Assembly to Vote on Controversial Antisemitism Bill

Protesters rally in downtown Milwaukee in May 2021 to show support for Palestinians living in Gaza. A bill to define antisemitism will go before the Wisconsin Assembly for a vote Tuesday. Supporters say it’s necessary to differentiate between criticism of Israeli policy and anti-Jewish hate, but critics say it would conflate political speech with antisemitism. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Assembly will vote Tuesday on a bill that would define antisemitism and that has prompted deep divisions — including among Jewish leaders, who are found among both the supporters and opponents of the measure.

Proponents of the legislation contend it is needed to take a stand against a surge in antisemitic actions, on college campuses as well as in other contexts.

Critics, however, argue that the bill would criminalize political speech critical of Israeli actions, most recently in the ongoing conflict in Gaza — which has also divided the Jewish community.

The bill would codify in Wisconsin law a definition of antisemitism that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016.

The definition states: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The IHRA has also published a list of bullet points as “contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere…”

The legislation, AB 446, requires local and state governmental agencies to consider the IHRA definition “including its examples” when investigating allegations of racial, religious or ethnic discrimination. Its Senate companion is SB 445.

The definition would also be used to determine “enhanced criminal penalties for criminal offenses” if a defendant is found to target a victim “because of the victim’s or group of victims’ actual or perceived race, religion, color, or national origin.”

The bill “doesn’t create any new criminal penalty or compel any legal proceeding to be initiated,” testified its Assembly author, Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison), at public hearings on the measure. “Rather, it provides a standard to be used in evaluating whether an alleged criminal act as provided for under current law was motivated by antisemitism.”

Both the IHRA’s examples and the bill’s criminal penalty language have become key points of criticism for the legislation’s opponents, however. Rabbis have testified both in favor of the legislation and against it.

“Nothing about this bill would prevent me, or anyone else, from rebuking Israel for its actions when conscience demands it,” said Rabbi Noah Chertkoff, who serves a congregation in the Milwaukee suburb of Fox Point, testifying in support of the bill at its Jan. 28 state Senate hearing.

At the same hearing, Rabbi Dena Feingold, the retired leader of a Kenosha congregation, called the IHRA definition “highly controversial and problematic in a number of respects” in her opposition testimony.

“It is far from universally accepted within the Jewish community, and many scholars and leaders have outright rejected it,” Feingold said.

The number of examples offered by the IHRA treating “anti-Israel rhetoric as antisemitism gives the impression that anti-Israel critics and protesters are by far the most likely sources of antisemitism in America,” Feingold added. “On the contrary, I believe that racists and white nationalists are the largest sources of antisemitism in this country.”

The legislation’s sponsor list is heavily Republican. A handful of Democrats in both chambers have signed on, but some have subsequently withdrawn their support.

At both the Assembly public hearing in October and the state Senate hearing in January, witnesses supporting the bill described increased antisemitic violence and actions, particularly since the massacre of more than 1,200 people in an attack on a music festival in Israel by the Palestinian political and military group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

Ari Friedman, executive director of the Jewish Security Network, said at the January hearing that an audit by the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Jewish Community Relations Council found a 192% increase in antisemitic incidents in Wisconsin and similarly a national escalation in anti-Jewish hate crimes, according to the FBI.

The legislation “is not about suppressing free speech or political disagreement. Those rights are fundamental,” Friedman said. “But when expression crosses into harassment, intimidation and threats of violence directed at people because they are Jewish, it ceases to be abstract debate and becomes a public safety issue.”

The IHRA’s definition of antisemitism “explicitly does not criminalize speech,” testified the Jewish Community Relations Council’s chair, Jill Plavnick. “It provides clarity; helping schools, workplaces and courts recognize when hate crosses the line into discrimination.”

But Hannah Rosenthal, a former CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation who served as a special envoy on global antisemitism during the Obama administration and also led the national Jewish Council for Public Affairs, testified in opposition to the bill in January, describing it as part of a Trump administration push to target critics of the administration’s Middle East policy.

She said the White House appears intent on using the IHRA definition of antisemitism “to identify individuals or organizations that disagree with the administration’s goal to fight any pro-Palestinian efforts as part of a Hamas network, and therefore antisemitic or even a terrorist.”

The IHRA definition “does include some very important examples of antisemitism,” Rosenthal testified. “But it is silent on conspiracy theories, the great replacement theory, white nationalism, Christian nationalism, deicide, blaming Jews for funding opposition efforts, and the like.”

(The “great replacement theory” is a conspiracy theory that “Jews and some Western elites are conspiring to replace white Americans and Europeans with people of non-European descent,” explained Rodney Coates, a Miami University professor, in a 2024 article for The Conversation.)

Advocates have pointed to language stating that the bill may not be construed to infringe on constitutional rights under the First Amendment or to conflict with federal or state antidiscrimination laws.

“It affirms that nothing in this bill may be used to infringe on free expression,” Chertkoff testified.

But Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, said that the bill incorporates the IHRA definition and its examples into Wisconsin’s antidiscrimination law — making what she called the “First Amendment savings clause” meaningless.

“Although the ACLU of Wisconsin appreciates the sentiment expressed by this provision, it cannot override the bill’s plain terms,” Merkwae said.

Assembly to vote on antisemitism bill that sparked conflicting free speech views was originally published by Wisconsin Examiner.