Op-Ed: The Left Gifted Trump 'Antisemitism' as a Political Weapon - Here's a Test for Reckoning Honestly with the Volatile Issue

Amid the reality TV president's bad faith antics, the "replacement child" of Holocaust survivors digs into the language and definitions framing the debate over Zionism, Jewishness and bigotry

By Jana Zimmer

The mercurial, right-wing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., recently voted against the much-debated “Antisemitism Awareness Act (AAA)” because, she claimed, Christians could be “convicted” of antisemitism for believing that the Gospels (Luke 23) reveal that Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews.

This is the oldest (2025 years, to be precise) and, historically, the most harmful antisemitic trope, at least in the West. It is on a par only with the “blood libel”- that we bake our Passover matzah with the blood of Christian children we have murdered - or that we are all Shylocks, even here, in sunny Santa Barbara.

MAGA’s MTG sets the bar for public discourse as low as it is possible to articulate. But at a time when her political savior Trump and his allies are fiercely wielding the charge of “anti-Semitism” as a convenient cudgel on multiple fronts in the cultural war, Greene’s comments demonstrate the complex political crosscurrents at stake in the critical debate over the AAA.

In our current environment of hysteria and ignorance, it may be a fool’s errand to dig into the facts, but I think it is worth a serious look.

The IHRA definition. Central to the debate around the “Antisemitism Awareness Act” is a lesser known document, called “Working Definition of Antisemitism,” from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization involving more than three dozen countries.

This document has become a Rorschach test for peoples’ positions on the Palestine/Israel conflict. It has been adopted by about 43 countries, an increasing number of states, and the U.S. State Department.

It needs to be better understood, because its “definitions”- or, at least, peoples’ cynical projections about its definitions – rise an essential question: When, or whether, anti-Zionism is always, never or sometimes “antisemitism.”

For me, the logical, historically accurate answer is, “it depends.”

There has been consistent debate, for example, about the intention behind the chant, "From the River to the Sea."

The pro-Hamas demonstrators claim it is "only" a metaphor. But the Jews know their geography, even if most college students have apparently not looked at a map. The River is the Jordan, and the sea is the Mediterranean. Do the same people who support Hamas in their objective to cleanse the land of the Jew claim not to know who lives between the River and the Sea, and who would be killed or expelled if Hamas "wins"?

There certainly appears to be no appetite for explanation or nuance among the militants who shriek these slogans from behind their keffiyeh cum Covid masks. This extremism - there is no other word for it - combined with a willful disregard of contemporary reality, and historical fact, has been destructive of dialogue, let alone problem solving, not only in this crisis, but also in virtually every other arena of politics, especially at the universities.

The wrong target. Trump, who has his own history of antisemitic-adjacent behavior, is doing nothing less than performing political and economic extortions in his shakedowns of universities, all in the name of fighting antisemitism.

But Hamas, their supporters, and the moral vacuity of too many on the Left, handed him the issue.

“The fight should be against antisemitism and not against the institutions, said historian Deborah Lipstadt, who served as President Biden’s Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating antisemitism before Trump summarily fired her. “The institutions opened the door. Most universities failed miserably to address this, and we’re seeing the consequences of that, now.”

Some of the universities under attack – Harvard, and even Columbia, - belatedly have acknowledged their failings. Whether reform on campus is effective remains to be seen.

Whatever Trump’s bad behavior, however, it should not be used as an excuse for the facile argument that any criticism of these institutions for their handling of the crisis is “anti-free speech” -- as if the frightening reality of life for Jewish students on these campuses has been less difficult and threatening than is convenient for them to believe.

The hostility and intimidation Jewish students and faculty feel is exactly like being told ‘you don’t belong at all’ and being condemned for views you may not even hold. It’s being harassed because of the presumptions and assumptions of those inclined to hate you, or at least, who they think you are.

It feels like being a target - because you “look” or “act” like a Jew. And yes, because you are a Zionist, (like me)) with a humble preference that Israel survive, as a safe home for Jews, somewhere between the River and the Sea.

Since the Holocaust, we’ve thought that Israel was the place we could run to, if “they” turned on us again.

Some of us grew up telling the story of our ancestors’ escape from bondage, chanting, on Passover, “Next Year, in Jerusalem”, and cried identity tears. My mother was a Kohn, a descendant of the priestly tribe of Israel; When she was 17, she wanted to emigrate to British Mandatory Palestine, today’s modern-day Israel. My father, an atheist, social democrat, thought all such connections were primitive.

Both survived Auschwitz, but neither changed their views on Zionism.

Antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The key matter everyone keeps fighting about in Washington, and elsewhere, is the “IHRA guidelines.” So I read them.

The IHRA, referenced above, defines antisemitism this way:

“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.”

Not much help in sorting through these political issues. Further on, however, the group states:

“To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve as illustrations:

Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.”

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to…”

I suggest that if we ever want to stop screaming slogans at each other, we need to examine our hearts in relation to these very specific “guidelines” that are the root of the troubles.

My question is, which of these can we agree with - framing them as “always, sometimes, or never”? Here is how I charted my own “ratings” about the questions raised; I encourage anyone interested in getting to the bottom of this debate to do the same, to explore their own understanding further:

1. Action: Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion. Antisemitic? Always (translate the chants from Arabic).

2. Action: Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions. Antisemitic? Always.

3. Action: Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews. Antisemitic? Always. (e.g. Jews are not to account for Steven Miller, Trump’s repulsive immigration chief, or even his mentor, Roy Cohn)

4. Action: Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust). Antisemitic? Always. (e.g.: Holocaust Inversion is a form of denial, calculated to harm Jews, in and outside of Israel).

5. Action: Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust. Antisemitic? Always.

6. Action: Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations. Antisemitic?Not always (but: a slippery slope. Although some Jews have dual citizenship, the only priority of “the Jews” worldwide is survival).

7. Action: Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor. Antisemitic?Always. (e.g. categorizing Jews draws an equivalence to “Aryan” and omits Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ethiopian Jews who live as equals under the law, in Israel?

8. Action: Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. Antisemitic? Always.

9. Action: Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. Antisemitic? Always (MTG: call your office).

10. Action. Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis. Antisemitic? Always (an abhorrent comparison).

11. Action: Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel. Antisemitic? Always.

My bottom line: when I hear people express the view they hate Israel or seek its erasure as a “Jewish” state, a “Jewish” homeland, or even a refuge for Jews in the Diaspora, I believe they conflate that hostility with abhorrence of Jewish humans, whether they live or aspire to live in that Jewish State, or elsewhere.

I would invite people to look at their own responses to the specific criteria listed in the IHRA. Always, sometimes, or never?

(P.S. And if people want to justify a wish for the destruction of Israel (and the 10 million Jews in it) because of the actions of Netanyahu and his government, I expect them to be willing to sacrifice their lives and children to atone for Donald Trump).

Santa Barbara attorney and artist Jana Zimmer is the author of "Chocolates from Tangier: A Holocaust replacement child's memoir of art and transformation."