This is an issue of the Antisemitism Project newsletter. To receive this vital resource in your inbox, please visit the Antisemitism Project website.
Dispatch #2
• GREENBLATT’S DIRE WARNING @ THE KNESSET
On January 7—the 15-month anniversary of the October 7 atrocities—I attended a meeting of the Knesset’s Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee alongside Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. The meeting was chaired by MK Oded Forer and attended by Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli and other representatives of American Jewish groups and Zionist organizations specializing in combating antisemitism.
Greenblatt’s report served as a dire warning: The global inferno that was unleashed after October 7 has grown and shows little sign of dying out. “ADL has been tracking anti-Jewish incidents since the 1970s, and we’ve processed more than 10,000 anti-Jewish acts in the United States in the 12 months since October 7,” he said, noting it amounted to a 200 percent-plus increase over the prior year. “But this isn’t limited to America,” he said.
While the meeting produced plenty of concrete recommendations of what needs to be done, there was little sense of a clear path. In other words, the global battle against rising antisemitism remains one without the plans and strategies needed to win a war. And the Israeli government’s role in that war remains undefined. What did become apparent to me was that after three decades of travel and work in Israel, for the first time, I witnessed a concerted recognition by Israeli leaders and stakeholders of the threats posed to diaspora Jewry due to rising antisemitism, as well as to the very national security of Israel. That realization alone is a step in the right direction.
• WHAT’S HAPPENING ON CAMPUS NOW?
The 2024-25 academic year has not seen a return of the contentious and in some cases dangerous campus encampments of last spring, with fewer pro-Hamas demonstrations and fewer incidents of antisemitism directed at Jewish students. However, the incidents that have taken place are more sinister.
Two prime examples involve students at George Mason University in Virginia. First, two sisters, both leaders of the GMU chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, were being investigated for damaging campus property in August. This led to a search of their family home in November and the discovery not only of Hamas materials but also multiple weapons and ammunition belonging to their father and brother. Second, just a few weeks later, an 18-year-old GMU freshman, an Egyptian national, was arrested by the FBI for allegedly plotting a mass casualty attack on Israel’s General Consulate in New York City.
On the good news side, Harvard University has settled two high-profile Title VI lawsuits that accused the school of failing to address antisemitism on campus. As part of the agreement, Harvard will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, update policies to include protections for Zionist students, and provide training on antisemitism for faculty/staff handling complaints.
In other Title VI news: Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania are reintroducing the Protecting Students on Campus Act. It requires universities to make students aware of their right to file Title VI complaints about discrimination or harassment on campus. The bipartisan bill would also require schools that receive federal funds to provide an annual report of complaints and responses.
And finally, on the enforcement side, in early January, New York University suspended at least a dozen students until January 2026 for participating in a demonstration in the library during finals week in December that called for NYU to disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel. NYU cited various reasons for the suspensions, characterizing the protest as a “coordinated and collective disruptive action.”
• WIKIPEDIA ‘HIGH COURT’ QUIETS ANTI-ISRAEL EDITORS
This week, after a long and arduous process led by the Anti-Defamation League and other NGOs to curb anti-Israel misinformation and hate on Wikipedia, eight editors were banned from editing entries on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This action followed an internal investigation by the online encyclopedia’s Arbitration Committee. As reported by multiple Jewish news sites, six of the eight were seen as anti-Israel and two as pro-Israel; all were cited for disruptive behavior that included, per the Jewish Journal, “non-neutral editing, edit warring and incivility.”
The biases of certain editors had become apparent to the ADL and others well before, when content was framed in flagrantly biased language openly hostile to Israel. For example, as part of the “Background” section of the entry “Israel-Hamas war,” a Wikipedia article states: “Numerous commentators have identified the broader context of Israeli occupation as a cause of the war,” but the entry does not name nor describe the October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel as the immediate cause.
Middle East historian Asaf Romirowsky, who heads Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and North Africa, has stated that many of these editors “are recycling the same echo chamber that is basically Palestinian propaganda…the bias is clear.”
The ban of the eight follows a vote by Wikipedia’s editors in June to declare the ADL “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict, adding it to a list of banned and partially banned sources. A majority of editors involved in that debate also voted to deem the organization unreliable on the topic of antisemitism, its core focus. “ADL no longer appears to adhere to a serious, mainstream and intellectually cogent definition of antisemitism, but has instead given into the shameless politicization of the very subject that it was originally esteemed for being reliable on,” wrote an editor known as Iskandar323.
“We’re pleased that the Wikipedia arbitration board has taken disciplinary action against some editors who, in our view, have spread malicious, false and biased information about Zionism and Israel across the platform,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said of the recent move. “It’s worth noting that several of the chief instigators of the campaign against ADL [including Iskandar323] are among those now facing topic bans or outright bans for their behavior.”
• MUSK’S MOVES
The past two weeks were unprecedented, even for Elon Musk, who stole a bit of President Trump’s inaugural thunder with a move that had everyone talking. But a far more important question than whether or not he did a Nazi salute is: “Which forces in our society are emboldened by Musk’s messaging, gestures and vitriol?”
One indisputable data point has been his consistent support for Germany’s far right extremist political party Alternative for Germany (AfD). Over the past month, with German elections looming, Musk has repeatedly voiced his support for AfD and attempting to normalize the party’s far-right, anti-immigrant politics. In a surprise virtual appearance at an AfD campaign event in Halle, in eastern Germany, Musk went so far as to call the AfD the “last spark of hope.” Musk caused more consternation when he stated that “children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great-grandparents,” apparently referring to Germany’s Nazi past. “There is too much focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.”
American Jewish organizations have had a tough time keeping up and reacting to Musk’s flurry of highly questionable behavior. Just days after his gesture at the post-Inauguration rally, which the ADL characterized as “awkward” while also acknowledging that people were feeling on edge, the ADL and other major Jewish organizations called out Musk’s blatantly antisemitic Holocaust jokes posted on X. “Making inappropriate and highly offensive jokes that trivialize the Holocaust only serve to minimize the evil and inhumanity of Nazi crimes, denigrate the suffering of both victims and survivors and insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Shoah,” read ADL’s statement.
What remains most consequential is Musk’s manifest attempt to influence Germany’s upcoming elections. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has labeled Musk’s blatant attempts to influence German politics as “unacceptable” and “disgusting.” Most don’t believe that Musk is by any means the primary cause of AfD’s popularity, but his embrace of the extremist party has given it a global profile and credibility in circles where it might not have otherwise been considered.
Sharon S. Nazarian, PhD, reports on antisemitism news as she travels the country and the world advocating for Jewish communities and combating prejudice and hate. Nazarian is the president of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation and serves as vice chair on the national board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, having previously served as ADL’s senior vice president of international affairs. She also teaches as an adjunct professor at UCLA and is a Moment Institute senior fellow.