13-05-2025
New Kansas antisemitism law takes aim at free speech, does nothing to protect Jewish people
Rabbi Moti Rieber (right) sits beside author and activist Mark McCormick at a March 25, 2025, Statehouse hearing. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
In February, I testified against House Bill 2299, a bill to put the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism into statute, focused on university campuses and punishable by prosecution by the state's attorney general, Kris Kobach. A watered-down version (Senate Bill 44), which took out most of the enforcement provisions, passed at the end of the session.
Both versions were aimed squarely at the University of Kansas, which had a pro-Palestinian encampment last year and which according to some has become a hotbed of antisemitism. The new law focuses on protest (no masks used 'to harass Jewish students') and curriculum (banning 'incorporating or allowing funding of antisemitic curriculum or activities in any domestic or study abroad programs or classes'). Leaving aside the fact that it is impossible to study Western history and not encounter antisemitism, this language is extremely broad and could and probably would be used to suppress pro-Palestinian speech by students, visiting speakers, or in Muslim or Arab studies classes.
This points to the main problem with the IHRA definition of antisemitism: it equates anti-Zionism — opposition to Israel's actions or even Israel itself — with antisemitism, a racialized hatred of Jewish people. This is a popular position among traditional Jewish communal organizations. Kansas City's JCRB/AJC testified in favor of the original bill, which I remind you would have allowed Kobach to identify and prosecute 'antisemitism.'
Anti-Zionism and antisemitism can and do overlap — people could hide their antisemitism behind expressions of anti-Zionism, for instance, or they can accuse random Jews of being responsible for Israel's actions — but they are not the same. The many young Jews who took part in campus protests last year can attest to that.
(For the rest of this column I will refer to politicized accusations of antisemitism as 'antisemitism.' Actual antisemitism — hatred of Jews — will remain without quotation marks.)
The bill raised two questions. First, why didn't it address the explosion of antisemitism from the political right, from the poisonous discourse on the former Twitter to neo-Nazis at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot (now pardoned, of course) to white supremacists in close proximity, or even in the Trump administration (including, of course, Donald Trump himself).
Second, why is antisemitism on college campuses so unique and terrible that it requires special legislation addressing it, when allowing anti-Black racism on college campuses is practically a MAGA platform plank? This question was raised on the floor of the House, but it wasn't answered.
Criminalizing speech critical of Israel in this way has become a significant problem. Campus protests were suppressed last year. Since the start of the second Trump term, people who have criticized Israel's actions in Gaza — without necessarily attacking Israel's 'right to exist' — have been arrested and set for deportation for political speech, a clear violation of the First Amendment. Two of the most prominent examples are Columbia University's Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestine protests there, and Tufts University's Rumeysa Ozturk, who appears to have only co-written an op-ed in a student newspaper.
Both columns and protests are political speech protected by the First Amendment. Yes, even for noncitizens. There is no evidence that either of these people have been involved in any actual Jew-hatred, and as I will explain in a moment, protesting Israel's actions in Gaza is justifiable.
Accusations of rampant 'antisemitism' in universities is also the cudgel Trump is using to attack their funding and governance.
This crackdown is largely a project of the Christian right, as spelled out in the Heritage Foundation's Project Esther, which focuses exclusively on antisemitism on the left and advocates for increased censorship and suppression of protest. 'Antisemitism' has become today's equivalent of McCarthy-era 'communism' — the accusation itself is condemnatory. No further evidence (or thought) is needed.
That traditional Jewish communal organizations — particularly the Anti-Defamation League and JCRB/AJC — have allied themselves with this effort in the name of protecting Israel should be an embarrassment. This politicization of 'antisemitism' doesn't do Jews any favors. Not only have we consistently voted, by large majorities, for Democrats, but our very place in this society is built on the foundation of liberal democracy, especially freedom of expression and religion.
Jews have prioritized Bill of Rights protections for more than 100 years, including helping found the ACLU. It is a cruel irony indeed that these pillars of Jewish freedom in American society are being dismantled in the name of protecting Jews.
To which I say, no thanks.
Fortunately it appears that (some) people are catching on to the ruse: Several of the main liberal Jewish denominational bodies recently issued a joint statement 'rejecting the false choice between confronting antisemitism and upholding democracy.' It's a good statement, and it doesn't assume the legitimacy of the 'universities are hotbeds of antisemitism' framing. Other, similar statements have been released.
But as the 'Antisemitism Awareness Act' working its way through the U.S. Congress makes clear, this problem will get worse before it gets better. In a moment that pulled back the curtain, a clause was added to that bill that would protect the 'right' to say that 'the Jews' killed Jesus — a calumny that has caused untold injury and death to Jews throughout history and is the very definition of actual antisemitic speech. (Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, R-MAGA, sounded sympathetic last year.)
To be clear: People are criticizing Israel because it is committing significant human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank and especially Gaza, and not out of Jew-hatred. Jews are involved in every level of the Palestinian solidarity movement, including encampments. There are already laws to protect people from harassment and violence; Jews don't require special protection. Claiming otherwise has real consequences for real people, including dividing Jews between 'good Jews' who support Israel's actions (and Trump) and 'bad Jews' who don't and should be suppressed.
Where antisemitism exists on the left and in the pro-Palestine movement, it should be criticized and condemned, but we shouldn't deploy state power to slay dragons that aren't really there. Policing Trumped-up, politicized charges of 'antisemitism' is something that Christian nationalists, including Kobach and the Heritage Foundation, should not be empowered to do.
Rabbi Moti Rieber is executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, a statewide, multifaith issue-advocacy organization that works on a variety of social, economic and climate justice issues. He writes this column in his private capacity. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
