student activism​ against the war in Gaza has renewed a charged debate over what constitutes antisemitism.Many supporters of Israel say the situation on college campuses validates the view, articulated in 2022 by the Anti-Defamation League’s chief executive, Jonathan Greenblatt, that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism”. But the Jewish and non-Jewish students involved with campus protests say their critiques of Israel, and its rightwing government’s prosecution of the war, are legitimate political speech that should not be conflated with antisemitism.In remarks at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Capitol last week, Biden vowed to leverage the full force of the US government to fight hate and bigotry against Jews and outlined specific policy steps his administration was taking to confront antisemitic discrimination in schools and universities.The debate is also playing out on Capitol Hill, where the Senate is considering a bill that would codify into federal law a definition of antisemitism adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization based in Stockholm.The IHRA defines antisemitism as “certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”. But it also includes several modern examples of antisemitism that alarm free speech advocates, among them “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination”, claiming Israel’s existence is a “racist endeavor” and “applying double standards” to Israel that are not expected of other countries.Supporters say the bill, known as the Antisemitism Awareness Act, is critical.“We really believe it’s the single most important thing that Congress could do right now to help bring under control the rampant antisemitism we’ve seen on campus,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, which is lobbying in support of the legislation.But opponents are urging the Senate to block the bill, recently approved by the House in a resounding 320-91 vote,“In a democratic society, we’re allowed to engage in political advocacy and political protests that criticize any government in the world,” said Tyler Coward, lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire). “Taking some ideas off the table for one country is classic viewpoint discrimination that the courts just won’t tolerate.”Fire has opposed iterations of this bill since it was introduced in 2016, citing concerns that the definition is “vague, overbroad, and includes criticism of Israeli government policy”.If enacted, the Department of Education would be required to use the definition when conducting federal investigations into alleged incidents of discrimination against Jewish students. Colleges or universities found to have violated the law could be stripped of federal funding.Fingerhut said free speech concerns were a “red herring”, arguing that the legislation was designed to give the Department of Education and academic institutions a “clear” standard for punishing acts of antisemitism.But the bill has drawn condemnation from pro-Palestinian advocacy groups who view it as an attempt to quash their ascendent movement.The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) condemned the legislation as a “one-sided, and dishonest proposal about campus antisemitism that ignore[s] anti-Palestinian racism and conflates criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism”.Since the Israel-Hamas conflict began seven months ago, the law enforcement officials have also warned of a rise in threats against Muslim and Arab Americans, and advocates are monitoring an uptick in Islamophobia on college campuses.One of the effort’s most notable opponents is a lawyer and scholar who authored the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. Kenneth Stern, who is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate and is Jewish, has said the definition was created with the purpose of collecting better data on antisemitism across borders, not to be turned into a campus hate-speech code.“In my experience, people who care about campus antisemitism, and want to do something about it, sometimes advocate things that feel good … but actually do great harm,” he testified in 2017 against a previous iteration of the bill.That version stalled, but two years later, proponents won a significant victory when Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order instructing federal agencies to use the IHRA definition when investigating civil rights complaints.In recent months, alarm over rising antisemitism – which Jewish groups say is not unique to college campuses – appears to have broadened support for the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Still, the vote split House Democrats, including some Jewish members of the caucus, who disagreed over whether it was the right legislative fix.The representative Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat who sponsored the House bill, said it was a necessary response to the “tidal wave” of antisemitism, while Maryland representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and constitutional scholar, voted for the bill but called it “essentially symbolic”.“At this moment of anguish and confusion over the dangerous surge of antisemitism, authoritarianism and racism all over the country and the world, it seems unlikely that this meaningless ‘gotcha’ legislation can help much – but neither can it hurt much,” Raskin said.But the representative Jerry Nadler of New York, who describes himself as “an observant Jew, a proud Zionist, a strong supporter of Israel”, voted against the bill. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Nadler explained that he supported the sentiment behind the bill, but feared the it could “sweep in perfectly valid criticism of the state of Israel that, alone, does not necessarily constitute unlawful harassment or antisemitism”.“I want my Jewish community to feel safe on campus, but I do not need it shielded from controversial views simply because those views are unpopular,” he wrote.The legislation has also drawn opposition from some conservatives over concerns that it could be used to persecute Christians who express the belief that Jews killed Jesus, an assertion widely regarded as antisemitic that historians and Christian leaders, including Pope Benedict, have rejected.Civil liberties advocates are also raising concerns about an anti-terrorism bill approved overwhelmingly by the House last month in the wake of Iran’s unprecedented missile assault on Israel. Proponents say the measure is a necessary guardrail to prevent US-based organizations from providing financial support to Israel’s enemies. But critics have called it an “Orwellian bill aimed at silencing nonprofits that support Palestinian human rights”.Last week, Biden announced a series of actions that build on what the White House has called “the most comprehensive and ambitious US government effort to counter antisemitism in American history”.It included new guidance by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, sent to every school and college, that outlines examples of antisemitic discrimination and other forms of hate that could lead to a federal civil rights investigation. Since the 7 October attack, the Department of Education has launched more than 100 investigations into colleges and public school districts over allegations of “discrimination involving shared ancestry”, which include incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia.The initiative also includes additional steps the Department of Homeland Security would take to help campuses improve safety.Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Republicans have vowed to use their majority to intensify scrutiny of antisemitism on college campuses, part of their election-year strategy to use the unrest as a political cudgel against Biden and the Democrats, who are deeply divided over the Israel-Gaza war.Wielding their oversight powers, several House Republican chairs have announced plans to investigate universities where pro-Palestinian student protests have flourished. On Wednesday, a House subcommittee held a hearing, titled Antisemitism on College Campuses, in which Jewish college students testified that their university administrations had failed to stop antisemitic threats and harassment. And during a congressional panel last week, Republicans challenged the leaders of some of the nation’s largest public school systems to do more to counter antisemitism in their schools.It follows a tense hearing on antisemitism with administration officials from some of the nation’s most prestigious universities that precipitated the resignations of the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. A congressional appearance last month by Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, escalated the antiwar protests at her school that then spread to campuses across the country.“There are a lot of shades of McCarthyism as the House keeps calling people in to shame and name them, to spread moral panic,” said Lakier of the University of Chicago law school.Facing enormous pressure from Congress and the Department of Education, as well as from students, faculty, donors and alumni, universities and colleges, Lakier argued, are collectively showing less tolerance for the pro-Palestinian student protests than they did for Vietnam war-era campus activism.On dozens of university campuses, state and local police officers, sometimes in riot gear, have dispersed pro-Palestinian protesters, often at the request of university officials. As many as 2,400 people have been arrested during pro-Palestinian campus protests in recent weeks, while many students have been suspended or expelled.“From a first amendment perspective, one hopes you learn from the past,” Lakier said, “but to be repeating it is distressing.” More

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      Far-right Marjorie Taylor Greene ridiculed for Yom Kippur error

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      Far-right Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has drawn ridicule for using an image of a Hanukah menorah in an attempt to commemorate the unrelated Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.The derision the Georgia representative brought upon herself comes after she was previously criticized for perpetuating antisemitic conspiracy theories.Green on Sunday posted a message on X – previously known as Twitter – on Sunday wishing observers a meaningful fast for Monday’s observation of Yom Kippur. She tried to add a traditional Yom Kippur greeting but misspelled it: “Gamar Chasima Tova!”The backlash soon ensued.Critics noted that Greene’s use of a menorah in her message recognized a completely unrelated Jewish holiday observed in December. Past comments of hers which alluded to antisemitic tropes also undermined her message to Jewish observers.Florida congressman Jared Moskowitz, a Democrat, corrected his Republican counterpart by noting that the solemn Yom Kippur and celebratory Hanukah were completely different occasions.Mentioning that Yom Kippur focused on the atonement of sins, Moskowitz added: “Lord knows you will be very busy.”Greene subsequently deleted the original post without an apology and reposted the original text without the menorah image.MeidasTouch, a liberal political action committee, criticized Greene for the “wildly offensive” gaffe.The group also called her “Ms Jewish Space Lasers” – a reference to her false conspiracy claim that California’s devastating wildfires in 2018 were started for profit by a space laser funded by corporate interests, including the Rothschild banking firm.State investigations concluded that the 2018 wildfires were “caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electricity”, the state’s largest utility.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a separate tweet, MeidasTouch’s co-founder Brett Meiselas added: “Frankly, Jews don’t need an antisemitic maniac who gives speeches at Nazi events sending out holiday messages in the first place.”Greene had previously downplayed speaking at the America First Political Action Conference, which was founded by the white nationalist Nick Fuentes in 2020.Even as she deleted the menorah image, Bill Prady – the co-creator of the TV series The Big Bang Theory – knocked Greene for preserving the “bad Hebrew” in the post.MeidasTouch pointed out on its website that the accepted Yom Kippur greeting is “g’mar chatima tovah”, which translates to “a good final sealing”.The greeting refers to the belief that one’s fate is written on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah and then sealed on Yom Kippur. More