Anti-Semitism – “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” applying a double standard to Israel by requiring of it “behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” and comparing “contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” – (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance)
“There’s been a lot of unclarity surrounding the application of Title VI to Jewishness, basically, because of a question of about whether Jewishness is primarily a religion — in which case Title VI would not apply to anti-Semitic discrimination — or whether it’s a race or national origin. This EO will clarify that Title VI applies to anti-Semitism.” – Senior Administration Official (WAPO)
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – bars discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin by schools that receive federal money. The law does not cover religious discrimination, so defining Jews as a national group is necessary if the agency is to have jurisdiction over incidents in which anti-Semitism is alleged. (WAPO)
Welcome to the List
Yesterday, in the fog of Impeachment and the Horowitz report, President Trump signed an executive order redefining Judaism. Before the President signed the order, the government of the United States regarded Judaism as a religion, like Catholics, Baptists, Buddhists and Muslims. After he signed the order, everything changed. Jews are now an ethnic group. Put them on the list: White, African-American, Native American/Alaskan Native, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, Asian, Native Hawaiian, and now, Jew.
If that doesn’t trigger some warning siren in your brain, you weren’t listening in school. A couple of days ago I was substitute teaching in a middle school English class. We were reading from the play “Anne Frank,” the story of a teenage Jewish girl and her family hiding from the Nazis in Holland during World War II. They are ultimately taken and sent to concentration camps. Only Mr. Frank, Anne’s father, survived.
One of the questions the middle schoolers asked was, how did the Nazis know who was Jewish? Their answer: well, they were wearing a yellow Star of David. When I asked how the Nazis knew who should be wearing the Star, the class was stymied. After some discussion, we found the answer – it was on their birth certificates, filed at City Hall. The conquering Nazis just had to look in the files, and sort the Jews out.
Why does the Trump Administration feel the need to redefine Judaism?
Two-State Solution
Since the 1970’s the United States and the United Nations have supported the “two-state solution” for the Middle East. Israel was founded under United Nations mandate in 1948 as a Jewish homeland. The Jews did not settle on vacant land, and many of the Palestinians who lived there left when Israel was created. Some were driven out, but many left at the order of surrounding Arab leaders.
Either way, they became political pawns, kept in camps on the border as wars raged in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. The Arab leaders wanted the refugees there as evidence of the cause. The Israelis used the land left by the Palestinians to build their new country. And the camps became nurseries for violent extremists, willing to do anything to get their land back. Today, seventy-one years later, they are still there.
The two-state solution would allow those Palestinians to have their own nation of Palestine. Israel and Palestine could co-exist as countries side by side. The problem was that in 1967 and 1973 Israel occupied many of the border areas were the refugee camps were. What would be the nation of Palestine was located in the occupied lands.
Palestine Today
Israel used the occupied lands to improve their border defenses. The Palestinians used rocks and bomb attacks to fight against the occupation. Ultimately a Palestinian state was outlined, divided in the middle by Israel, with an occupied capital in Ramallah on the West Bank, and it’s largest city cordoned off on the other side of Israel in Gaza.
Israeli governments in the past have tried to negotiate with the Palestinians. The current government, led by the Likud Party and Prime Minister Netanyahu, has aggravated the situation by building settlements in the occupied land, walling off the border, and often using deadly force against Palestinian protests.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
The United States has always been supportive of Israel. The Trump Administration has been especially so, taking actions in lockstep with the Likud Party agenda in Israel. The US embassy moved from the de facto capital, Tel Aviv, to the highly disputed capital in Jerusalem. The US has failed to take any actions to stop Israeli settlement in the occupied lands, and has not protested Israeli use of deadly force.
The Administration’s actions have generated protests here in the United States, especially on college campuses. The “BDS” (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement calls for US businesses and colleges to stop investing in Israeli companies in order to pressure Israel to change its actions towards Palestinians. BDS is modeled after the financial pressures that were placed on South Africa to end their policy of apartheid.
Various state legislatures have taken legal steps to prevent BDS from succeeding on campuses, including threatening state funding if a university determines to divest from Israeli investments. The Federal government under President Trump would like to do the same. The quickest way to achieve that is to withhold Federal Education funding if a university supports BDS. But to apply the law, the Civil Rights Act, the universities must be found as discriminatory. Under the Act, discrimination must be based on racial or ethnic grounds, not religious.
So to apply the Civil Rights Act, Jews have to be redefined as an ethnic group rather than a religion. It’s a “quick fix,” one that can be used to stop BDS on college campuses, and quiet Palestinian protests by placing them in the category of those who are “anti-Semitic”.
Short Term Fix
There’s a lot of support for the President’s actions among Jewish groups. It is another proof of the Administration’s generous support for current Israeli policy. And it empowers Jewish groups on campuses, giving them additional rights in Court. Particularly those Jewish groups in the United States aligned with Likud in Israel have pressed for this move, and includes President Trump’s huge financial backer, Sheldon Adelson.
But there are Jewish and other groups who have concerns with this redefinition of Judaism, and there are Jewish groups that do not agree with the current Israeli policies. And that’s the problem: this short-term fix supports a political position in Israel, not the Jewish religion. It falls into the President’s misconception that all Jews support everything that’s going on in Israel. In fact, as the current impasse in the current Israeli government shows, not even all Israelis support Likud, or Netanyahu.
Who are Jews
So who are Jews? Are they a religious group, with a long history? Are they an ethnic group, with shared genetic traits developed through centuries of isolation? And if they are an ethnic group, how can there be Ethiopian Jews, Asiatic Jews, and blond haired, blue eyed converted Jews like the President’s daughter here in the United States? Can you join an ethnic group, as you can join a religion?
It is complicated. As the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, I can attest to that. In Orthodox Judaism, religion is from the mother. To them, I’m not a Jew, though I could convert (if Ivanka can do it, I could). But in our society the son of a Jewish man is considered Jewish, even though I was raised in the Episcopal Church and currently attend “Our Lady of Perpetual Sleep” on Sunday mornings.
Ancestry.com calls me 66% European Jewish, 18% Irish/Scottish, and 16% English. That does not define my religion; but it makes me “Heinz 57” like a lot of other Americans.
But now, for American and Israeli political purposes, am I to check off a box on some government form, þ-Jew? Is that based on my 66%, or my religious beliefs? Or is it just so Netanyahu and Adelson and Trump can push their agenda against Palestine?
It’s a short-term win for them. But it’s a long-term danger for America, with echoes of centuries of ugly history.
