Last year, Congress proposed the Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA) (S.558 and H.R. 1007) to combat anti-Semitism, but Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sen. Tommy Tuberville and other Republican officials object to the bill because it infringes on the right of far-right Christians to express that Jews are to blame for the death of Jesus? Excuse me, but isn’t this totally counterproductive to the point of the bill? Or does this episode prove once and for all that President Trump’s crusade against antisemitism is only a ruse and cover for attacks on Free Speech, civil liberties and academic freedom? Now lemme’ get this straight: they want to protect against antisemitism, but preserve the origins of antisemitism?
The AAA passed the House 320-91 last year, but last week it was held up in the Senate committee when Sen. Rand Paul and other lawmakers raised free-speech concerns. They did so on behalf of Christians who prefer to twist the Gospel into a tool of divisiveness and hate, contrary to Jesus’ message of love and inclusiveness. The bill already met resistance from Democrats and progressives out of concerns that it represents, “ . . . an endorsement of the Trump Administration’s escalating efforts to weaponize antisemitism as a pretext for undermining civil rights, deporting political dissidents, and attacking the fundamental pillars of our democracy, making the Jewish community and others less safe.” Last year 70 Democrats opposed the bill because it declares any criticism of Israel to be anti-Semitic.
I recall the joy among Jews at the news of The 2nd Vatican Ecumenical Counsel in 1962, when Pope John XXIII absolved Jews once and for all for the alleged killing of Jesus. It’s a lasting memory because before Easter 1963, Jews were an object of scorn and hate for many Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Easter was not a happy time for Jewish families living in a 90% Catholic neighborhood, as mine did. In 1962, Pope John declared, “”what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today . . . the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God.” I remember playing with one of my Catholic gal-pals when her mom came outside to explain the news to us.
John XXIII’s decision came out of Nostra aetate (“In our age”) portion of the Second Vatican Council‘s document on interfaith relations. The bishops passed it by a vote of 2,221 to 88, and it was formalized on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI. This was on behalf of the Church’s efforts to update and adapt to new realities and circumstances (aggiornamento), and a renewed effort to connect the church to “modern man.”
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The sticking point is that the bill defines antisemitism according to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) terms, which states, “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” Israel’s devolution into a terrorist state even before October 7, 2023 has prompted many Jews to divorce their Judaism from Zionism; thus invalidating that as a commonly accepted definition. Trump’s efforts to use this cause as a wedge issue has alienated even more Jews from Zionism, in defense of Judaism, the religion.
It appears the purpose of religion for most of these Congressional objectors is to promote divisiveness, rather than any resolution of a peaceful nature. Despite the ecumenical progress of Vatican II, Republican leaders such as Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana demand that Christians have a right to say that “Jews killed Jesus” as constitutionally protected free speech. He introduced the “manager’s amendment” to give comfort to the more bigoted wing of the Republican Party. ‘Scuse me, but wasn’t that the basis for the “original sin” of antisemitism? Once and for all, the motivation of this bill is not protecting Jews from acts of antisemitism, but using this cause to justify the manufactured hate; while quashing Free Speech and academic freedom at the same time.
During his first term, “President Donald Trump’s (2019) Executive Order declaring Judaism to be a nationality was both a gross act of anti-Semitism, and an attack on free speech.” It was destructive and counterintuitive to defeating antisemitism because it tied all forms and expressions of Judaism to Israel. Zionism evolved beginning in the late 19th Century, and began DE-volving during PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure, to the point of betraying the original ideals of Zionism. The movement was born of secular, agrarian, socialist roots; with NO pretense of Jewish Nationalism. Trump’s declaration that Jews are a “nationality” goes against centuries of our social teaching.
Capitol. Public Domain. Via picryl .
Framing the right to defame and blame Jews for Jesus’ death is not “protected speech,” but hate speech. Previously, I’ve discussed Republicans effort to hijack concepts of the Free Speech Movement, and twist it into something it is not. The cruelest twist was when Trump and Vice President JD Vance argued that banning promotion of Nazi-inspired Fascism is an attack on free speech. The nadir of this dynamic occurred when Vice-President JD Vance accused Germany of suppressing Free Speech for their exclusion of the neo-Nazi Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party from the German government. No, protecting book burners and terror squads was never an object of the Free Speech Movement; rather, it was about resisting such things, which manifested under the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAAC).
Right-wing Republicans have the mindset that, “the legislation could deem parts of the New Testament anti-Semitic,” thus stalling it in the Senate committee. OK, so maybe it is. Some Christians interpret parts of the Books of Acts and Luke as condemning Jews. But the Bible is a series of myths and allegories. Despite their grandstanding protestations about antisemitism, these Senators hold dear the right to condemn Jews for Jesus’ death, as that was not the original prompt for it!.
During last year’s discussion, Rep. Jarrold Nadler clarified his opposition to the bill saying, “In addition to trampling the free-speech rights of students and professors, this bill was disingenuously designed to split the Democratic caucus and score cheap political points.” He concluded, “the IHRA definition includes examples of antisemitism that might sweep in perfectly valid criticism of the state of Israel that, alone, does not necessarily constitute unlawful harassment or antisemitism.” Nadler also cautioned, “Freezing a single definition of “antisemitism” into law, then, is remarkably shortsighted. The approach manages to be both over-inclusive and under-inclusive, as well as remarkably subjective.”
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