A local rabbi participated in the laying on of hands in my United Church of Christ ordination service in 1971. Over the next nearly 50 years many of my sermons have been based on Hebrew texts of the Bible (historically called the Old Testament by Christians).
Throughout the years I’ve noted the many values Jews and Christians have in common, including a sense of love and peace with justice for all human beings. I have always subscribed to the definition of anti-Semitism to mean bigotry against Jewish people, “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic or racial group” (Merriam-Webster). This definition has existed at least since 1880.
However, today the specter of a stealth definition of anti-Semitism threatens to overshadowed relationships among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
I first noticed a confusion about anti-Semitism as my wife, Faye, and I began giving PowerPoint presentations of our 2010 experience living in the West Bank: Bethlehem and Jayyous in the occupied Palestinian territory. We reported observing the way the Israeli military administers the occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law and the Jewish/Christian/Muslim values of freedom, human dignity and justice. It was puzzling how reporting the conduct and complicity of Israel and the United States could result in being labeled anti-Semitic.
A closer look reveals that a distortion of the original meaning of anti-Semitism is operating in some religious communities, on college and university campuses and in government. On some college campuses there are restrictions in the name of anti-Semitism on curriculum and guest speakers describing the injustices against Palestinians by the Israeli military. As of November 2018, 26 states have enacted anti-boycott laws and they are pending in 16 states. Some of the anti-boycott, divestment and sanctions bills and laws require the creation of blacklists of activists, nonprofit organizations and companies that are engaged in boycotts of Israel. Some aim to punish individuals, nonprofit organizations and companies that support BDS by prohibiting the state or local government from entering into contracts with them. Many require state pension funds to divest from companies that boycott Israel.
Texas, and some other states, are requiring prospective employers to sign a pledge that they will not boycott or advocate boycott of Israeli products. Bahia Amawi, who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic and speech-impaired elementary school students in Austin, Texas, has been told that she can no longer work with the public school district, after she refused to sign an oath vowing that she “does not” and “will not” engage in a boycott of Israel or “otherwise take any action that is intended to inflict economic harm” on that foreign nation.
What is happening that critiques and resistance to actions of the nation state of Israel are being cast as anti-Semitic?
It involves a stealth Israel-centric definition of anti-Semitism. Whereas classical anti-Semitism refers to Jewish people or the Jewish religion, a new contorted definition twists the meaning to include the Israeli nation state. It is based on a 2004 paper by Natan Sharansky, who was Israel’s minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs and chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, “3-D Test of Anti-Semitism.” First, anti-Semitism “demonizes” when Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion. Second, it’s anti-Semitic to apply a “double standard” to Israel. He suggests that other countries are not criticized for similar actions of injustice. And third, it’s anti-Semitic to “delegitimize” Israel, or dispute its “fundamental right to exist.” Sharansky concludes by explaining that doing any of the above activities targeting the nation of Israel is considered anti-Semitism because the majority of the people in the state of Israel are Jewish.
However, a nation state exists through military, economic and political power – not as a result of a particular religious or ethnic population.
The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia issued a 2005 “Working Definition of Anti-Semitism” that includes Sharansky’s three Ds. Fully half of the newly devised Monitoring Centre definition referred to the state of Israel.
In 2008 the first U.S. State Department special envoy on anti-Semitism, Greg Rickman, endorsed the Monitoring Centre working definition in a State Department report to Congress. (Rickman later went to work for AIPAC.)
Once the State Department definition was in place, it began using it to crack down on political and academic discourse and activism within the United States. Implanted into our government lexicon, the contrived meaning of anti-Semitism justifies several anti-BDS bills pending in Congress.
For example, Senate Bill S.1, “Combating BDS Act of 2019,” allows a state or local government to adopt measures to divest its assets from entities using boycotts, divestments or sanctions to influence Israel’s policies. Several civil liberties and free speech groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and PEN America, argue that laws and policies like this threaten political speech and subvert criticism of Israeli policy on college campuses.
Hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic or racial group is completely unacceptable. It is also important to challenge unjust conduct of nations. This is an especially important function for citizens of Israel and the United States, whose health and existence are internationally bound together.
However, clarity between opposing anti-Semitism and opposing state-sanctioned injustice is essential. Faith communities and nations are not the same. The traditional 1880 definition of anti-Semitism contributes to their clear separation. It allows freedom to practice honest critique of a nation’s conduct without sanctioning anti-Semitism.
I can still feel the hand of the rabbi among the clergy hands on my head and shoulders at my 1971 ordination. The call that day is still with us all: shed the labels and advocate together for a commitment to justice and the common values shared by our respective national and faith communities.
(The Rev. John Buttrick, United Church of Christ, lives in Concord.)