The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear Groff v. DeJoy (No. 22-174), paving the way for a possible landmark expansion of protections for Americans’ religious rights in the workplace. The United States Postal Service (USPS) denied Petitioner Gerald Groff’s request to accommodate his Sunday sabbath observance. Instead, Groff was repeatedly required to work on his Sunday day of rest. Groff chose to quit rather than violate his sincerely held religious belief. He then took USPS to court under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. . Title VII requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for an employee’s sincerely held religious belief unless accommodating the belief would cause an “undue hardship” on the employer’s business. Title VII provides important protections for Americans of faith, as explained in the Brandeis Center’s recent fact sheet and webinar. . However, dicta in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, 432 U.S. 63 (1977) defines “undue hardship” as anything imposing “more than a de minimis cost” (i.e., anything more than a minimal financial burden) on an employer’s business. This limited Title VII’s protections. Dissenting from the TWA v. Hardison decision, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a sharp criticism of the Court’s opinion which he said struck a “fatal blow” to Title VII’s protections for Americans of faith. “I seriously question whether simple English usage permits ‘undue hardship’ to be interpreted to mean ‘more than de minimis cost.’” Justice Marshall further noted that Congress had imported the “undue hardship” language from earlier Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidance which discussed very difficult or even impossible accommodations. That guidance considered it an undue hardship “where the employee’s needed work cannot be performed by another employee of substantially similar qualifications during the period of absence” (emphasis added). . In a recent Brandeis Center Webinar on Religious Accommodations in the Corporate Workplace, Richard Foltin of the Freedom Forum noted that Congress has repeatedly tried and failed over the years to enact bipartisan legislation strengthening Title VII protections for religious freedom. But federal agencies have found other ways to strengthen Title VII. The Brandeis Center’s recent fact sheet on Religious Accommodations in the Corporate Workplace noted these laudable developments including changes made in the 2021 EEOC Guidance. The Guidance emphasizes that employer denials of employees’ requests for religious accommodations must include evidence-based reasons for the refusal, that adverse employment actions in anticipation of possible religious accommodations violates Title VII, and that employers must grant accommodations to the extent possible without creating an undue burden on their business. . Groff v. DeJoy is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to restore protections to religious Americans going forward, and the Court may be poised to do so. As noted by Brandeis Center Senior Counsel Arthur Traldi in the Brandeis Center’s recent webinar, “litigants bringing claims based on legal protections for their faith have had as much success at the Supreme Court recently as at any time in memory in litigation against government authorities.” . The restored legal protections would be particularly important for members of religious minorities, whose holidays and associated religious restrictions on work may be less commonly understood. Consequently, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Seventh Day Adventist groups all submitted briefs informing the Supreme Court of the hardships that have burdened people of faith for decades. . For instance, Brandeis Center Advisory Board Member Nathan Lewin, who drafted Title VII’s undue burden language and argued in TWA v. Hardison, wrote for nine Jewish organizations imploring the Court to take Groff v. DeJoy. Lewin argued that the Hardison Court had misinterpreted Title VII and “severely impaired employment opportunities of Jewish sabbath-observing Americans.” Lewin described the experience of Orthodox Jewish groups in supporting their members forced to choose between their faith and their work because of Hardison. . The Brandeis Center will continue tracking this litigation carefully and advocating for Jewish and other employees’ civil rights. . Joel Taubman is a Brandeis Center JIGSAW Fellow. He recently served as a Law Clerk at Lewin & Lewin, LLP, where he contributed to the firm’s Amicus Brief in Groff v. DeJoy.
Registration is open for our webinar Wednesday, January 18, at noon ET: “Anti-Semitism in the Workplace”: bit.ly/brandeis-webinar. The webinar will explore the types of anti-Semitism employees are facing and best practices for companies that want to combat anti-Semitism, as well as anti-discrimination legal protections for employees and pertinent issues for government contractors.
Written by Aaron Bandler and published in Jewish Journal on 1/9/23. . The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced on January 4 that they are delaying a regulation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for civil rights investigations for at least another year. . The Algemeiner and Politico both reported on the delay of the regulation, but noted that OCR Assistant Secretary for Human Rights Catherine Lhamon wrote in a letter that “the rise in reports of anti-Semitic incidents, including at schools, underscores of addressing discrimination based on shared ancestry and characteristics.” . Kenneth L. Marcus, who founded the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and served as the Assistant Education Secretary for the Office of Civil Rights during the Trump administration, told Politico that while he was “disappointed” at the delay, he was “pleased” that Lhamon is utilizing the “bully pulpit” to fight antisemitism on campuses. Marcus also pointed to the fact sheet released by OCR explaining that students are protected under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as further evidence that the Biden administration has embraced IHRA “very much an active part of policy” even if OCR hasn’t officially codified it. . Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations Chair Diane Lob and CEO William Daroff similarly said in a statement they were “heartened” that Lhamon “used the release of the fact sheet as an opportunity to confirm their commitment to enforcing the previous administration’s Executive Order on Combating Antisemitism, which incorporates the IHRA definition.” “We note our disappointment in the 12-month delay in the Department of Education’s promulgation of long-promised regulations to combat antisemitism, but in the interim look forward to engaging with the Department on other efforts to combat antisemitism in academic setting,” they later added. . The OCR regulation codifying IHRA was initially scheduled to go into place in September 2020, but was delayed until the following January due to a backlog at OCR. The subsequent Biden administration then delayed it again for January 2022, and then to the following December before the January 4 announcement. . In a December 28 Journal op-ed, Marcus stressed the need for the Biden administration to utilize IHRA for civil rights investigations because prior to the definition “OCR was long rudderless in its efforts to address a form of hate which it simply did not understand. And absent such a formal definition, the agency was unable to handle systemic campus anti-Semitism cases for nearly a decade and a half following the initial 2004 guidance.” Current OCR guidance includes IHRA. . “President Biden has correctly identified the seriousness of confronting anti-Semitism,” Marcus wrote. “Now his administration needs to deliver a strong regulation to ensure, in his words, that evil will not win and hate will not prevail.”
A recent essay by Josh Halpern and Lavi Ben Dor has provided a much needed analysis of the historical and constitutional basis for “anti-BDS laws.” Boycotts: A First Amendment History provides insight into the long-held tradition of government compulsion or prohibition of economic boycotts. They conclude that modern anti-boycott laws are constitutional, enjoy wide historical and bipartisan support, and improve upon historical precedent. . In response to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (“BDS”) movement against Israel, the majority of U.S. states have passed anti-BDS laws, which require recipients of public contracts and state investments not to join these discriminatory boycotts. The language and purpose of these anti-boycott laws focus solely on the act of boycotting, while not affecting a recipient’s First Amendment right to free speech. The question for lawyers and free speech advocates becomes whether or not boycotting is a legally protected expression under the First Amendment, or whether it is a form of economic discrimination that can be regulated by the government. . Halpern and Ben Dor find that boycotts have been subjected to “aggressive governmental control” since the early days of this country. Colonists that refused to boycott British goods were subject to trial, civil forfeiture, and criminal punishment. After the Founding, Americans were compelled to boycott foreign merchants and “Buy American” instead. At common law, American courts consistently held boycotters liable under civil and criminal conspiracy laws when they “unjustifiably” interfered in a third party’s business enterprise. Judges employed an ad hoc balancing test to determine whether a boycott was economically and socially “justified.” . Boycott regulation continued into the second half of the twentieth century, with governments pushing private companies into compliance with the boycott of apartheid-era South Africa. At the same time, they were using regulations to deter companies from participating in the Arab League boycott of Israel. Instead of the mandates and injunctions used by their predecessors, modern state governments now utilized contracts and tax benefits to promote their “preferred boycott policy.” Throughout this time, there was no charge of First Amendment violations, and governments at all levels touted their authority to implement boycott-related laws. . Starting in the 1970s, both federal and state governments compelled individuals and companies to participate in an economic boycott of apartheid-era South Africa. By 1990, the majority of states had “taken some form of binding economic action … by divesting public funds from companies that did business with South Africa or by conditioning public contracts on a company’s commitment not to do so.” States required contract recipients to certify their compliance with the state’s boycott laws. The federal government, too, promoted the boycott through the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and the Rangel Amendment to the budget Reconciliation Act in 1987, which imposed import bans and tax penalties on those doing business with South Africa. . During this time, state and federal governments implemented deterrence policies against those adhering to the Arab League’s boycott of Israel, which was widely held to be discriminatory and anti-Semitic in nature. The federal government imposed civil and criminal penalties and assessed tax penalties. In 1975, President Ford directed the Secretary of Commerce to issue regulations that prohibited companies from “complying in any way with the [discriminatory] boycott requests. Bipartisan congressional efforts led to the Ribicoff Amendment to the Tax Reform Act of 1976, which implemented tax penalties against those who “participate[] in or cooperate[] with” the Arab League’s Boycott. The bipartisan Export Administration Amendments of 1977 directed President Carter to “direct the President to issue regulations prohibiting ‘any United States person … from taking or knowingly agreeing to’ a boycott, ‘with intent to comply with, further, or support any boycott fostered or imposed by a foreign country against a country which is friendly to the United States.’” Additionally, state and local governments withheld public contracts and investments from those who would not comply with anti-boycott measures. By the early 1980s, 13 states had enacted anti-boycott measures of varying degrees. These boycott regulations stemmed from the widespread understanding that the government has full authority to regulate economic boycotts, since it is “not an inherently protected medium of expression.” . This tradition of boycott regulation continues to this day, along with the government’s decision to support or deter participation in certain economic boycotts. Halpern and Ben Dor find that “consistent with centuries of American legal history, the officials who advance these boycott policies conceive of the boycott as regulable economic conduct well outside the heartland of First Amendment expression or association.” . Today, the government continues to compel compliance with boycotts they endorse, such as boycotting Russia over the country’s recent invasion of Ukraine. In April, President Biden declared that it is illegal for U.S. citizens to make new investments in the Russian Federation. Multiple states have enacted boycott regulations, declaring that they will not provide state contracts or investments to companies that refuse to boycott the Russian Federation. States like New York have mandated that state contract bidders provide certifications regarding their Russia-related operations. New Jersey‘s governor issued a mandatory review of all state contracts with businesses that have some affiliation with the Russian government, which is “consistent with states’ ‘long history of leveraging [their] economic power,’ through mandatory boycott and divestment laws, ‘to further the[ir] values [and interests] throughout the world.’” This recent regulatory activity confirms that boycotts are regulable conduct, since “no federal court has ever sustained a First Amendment challenge to sanctions regimes like these. . The government also continues to deter participation in boycotts they oppose, such as the BDS movement against Israel. Currently, 35 states have enacted anti-boycott legislation related to BDS. Halpern and Ben Dor conclude that the anti-boycott laws do not violate the First Amendment, because “they are regulating disfavorable economic conduct, and do not target protected speech or association.” The authors argue that while a boycotter might be hindered in their “methods and objectives,” anti-boycott laws “do not silence dissent or political debate on that subject.” In other words, the anti-boycott laws only target conduct by requiring companies to certify that they will not engage in a boycott of Israel. They are still able to express themselves and engage in their First Amendment rights through other mediums. . Halpern and Ben Dor also conclude that “today’s anti-boycott laws are not merely consistent with past practice; they actually reflect a constitutional improvement over the regimes of old.” Indeed, modern anti-boycott laws are more precise and targeted, and consequences for noncompliance are less severe than those implemented in the early days of America. Those who violate an anti-BDS law “are not fined or otherwise subject to legal sanction, but merely lose their access to certain privileges like state contracts or investments.” . By providing the first historical breakdown and analysis of anti-boycott laws, the authors have solved an issue that many in the legal field have grappled with in recent years. The Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware led scholars to ask an important question: is boycotting an expressive behavior protected under the First Amendment or an economic behavior subjected to government control? Modern anti-boycott laws solve this issue, by making it clear that boycott regulation only affects the act of boycotting and not any expressive activities that a boycotter may want to engage in. As a result, if someone wants to both picket and boycott a company over a perceived disagreement, the laws permit them to picket but may forbid them from boycotting, compel them to do so, or take no position, depending on underlying state policy. This is consistent with America’s legal tradition, which has consistently treated the act of boycotting as conduct, not as expression protected under the First Amendment. . The authors’ findings confirm that (1) boycotts may be regulated as any other form of economic discrimination, (2) modern anti-BDS laws have broad historical and constitutional support, and (3) modern anti-boycott laws improve upon their historical predecessors. La réglementation juridique des boycotts est essentielle, en particulier dans des secteurs tels que les casinos en ligne, car les casinos mobiles, comme ici : https://topcasinosuisse.com/mobile/, qui offrent un large éventail de jeux d’argent, ont connu un regain de popularité. Toutefois, ce secteur en plein essor n’est pas exempt de controverses. Le concept de boycott de certains casinos ou établissements de jeu a pris de l’ampleur parmi certains groupes militant pour diverses raisons, telles que des préoccupations concernant les pratiques éthiques, la prévention de la dépendance ou le traitement équitable des clients. La mise en œuvre de réglementations légales concernant les boycotts dans l’industrie des casinos en ligne peut fournir un cadre structuré pour répondre à ces préoccupations. En établissant des lignes directrices claires, les autorités peuvent s’assurer que les boycotts sont menés dans le respect de la loi, ce qui permet d’éviter toute utilisation abusive de cette pratique. En outre, la surveillance juridique peut favoriser la transparence et la responsabilité des exploitants de casinos et des partisans des boycotts.
Recognizing the “rise in reports of anti-Semitic incidents,” Assistant Secretary Catherine E. Lhamon emphasized on January 4, 2023, that current Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) guidance “affirms OCR’s commitment to complying with” former President Donald Trump’s “Executive Order 13899 on Combating Anti-Semitism.” As Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus has explained in Newsweek, it is both important and commendable that the Biden administration is drawing public attention to the continuing application of the Executive Order, which incorporates the IHRA Working Definition of Anti-Semitism and its guiding examples relative to Israel, to OCR investigations. As Assistant Secretary Lhamon reminds OCR’s stakeholders, the Order remains an active part of OCR’s current policy guidance. To view Secretary Lhamon’s statement as a PDF, click here. .January 4, 2023 Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a fact sheet, Protecting Students from Discrimination Based on Shared Ancestry or Ethnic Characteristics, explaining ways that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), which protects students from race, color, and national origin discrimination, covers students who are or are perceived to be Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, or of another religious group. . The rise in reports of anti-Semitic incidents, including at schools, underscores the critical importance of addressing discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. For decades, OCR has investigated and resolved complaints of discrimination, including harassment, based on a student’s shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, or citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity under our Title VI jurisdiction. For example, OCR recently resolved complaints involving allegations of anti-Semitism and opened several new investigations related to shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. Information about OCR’s recent case resolutions under Title VI is available here. In addition, OCR’s Civil Rights Data Collection gathers information from schools and school districts about incidents of student harassment based on religion. . Today’s fact sheet is just one of several resources that OCR has released to inform schools of their obligations under Title VI to address discrimination against students, including discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. Additional resources, including a Questions and Answers guide released in January 2021 that affirms OCR’s commitment to complying with Executive Order 13899 on Combating Anti-Semitism, are available on the Shared Ancestry or Ethnic Characteristics page of OCR’s website. . Each of us has a role to play in protecting students from discrimination based on shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics. Thank you for your commitment to providing students a safe learning environment that is free from discrimination. . Sincerely, Catherine E. Lhamon Assistant Secretary Office for Civil Rights U.S. Department of Education
Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights — Remarks from Assistant Secretary Catherine E. Lhamon, January 4, 2023 Recognizing the “rise in reports of anti-Semitic incidents,” Assistant Secretary Catherine E. Lhamon emphasized on January 4, 2023, that current Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) guidance “affirms OCR’s commitment to complying with” former President Donald Trump’s “Executive Order 13899 on Combating Anti-Semitism.” As Brandeis Center Chairman Kenneth L. Marcus has explained in Newsweek, it is both important and commendable that the Biden administration is drawing public attention to the continuing application of the Executive Order, which incorporates the IHRA Working Definition of Anti-Semitism and its guiding examples relative to Israel, to OCR investigations. As Assistant Secretary Lhamon reminds OCR’s stakeholders, the Order remains an active part of OCR’s current policy guidance. 230104-Catherine-E.-Lhamon-official-OCR-emailDownload
Written by Adam Kredo and published in the Washington Free Beacon on 1/3/22. . The FBI’s latest annual report shows a decline in violence against Jews, findings that are at odds with Jewish watchdog groups who say anti-Semitic hate crimes have hit their highest levels in history during the past two years. . The FBI’s 2021 findings, released at the end of last year, have sparked accusations the federal law enforcement agency is deflating these statistics at a time when the American Jewish community is facing an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitism. At least one watchdog group is calling on Congress to investigate how and why the FBI underreported anti-Jewish hate crimes. . “At a time of record anti-Semitic hate crimes, it is appalling that the FBI’s data-gathering has been so badly botched,” said Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a watchdog group that combats Jew hatred. “This massive failure has undermined the purposes of hate crimes data precisely when we most need the data. If the FBI doesn’t quickly correct this problem, congressional committees will need to ask some serious questions.” . Marcus said the FBI’s 2021 statistics on hate crimes against Jews are “essentially useless” due to new reporting procedures that omitted statistics from organizations typically included in the federal agency’s yearly assessment. While the FBI claimed that violence against Jews decreased last year, groups such as the Anti-Defamation League reported that 2021 saw the highest levels of anti-Semitic violence on record. A report from the AMCHA Initiative, a Jewish advocacy group, last year found that assaults on Jewish students and their identities doubled in the 2021 and 2022 academic year. . Marcus, an attorney and former staff director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, said the FBI’s inaccurate reporting is likely to prompt congressional oversight. . “In my experience overseeing federal civil rights data collections, congressional committees have historically taken a keen interest in the completeness and accuracy of governmental information provided to the public,” Marcus told the Washington Free Beacon. “It is hard to imagine that a failure of this scope would escape the notice of congressional oversight staff.” . “I am hopeful that the Department of Justice and FBI will clean up this mess on their own,” Marcus said. “If DOJ and the FBI do not fix this problem, however, by providing corrected and complete data to the public, we should not be surprised if Congress should get involved.” . An FBI spokesman acknowledged the 2021 report was lacking information from multiple agencies across the country. The spokesman blamed this lapse on a shift in how statistics are collected. Due to this change, many law enforcement agencies did not submit their hate crime information in time for the FBI to include it in the most recent report. . “Law enforcement agency participation in submitting all crime statistics, including hate crimes, fell significantly from 2020 to 2021,” the FBI spokesman said, referring the Washington Free Beacon to a Dec. 12 press release on the matter that includes similar claims. “Several of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies, as well as some states, did not make the transition to [the new system] in time to submit data prior to the reporting deadline, and are not included in the 2021 reported totals.” . The Brandeis Center reviewed the FBI’s previous reporting and found that in 2020, for instance, more than 15,000 agencies provided hate crimes data. In 2021, however, just 11,883 agencies provided statistics, a 20 percent drop. This appears to have created the impression that hate crimes against Jewish people declined, even though they rose. . Some of the agencies that omitted data from the most recent report are based in areas with the highest concentration of Jews, including California, Florida, New Jersey, and New York, according to the Brandeis Center. At least 198 anti-Semitic hate crimes occurred in New York during 2021, but none of them were included in the FBI’s final report. Los Angeles County, which also reported a rise in anti-Semitic violence, also is omitted from the FBI’s report. . “The problem is so bad,” Marcus said, “that record-high levels of anti-Semitism appear in the official data as actual declines, because major jurisdictions didn’t formally report it.”
The Brandeis Center hosted a webinar earlier this month entitled “Religious Accommodations in the Corporate Workplace.” Panelists discussed the history of religious inclusion in America, the laws used to protect religious inclusions in the workplace, and the current trend of such laws among U.S. regulators and courts. . Hon. Andrea R. Lucas, Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, served as moderator. The panelists included Freedom Forum Fellow for Religious Freedom Richard Foltin, Anti-Defamation League Director of Regional Operations Etzion Neuer, and Brandeis Center Senior Counsel Arthur Traldi. . After a brief introduction, Richard Foltin gave background on the legal history of religious accommodations mandated in the United States. Religious inclusion is deep-rooted in the values of America, and workplace protection for this is expressed in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Despite this, there have been setbacks in the past. Foltin discussed the language of the applicable legislation; employers are required to grant their employees ‘reasonable accommodation,’ so they can observe their religion as long as it does not cause any ‘undue hardship’ on the business. . What exactly, then, is a ‘reasonable accommodation?’ Foltin suggests that one example is an accommodation that removes the conflict entirely, such as adjusting the work calendar or granting the employee paid time off. Still, employers could then say that this causes ‘undue hardship’ on the business, and, without solid legal representation, this could force employees to choose between their jobs and their faith. This has been the sad truth for many employees, as efforts to make the law stronger in protecting employees’ religious freedoms have been met with pushback in the past. . ADL Director of Regional Operations Etzion Neuer gave a non-legal perspective of how these rules apply to real life. He mentioned that ADL has seen a “dramatic increase” in reports they receive regarding the mishandling of religious accommodations in the workplace. To combat this, ADL trains staffs, appeals to companies, and works for equity. Neuer says that there is reason to be optimistic, as accommodating religions is becoming a “business imperative,” meaning it can no longer be overlooked if businesses want to survive. . The final panelist was Brandeis Center Senior Counsel Arthur Traldi. He provided insights on the direction the law is currently going, citing specific examples that echoed Neuer’s feelings of optimism. For instance, in 2015, the Supreme Court heard a case about a Muslim woman denied a job at Abercrombie & Fitch, because she refused not to wear her head covering at work. SCOTUS ruled in her favor, declaring that Title VII means the company cannot refuse to hire because of religious practices. Traldi said the fact that the court ruled against corporate dress codes for an apparel retailer set the bar very high for claiming ‘undue hardship.’ . Beyond that, new EEOC guidance gives specific examples illustrating when accommodations. This is important, because it gives employers clear direction on when they can and cannot claim undue hardship is being imposed on their business. These hardships must be clearly ascertainable and concrete, not based on anticipation. Thanks to cases and guidance like these, Traldi believes that the legal landscape is continually moving in the direction of increased protection for workplace religious accommodations. . All of this relates to the Shine A Light Campaign against anti-Semitism, of which the Brandeis Center is proud to be a part. This initiative seeks to spotlight modern anti-Semitism and fight to end it through education. Webinars like the one we recently hosted are a fantastic resource that students, employees, and employers can use to help move the needle in the right direction in the battle against all forms of discrimination. . To watch the webinar, click here. . To learn more, read our fact sheet.
Published in Jewish Telegraphic Agency on December 25, 2022. . Jewish eras can be defined by events (the fall of the Second Temple, the Inquisition, the founding of Israel) and by ideas (the rabbinic era, emancipation, post-denominationalism). A community reveals itself in the things it argues about most passionately. . It’s too early to tell what ideas will define this era, although a look back at the big debates of 2022 suggests Jews in North America will be discussing a few issues for a long time: the resurgence of antisemitism, the boundaries of free speech, the red/blue culture wars. . Below are eight of some of the key debates of the past year as (mostly) reflected in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s opinion section (which I have a hand in editing). They suggest, above all, a community anxious about its standing in the American body politic despite its strength and self-confidence. . Antisemitism and the Black-Jewish alliance The rapper Kanye West spread canards about Jews and power. Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving shared an antisemitic film on Twitter. And comedian Dave Chappelle made light of both incidents on “Saturday Night Live,” suggesting comics like him had more to fear from cancellation than Jews did from rising antisemitism. The central roles played in these controversies by three African-American celebrities revived longstanding tensions between two communities who haven’t been able to count on their historic ties since the end of the civil rights era. The war of words was particularly vexing for Jews of color, like the rabbi known as MaNishtana and Rabbi Kendell Pinkney — who wondered whether “my mixed Jewish child will grow up in an America where she feels compelled to closet aspects of her identity because society cannot hold the wonder of her complexity.” . Jewish attitudes toward Ukraine Russia’s war on Ukraine stirred up complex feelings among Jews. It led to an outpouring of support for the innocents caught up in or sent fleeing by Russia’s invasion, and the Jewish president who became their symbol of defiance. It reinvigorated a Jewish rescue apparatus that seemed to have been in hibernation for years. And it probed Jews’ memories of their own historic suffering in Ukraine, often at the hands of the ancestors of those now under attack. . Jews and the end of Roe v. Wade In June the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade. It was an unthinkable outcome for liberal Jewish activists, women especially, who for 50 years and more had regarded the right to an abortion as integral to their Jewish identity and political worldview. Before the decision came down, Jewish studies scholar Michal Raucher questioned long-held Jewish organizational views that justified abortion only on the narrowest of religious grounds without acknowledging that women “have the bodily autonomy to make that decision on their own.” Conversely, Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel of America welcomed the end of Roe on behalf of his haredi Orthodox organization, writing that the rabbis “who guide us indisputably hold that, absent extraordinary circumstances, terminating a pregnancy is a grave sin.” Responding to Shafran, Daphne Lazar Price, an Orthodox Jewish feminist, argued that even in her stringently religious community, getting an abortion is a “conscious choice by women to follow their religious convictions and maintain their human dignity.” . Colleyville and synagogue safety After a gunman held a rabbi and three congregants hostage at a Colleyville, Texas synagogue in January, Jewish institutions called for even tighter security at buildings that had already been hardened after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre in 2018. And yet for some, the sight of armed guards and locked doors undermines the spirit of a house of worship. Raphael Magarik of the University of Illinois Chicago argued that the Colleyville incident shouldn’t lead to an overreaction, especially when congregations are struggling to come back together after the pandemic. Rabbi Joshua Ladon warned about the “impulse to allow fear to define our actions.” Meanwhile, Jews of color said armed guards and police patrols can make them feel unsafe. In a powerful response, Mijal Bitton and Rabbi Isaiah Rothstein of the Shalom Hartman Center wrote that Jewish institutions must think in “expansive and creative ways about how to fight for our combined safety in a way that takes into account the rich ethnic and racial diversity of our communities.” . Anti-Zionism, antisemitism and “Jew-free zones” When nine student groups at UC Berkeley’s law school adopted by-laws saying that they will not invite speakers who support Zionism, the Jewish Journal in Los Angeles ran an op-ed with the provocative headline, “Berkeley Develops Jewish Free Zones.” In the essay, Kenneth L. Marcus, who heads the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, argued that “Zionism is an integral aspect of the identity of many Jews,” and that the bylaws act as “racially restrictive covenants,” precluding Jewish participation. Defenders of the pro-Palestinian students countered that groups often invite only like-minded speakers, and that while being Jewish is an identity, Zionism is a political viewpoint. Faculty, politicians and activists weighed in on both sides of what has become a central debate on campuses and beyond: When does anti-Zionism become antisemitism, and how do you balance free speech rights against the claims by some students that their personal safety hangs in the balance? . “Maus” and school book bans Caught up in an epidemic of book-banning were Jewish books for children and young adults, a list that includes “The Purim Superhero,” “Family Fletcher” and “Chik Chak Shabbat.” A Texas school board removed a 2018 graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary. But perhaps the highest profile case of a Jewish-interest book being banned came when a Tennessee school board voted to remove “Maus” — Art Speigelman’s epic cartoon memoir about the Holocaust — from middle-school classrooms, citing its use of profanity, nudity and depictions of “killing kids.” Coverage of the ban misleadingly depicted “Maus” as an introduction to the Shoah for young adults, while Speigelman recently noted that he had become a reluctant “metonym” for the book-banning issue. Jennifer Caplan explained why the book is indispensable: “‘Maus’ forces the reader to bear witness in a way no written account can, and the [illustrations] are especially good at forcing the eye to see what the mind prefers to glide past.” . Artificial intelligence and real-life dilemmas Artificial intelligence, or AI, has become a fact of corporate life, with computing advances that power robotic automation, computer vision and natural-language text generation. But what captured the public imagination — and dread — this year were sites like Dall-E, which threatened the livelihood of graphic designers by generating original, credible illustrations with no more than a simple prompt, and ChatGPT, which is able to expound cogently and humanly on practically any topic. Beyond everyday ethical dilemmas (“Can I write my book report using ChatGPT?”) AI raised profound questions about what it means to be human. “Rabbis have historically been very open to the idea of nonhuman sentience and have tended to see parallels between humans and nonhumans as an excuse to treat nonhumans better,” wrote David Zvi Kalman in an essay on the prospect of creating artificial life. Similarly, Mois Navon suggested in JTA that “if a machine is sentient, it is no longer an inanimate object with no moral status or ‘rights’ … but rather an animate being with the status of a ‘moral patient’ to whom we owe consideration. . A Pulitzer for “The Netanyahus” Joshua Cohen was the somewhat surprising winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel “The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family.” Or maybe not so surprising: The book is a fictionalized treatment of a real-life visit in the late 1950s by the Israeli historian Benzion Netanyahu for a job interview at a university very much like Cornell. With Benzion’s son Benjamin angling for an ultimately successful return to office in real life, a satire about Jewish power, right-wing Zionism and Israeli self-regard might have seemed to the judges very much of the moment. As critic Adam Kirsch wrote in a JTA essay, Cohen concludes that both American and Israeli Jewish identities “are absurd, crying out for the kind of satire that can only come from intimate knowledge.” Others weren’t amused. Jewish Currents criticized the novel for being derivative of both Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, and the Jewish Review of Books said that the novel includes “a capsule history of Zionism that is so blatant a distortion that I just gave up.”
Written by Douglas Belkin and published in the Wall Street Journal on 12/14/22 . Adina Pinsker commutes to Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., to study supply-chain management. She is also active in Hillel International, the nation’s largest collegiate Jewish organization. . When she arrives on campus, she takes an indirect route to class and tucks inside her shirt the silver Star of David she wears around her neck. These are precautions, she said, to avoid harassment from students who dislike Israel, the people who support it, or both. . “We have basically been shunned,” said Ms. Pinsker, who said she has been subject to derogatory remarks about her beliefs. . Ms. Pinsker’s actions are emblematic of rising fear among some Jewish college students around the country, who have begun shrouding their religious identity and political beliefs to avoid growing ostracism and harassment, according to interviews with dozens of students. . College campuses have long hosted heated debates about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But now, students say anti-Jewish antagonism is on the rise: Antisemitic incidents have increased, and a growing number of campus groups bar students who support Israel from speaking or joining. . Hostility, including vandalism, threats and slurs toward Jewish students on college campuses increased more than threefold to 155 incidents in 2021 from 47 in 2014, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based Jewish civil rights organization which has tracked reports of such behavior since 2014. The group counted 2,717 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. overall last year, up 34% from 2020 and the highest number in its records dating to 1979. . Students at schools including the University of Vermont, Wellesley College and DePaul University have ejected Jewish students who support Israel from clubs and study groups, according to interviews with affected students. . Students at Tufts University, University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles tried to prevent Jewish classmates from serving in student government or attempted to remove them from positions in student government because of their support of Israel, according to students, administrators and campus news reports. . The uptick in incidents and tension on some campuses comes amid a string of recent high-profile controversies that have drawn renewed attention to antisemitism. This month Twitter suspended the account of rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West—who now goes by the name Ye—after he tweeted to his 32 million followers an image of a swastika merged with the Star of David, weeks after he tweeted: “I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” . On campus, students say that stereotypical antisemitic slurs are directed at Jews, but that much of the hostility derives from growing criticism of Israel’s handling of its political and military conflict with Palestinians over land rights. Jewish students say harassment often compounds when criticism of Israel increases. . Most American Jews feel an attachment to Israel, though many are critical of the Israeli government, according to a 2021 survey from the Pew Research Center. . Some of the conflict on campus stems from competing definitions of antisemitism and anti-Zionism and whether they overlap. . Anti-Zionism is a political position distinct from antisemitism, which is a prejudice, said Dylan Saba, an attorney with New York-based Palestine Legal, which works to support the civil and constitutional rights of people in the U.S. who advocate for Palestinians. The two are conflated by supporters of Israel to discredit critics, he said. . Condemning Israel may make some Jewish students feel uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it is antisemitic, he said. “All we are asking for is equal rights,” he said. . The U.S. State Department includes in its definition of antisemitism the view “that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” as well as the act of “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” . In 2010, Hillel International began restricting partnerships with groups that are anti-Zionist—which the organization defines as those opposed to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. The policy has been criticized by some outside the organization. . Hillel’s mission is “to inspire every student to have an enduring connection to Jewish life, learning, and Israel,” according to its website. While the organization invites debate, it refuses to have partnerships with groups that “delegitimize, demonize, or apply a double standard to Israel.” . At the beginning of this school year, graffiti on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison listed five Jewish organizations and said that they all “have blood on their hands.” . “When people are listing every single Jewish organization on campus for being Zionist, they really are just attacking them for being Jewish,” said Ruth Tsesis, a junior at the university. . In a four-month span in the spring of 2021, 16 U.S. college students said they were spat on for being Jewish, according to a survey of 1,027 Jewish fraternity and sorority members with chapters on 160 campuses, sponsored by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which advocates for the civil rights of Jewish people. . Half of the respondents said they had been verbally denigrated and hid their religious identity for fear of being targeted. . Jewish students on campuses around the country said they are responding to incidents by avoiding parts of campus and hiding or removing personal items such as jewelry and water bottles with Hebrew script. Some said they keep any hint of their support of Israel off social media. . More than 1,000 Jewish students from 550 colleges and universities mostly in the U.S. and Canada have shared 2,208 experiences with bias over the past 2½ years with an organization called Jewish on Campus. Many include allegations of being expelled from study groups and academic clubs over public support for Israel. In response to incidents, hundreds of students expressed their reluctance to publicly acknowledge their Judaism or support for Israel. . “They are choosing to be quiet,” said Julia Jassey, the University of Chicago senior who started Jewish on Campus. . Nerdeen Kiswani, who graduated from the City University of New York Law School this year and has been advocating for Palestinians since she was an undergraduate at several CUNY schools, said antisemitism is harmful not only to Jews but to the Palestinian cause because it detracts from grievances about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. . “There’s nothing that undermines the Palestinians’ struggle more than antisemitism,” she said. . In August, Berkeley Law School Students for Justice in Palestine passed a bylaw prohibiting Zionists from speaking at its events. Eight additional student affinity organizations at the law school adopted the bylaw. Student leaders didn’t respond to requests for comment. . “The narrative on campus is that if you are a Zionist, if you in any way shape or form think Israel has the right to exist, you are the same as those who support ethnic cleansing and genocide and you are so morally compromised that people shouldn’t even engage with you,” said Charlotte Aaron, a Jewish second-year law student who spoke out against the restriction. . The dean of the Berkeley Law School, Erwin Chemerinsky, characterized as antisemitic the rule to prohibit Zionists from speaking at student clubs, but he supported their right to make the rule. Overturning it would amount to compelled speech and violate students’ First Amendment right to reject views they oppose, he said. . School officials contacted by The Wall Street Journal at Tufts University, University of Vermont, DePaul University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Rutgers University, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wellesley College said they denounce antisemitism while also championing free speech. . In the spring of 2021 Cassie Blotner, a senior at the State University of New York at New Paltz, helped to start a support group for victims of sexual violence with five other students. Then the other founders forced her out, she said, telling her that her support for Israel was incompatible with the mission of the organization. . Other founders of the organization didn’t respond to requests for comment. . A string of threatening anonymous antisemitic posts on social media followed, Ms. Blotner said, and by the end of fall semester last year, Ms. Blotner stopped attending class. The school now provides her with a plainclothes police escort on campus to walk her to class. . “We unequivocally condemn any attacks on SUNY students who are Jewish, and we will not tolerate antisemitic harassment and intimidation on campus,” said Chrissie Wilson, a school spokeswoman. . Ms. Blotner said walking to class with a police officer is awkward, but she isn’t ready to cancel the protection. . Earlier this fall, she said she was walking home from a restaurant near campus with two friends when someone screamed out of a passing car, “Jew!” . “I have no idea who it was,” she said. “But they knew me.”