IHRA | First One Through

Antisemitism came bursting onto the American scene these last years. Jews were murdered. Synagogues were attacked. Jewish students were stalked, doxxed, and targeted by name. Schools and workplaces became hostile terrain.

And at that moment—when antisemitism crossed unmistakably from speech into violence—Jewish New York Congressman Jerry Nadler responded with the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act.

ARPA was framed as action. In reality, it was an exercise in evasion. While Jews were being assaulted and killed, Nadler urged Congress to study, track, and administratively manage antisemitism—while carefully avoiding the standards already designed to confront it.

The United States already had a playbook, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition, adopted precisely because it reflects how antisemitism functions in the modern world. IHRA recognizes what recent victims already knew: antisemitism today often arrives wrapped in ideological language—through demonization of Israel, denial of Jewish self-determination, and collective punishment of Jews for the actions of the Jewish state.

That clarity made IHRA inconvenient to some. It required institutions to draw lines. ARPA was drafted to move in the opposite direction.

“this bill [H.Res 1449 to use IHRA definition of antisemitism] threatens to chill constitutionally protected speech.” – Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY)

Instead of reinforcing enforcement under existing civil-rights law and a recognized definition, ARPA handed discretion to federal agencies. Antisemitism would be assessed holistically. Guidance would follow. Coordination would improve. Standards would remain flexible.

But flexibility is a luxury for bystanders, not for targets.

“the IHRA definition is plainly unconstitutionally vague.” – Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)

Mainstream Jewish organizations understood the consequence immediately. Ambiguity does not restrain institutions that already fail to act. Universities that tolerated harassment would gain new procedural defenses. Administrators could claim compliance while Jewish students were chased from quads and classrooms. The more antisemitism intensified, the slower the response would become.

That is why opposition to ARPA came from the center of Jewish communal life, groups like Jewish Federations and the AJC. Their message was blunt and grounded in reality: Jews were being attacked under existing law. The failure was enforcement, not definition. Weakening standards while violence increased was not caution—it was retreat.

Support for ARPA came largely from groups more concerned with preserving far-left wing ideological space around anti-Israel activism than with confronting antisemitism as it actually manifested. In their calculus, the risk of over-enforcement mattered more than the fact that Jews were being targeted, assaulted, and killed. The alt-left preferred to cast their lot with CAIR in falsely labeling the IHRA definition as a gag order.

Congress eventually pivoted—toward strengthening Title VI enforcement and reaffirming IHRA—quietly conceding the obvious. When antisemitism turns violent, clarity protects lives. Process protects institutions.

“I share the concerns of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, Bend the Arc, B’Tselem, Amnesty International, and the ACLU that the IHRA definition of antisemitism will be used to stifle dissent and chill free speech, especially Palestinian human rights advocacy. The resolution also does not recognize that the fight against antisemitism is connected to our fight against Islamophobia, racism, white nationalism, and all other forms of hate.” – Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

ARPA will stand as a reminder of a grim truth: at a moment when antisemitism demanded resolve, left-wing Jews chose ambiguity and cozying to antisemites, rather than defense.

Many countries and municipalities have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, and U.S. President Joe Biden is considering doing so as well. However, he is getting pushback from some anti-Zionist corners, as people feel that the several examples cited in the IHRA definition stymies legitimate criticism against Israel.

In fact, the opposite is true. There are clear examples of antisemitism which are presently excluded in the IHRA definition which would encompass the land of Israel.

Denial of Jewish History

It is outrageous to deny any people their history, and the IHRA definition narrowly covers this topic as it relates to the genocide of European Jews in the Holocaust. However, it omits doing this in a more general manner, such as denying the 4,000 years of history of Jews in the holy land, that the Jewish Temples stood in Jerusalem and that Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem since the 1860s.

These are plain historic truths. Yet antisemites – like Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – deny these facts repeatedly and publicly.

Would anyone ever consider denying the history of Black slavery? To do so would clearly mark such person as a racist.

So it is with denying Jewish history, especially in the land of Israel.

Denying the Right of Jews To Live Somewhere

Redlining where people can live has an ugly history and is known as being part of structural racism. For centuries, many countries barred where Jews could live and confined them to ghettoes.

The world promotes this today, passing laws that Jews are forbidden to live in certain parts of the land of Israel which they consider purely “Arab land.” In 2016, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334 which labeled Israeli “settlements” east of the 1949 Armistice Lines as “illegal.” While an Israeli Arab is free to move to eastern Jerusalem, an Israeli Jew is considered a “settler” who should be barred from owning land in the center of the Jewish holy land.

It’s a repulsive antisemitic statement. No one would ever consider legitimizing a law that Kurds should be banned from owning land in Istanbul, or Algerian Muslims in Marseilles. Yet somehow, the long antisemitic history of banning Jews from living in certain locations thrives today, in the land of Israel of all places.

Denying the Right of Jews To Pray At Their Holiest Site

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Articles 2 and 18 clearly allows all people the “freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” Such right covers Jews at their holiest site on the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Yet the United Nations and several nations bow to the antisemitic demands of Muslim nations that Jews should be banned from this basic human right. It is a flagrant offense, and doing so specifically and only for Jews reeks of Jew hatred.

*The Jewish Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem from the roof of the Hurva Synagogue (photo: First One Through)*

People are concerned that the IHRA definition of antisemitism has too many references to the Jewish STATE of Israel when in fact it has too few mentions of the Jewish LAND of Israel. Specifically, denying Jewish history in the land, denying Jews the right to live in the land and denying Jews the right to pray at their holiest sites are blatant and obvious examples of antisemitism which should be covered.

Structural Jew-hatred exists at the highest levels of governments and should be addressed directly as antisemitism gains momentum on the extremes of left and right.

ACTION ITEM

The IHRA antisemitism definition is missing denying Jewish history in Israel, denying Jews the right to live in Israel, and denying Jews the right to pray on the Temple Mount
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EMAIL REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN “Stop allowing antisemitism to grow. Push President Biden to support the IHRA definition of antisemitism which further includes: denying Jewish history in the land of Israel, denying Jews the right to live throughout the land, and denying Jews the right to pray at their holiest site of the Temple Mount, each a blatant and obvious example of antisemitism.”