THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT IS WRONG ON THE LAW—AND THE FACTS

By Mark Goldfeder

On Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) took the extraordinary and deeply flawed step of issuing arrest warrants for both the leaders of Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, and the leaders of Israel, a democratic state engaged in self-defense against those very same terrorists. This decision is not just morally indefensible, it was wrong on the merits, wrong on the process, wrong on the facts, and wrong on the law.

The ICC's charges against Israel are based on alleged violations of the Rome Statute, yet they conspicuously omit the full statutory language that would clearly exonerate the accused. For instance, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are accused of engaging in "starvation as a method of warfare." Article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Rome Statute, however, explicitly defines this crime as "intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including willfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions."

This is a specific intent crime. It is not enough to demonstrate that civilians suffered based on decisions Israel made while fighting Hamas; the prosecutor must show that Israel acted with the deliberate aim of starving civilians as a method of warfare. This is patently untrue. Israel has made extensive efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, even under the extraordinary challenge of Hamas's systematic theft and weaponization of such supplies. Any accusation that Israel's objective was to starve innocent civilians—rather than to compel the surrender of Hamas combatants—is not merely unfounded but a libelous distortion of the truth.

Moreover, the Geneva Conventions themselves do not require a sieging party to allow in aid when it will be commandeered by the enemy or provide a military advantage, both of which are indisputably the case with Hamas in Gaza. Similar legal and factual deficiencies undercut all the other charges leveled against Israel, which collapse under the weight of even modest scrutiny.

From a process perspective, Israel, like the United States, is not a party to the Rome Statute. The court's claim of jurisdictional authority over disputed areas of the West Bank and Gaza hinges on the presumption that while Palestine admittedly does not constitute a "state" under the general principles of international law including the Montevideo Convention, just for the purposes of the Rome Statute the Court can treat it as a state. The idea that the definition of "state" might somehow be different here than for any other area of international law is entirely unfounded, as is the insidious and inevitable suggestion that, when it comes to prosecuting the Jewish State, as distinct from all other states, international law should be applied differently. Israel is the first and only non-member state to be investigated at the behest of a nonstate member. There is a word for that kind of special treatment, and it isn't pretty.

Beyond the legal and procedural flaws, the factual claims underpinning the charges simply do not hold. In June, after the prosecutor had submitted his charges, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Classification System (IPC) released an analysis showing that an earlier projection that famine "may occur" in Gaza by May had not come to pass. At the time, a spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on whether they would let these facts in any way alter their false claims. To date there is no credible evidence that a single individual has died from starvation as a result of Israeli actions, let alone from a deliberate policy to intentionally starve civilians.

Finally, under the terms of the Rome Statute itself, the ICC is meant to be a court of last resort, intervening only when a nation is "unwilling or unable" to investigate or prosecute alleged crimes. Israel, however, has a robust legal system, staffed with expert legal advisers and an independent judiciary that has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to upholding international humanitarian law. Dozens of active investigations into actions taken since Oct. 7 are currently underway. The ICC, by disregarding the principle of complementarity, has acted in clear violation of the court's own rules.

Equating Israel's legitimate acts of self-defense with the atrocities of a terrorist organization like Hamas represents a dangerous moral and legal inversion, undermining the principles of international law and emboldening bad actors who exploit these flawed rulings for propaganda purposes. The United States and all of the other countries in the free world must recognize that Israel is merely the first target in what could easily become a broader campaign by the ICC to undermine the sovereignty of democratic nations. The U.S. Senate should pass the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act, which has already received bipartisan Congressional support, and which would impose sanctions on ICC officials who overreach their jurisdiction to target the U.S. and its allies. Far from weakening international institutions, standing with Israel against this egregious mockery of the system would be the strongest safeguard for the integrity of international law as applied, and quite possibly the only way to save the court from itself.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations.

PHOTO CREDIT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (3rd R) arrives for a party meeting at the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem on May 20. OREN BEN HAKOON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Mark Goldfeder, Opinion: What donors abandoning Penn and Harvard should do next

By Mark Goldfeder

I would have hoped that, following the mass atrocities Hamas visited on more than 1,400 Israelis, US students who support Palestinian aspirations would want to separate themselves as quickly as possible from the scenes of depravity committed in the name of an explicitly antisemitic genocidal agenda.

Shockingly, however, several “pro-Palestinian” organizations on America’s most elite campuses showed no empathy for what happened to Israelis and instead blamed the victims for the unspeakable horror they suffered. (“Pro-Palestinian” is in quotations because you can, of course, be pro-Palestinian without supporting genocidal terrorism.) A coalition of student groups at Harvard University, for instance, put out a statement that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Some of those groups and students did eventually walk their statements back, but while Harvard’s was particularly egregious, it was not the only such incident.

Thankfully, some heroic citizens in the corporate world have issued a response. Students may have the right to openly support murder, but hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman explained that he and his fellow business leaders have a legitimate interest in knowing their names so they never inadvertently hire any of them. When a New York University Law student released a statement similarly hideous to Harvard’s, the law firm of Winston and Strawn exercised its own right to rescind the student’s employment offer.

Now these figures are going directly to the top. After mealy-mouthed administrators at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania seemed hesitant to respond to the massacre or to use the word “terrorist,” major donors announced they were closing their checkbooks and resigning from university boards in protest.

These actions are welcome, but more must be done. Donors and anyone else concerned about the climate on campus should urge administrators to hold accountable student groups whose speech crosses the line into territory not protected by the Constitution.

In particular, one of the major pro-Palestinian student groups, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), demands reining in. The national organization issued a “call to action” for students to participate in a “National Day of Resistance” last Thursday, and affiliates across the country have planned more events in the near future.

The words and imagery used in SJP’s call to action are nothing short of frightening. Its Instagram account featured a graphic of a paraglider in a clear reference to the means some Hamas terrorists used to infiltrate Israel. “Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance … reminding each of us that total return and liberation to Palestine is near,” the accompanying text stated. “The Palestinian resistance has captured over a dozen settlements surrounding Gaza along with many occupation soldiers and military vehicles. This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.” The organization repeated that text in a tool kit it supplied for the action, accompanied by an extra line: “National liberation is near — glory to our resistance, to our martyrs and to our steadfast people.”

The presence of at least one anti-Zionist student group such as SJP has long been correlated with antisemitic incidents on campuses. But SJP crossed a new line when it openly encouraged its members to rally in support of a terror group whose charter calls for the annihilation of Jews, everywhere, separate from the clauses vowing the obliteration of the State of Israel. Many Jewish students have already been fearful of ostracization when attending classes or expressing their identity. But fear for their physical safety is becoming ever more acute.

Universities, take note: Your lack of action is complicity.

While several university presidents have spoken out, to their credit, many more need to join them. And they all must do more when students glorify the actions of Hamas — a US-designated foreign terrorist organization — and support “armed confrontation.”

First, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, institutions that take federal funds have an obligation to protect their Jewish students — including from other student groups. Per the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, speech becomes harassing conduct when it is “sufficiently severe, pervasive, or persistent so as to interfere with or limit” the ability of students to join in or benefit from a university’s services or activities. Many Jewish students (even some professors) are literally afraid to go to class. Stanford Law School moved classes to Zoom last Friday out of concerns over violence. If the words of Title VI mean anything, they must protect against environments like this.

Second, all private universities have the right to shut down hateful protests without triggering any constitutional issues. Public universities are more constrained, but under Tinker v. Des Moines and its progeny — which courts have applied to universities — schools can shut down speech that will “materially and substantially interfere” with the “requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school” or “invad[e] the rights of others.” Schools don’t have to wait for trouble; they can ban expression in advance if they can “reasonably forecast” that it will violate those standards.

In Melton v. Young, for instance, school officials were allowed to prohibit the wearing of a Confederate flag because it was reasonable to assume it would be disruptive in an environment of racial tension. Shouting “all of us are Hamas” while declaring that support for Palestinians “includes violence” and condoning “armed confrontation” is certainly no less likely to cause a disruption. Moreover, SJP rallies have sometimes turned violent in the past. Predictably, some did last week as well.

Finally, it is a federal crime if someone “knowingly provides material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.” Under Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, that can include even some speech if done “under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations.”

For instance, United States v. Osadzinski held that merely translating ISIS videos into English for pro-ISIS media organizations “clearly constituted ‘concerted activity’” in violation of the statute, even if there was no interaction with an actual member of the terrorist group.

In sponsoring and prepping the Day of Resistance events, SJP provided its chapters with public relations materials, instructing, “We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of the Palestinians on the ground.” As such, the government should carefully monitor SJP’s behavior. Indeed, some lawmakers have already recognized the problem and started calling for action along these lines.

SJP and other student groups can take the side of barbaric baby killers, but as donors and employers taught them this week, free speech has consequences. And accountability does not end there; university and government officials have responsibilities as well.

If and when speech crosses the line into discriminatory harassment, schools must remove their imprimatur from that evil while making sure to protect targeted communities, and they should proactively shut down events that are likely to cause material disruption or infringe the rights of others. At the very least, schools with applicable conduct codes should defund and/or revoke the charters of any organization that openly supports a group whose stated desire is to kill other members of the campus community.

Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Mark Goldfeder: It's Only a War Crime if Israel Is Doing It | Opinion

By Mark Goldfeder

Once again self-proclaimed international law experts are throwing around terms that they do not understand to accuse Israel of atrocities as it responds to a vicious attack from the terrorist group Hamas.

Today, these "experts" are concerned about the war crimes of "forcible transfer" and "deportation" as Israel tries to save innocent Palestinian civilians by warning them to leave Hamas strongholds.

Here is another short primer on international law: Saving civilian lives is not a war crime. Terms matter, and there is a difference between an evacuation and a forcible transfer. Saving innocent people is what any army is supposed to do and literally the opposite of what Hamas has done and continues to do.

But don't take my word for it, let's ask the United Nations what the war crimes "forcible transfer" and "deportation" mean when the entity involved is not Israel (emphasis added):

What are the crimes of deportation and forcible transfer? Forcing persons to leave the area where they reside can be a crime against humanity, a war crime or both. If they occur in the context of a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population, deportation and forcible transfer are crimes against humanity. Deportation and forcible transfer occur when individuals are forced by expulsion or coercion from the place they were lawfully present, and there was no basis under international law for their displacement. When persons are displaced across an international border, it is called deportation. When such displacement occurs within a national boundary, it is called forcible transfer. Forced displacement does not require physical force and can be caused by the threat of force or coercion, duress or psychological oppression. A person is lawfully present in an area if they have a right under domestic or international law to be there, including refugees and stateless persons. International law allows the involuntary removal of persons only where it is strictly for the security of the persons or for imperative military reasons, but only for as long as the removal is necessary.

This is not, in fact, a close call.

Israel is attacking Hamas, not targeting the civilian population.

Israel has an overwhelming imperative military reason to ask civilians to leave (stopping a genocidal terrorist organization) and is doing so for the security of those persons. Not a war crime—quite the opposite. This is what just war looks like.

Actually, Israel is quite literally following the letter of international human rights law.

Per the Geneva Conventions, Article 58(a) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I: the parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible, "without prejudice to Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, endeavor to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives."

Per Article 57, 1(c) "effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit."

To review—Israel is engaging in a lawful, proportionate attack against a genocidal enemy force. The war crimes of forcible transfer require evidence of illicit intent; the opposite is true here. Israel has already evacuated hundreds of thousands of its own citizens to keep them out of harms' way; now Israel is desperately trying to save the lives of Palestinian civilians as well ,even at the expense of telegraphing its own attacks. Meanwhile, Hamas is ordering people to stay in harms' way, as human shields, so they can then complain to an undiscerning media about how many civilians Israel killed.

By any definition, Israel's warnings are an act of morality, if not grace. But once again, when it comes to Israel, somehow the rules are different.

Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Israel is Not a Racist State, in Theory or Practice

By MARK GOLDFEDER & GABRIEL GROISMAN

On Saturday, July 15 Representative Pramilla Jayapal, Chair of the 103-member Progressive Caucus publicly announced that she has been fighting hard “to make clear that Israel is a racist state.” Thankfully, the leaders of the Democratic Party responded with a strong rejection of her remarks. But because she and so many others like to make this and similar fallacious arguments, it is worth responding to and debunking it in a fuller fashion.

The assertion that the State of Israel is itself a racist endeavor is antisemitic on its face, as no one seems to have a problem with the existence of over 50 Muslim nations and over 100 Christian countries. Calling it “racist” also serves to justify and promote the delegitimization and destruction of the lone Jewish state. Of course, it is important to note that there is a difference between calling the entire existence of the State of Israel itself a “racist endeavor” and criticizing any particular Israeli government policies or practices as “racist.” One is flatly antisemitic, while the other is a criticism of Israel like that of any other country. Jayapal’s retraction openly disavowed the first, but she did not back away from the separate claim that Israel is a racist state in practice, which remains the kind of massively pernicious charge that needs to be backed up with evidence, of which she has none. The attempt to impose an American lens of race on a conflict she does not seem to understand is inexcusable in the context of an elected leader publicly maligning an entire country—and a close American ally.

The reason that she cannot present any evidence to support her position is because there is none, and calling Israel a racist state is counterfactual and ridiculous. The term “Palestinians” as it is used today includes Arabs who are Israeli citizens; Arabs residing in the Gaza Strip and the disputed territories; and Arabs who were displaced as a result of the conflicts in 1948 and 1967. Israel treats all of its citizens, including its Arab citizens, equally under the law. Israeli Arabs enjoy positions in the highest levels of every branch of government, including the legislative branch (the Knesset), the executive branch (the Israeli cabinet) and the judicial branch (the Supreme Court). In fact, in some cases, Arab citizens of Israel have more rights than Jewish citizens of Israel, including the fact that Arab citizens of Israel are not required to serve in the military.

The differential treatment of some members of these groups is demonstrably not based on their race; they all share the same ethnic and racial identity. It is, however, based on their legal status as either Israeli citizens, residents of territories under military administration, or non-citizen foreigners.  All countries in the world “discriminate” between their own citizens and non-citizens; if doing so constitutes racism, then all states are guilty of racism. But they aren’t, of course, and neither is Israel. The entire basis of Jayapal’s argument, which elides these important distinctions, is utterly wrong, and the application of a “racial” standard to questions of citizenship in one and only one instance worldwide is the kind of double standard that is dangerously problematic. If in fact you were looking for systemic racism in the area, you might ask how many Jews are living in (or even allowed to visit) Gaza or Ramallah, as compared to the 20 percent of Israeli citizens that are Arab.

Part of the problem seems to be Jayapal’s (and her friends’) complete unfamiliarity with the history of the conflict and the players involved. Forget the fact that the “progressive” caucus refuses to support the only democracy in the Middle East, and the only country in the region with full equality for women, the LGBT community, and freedom for all religions. This entire episode comes in the laughable context of her and several other progressives skipping an address by Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Congress, in an attempt to protest the policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu. None of them seem to be aware that before he was elected to his mostly ceremonial role Herzog served as the left-wing opposition leader against Netanyahu.

Her willful lack of knowledge is also clearly evident in what Jayapal’s “apology” does not say.

First, in her telling of the failures of the two-state solution there is only one party at fault: Israel. There is no mention of or accounting for the dismal leadership of the PA, which has consistently turned down numerous offers for an independent Palestinian state. For the record, Israel has repeatedly, more than 30 times, offered plans for peace and division of the land. Some of those deals, including the Clinton Peace Parameters, were even supported by Jayapal’s own party—along with much of the Arab world. Again, for the Squad’s edification, Israel (legitimately) gained a total of 26,178 square miles of territory in the defensive war of 1967. To date, it has ceded sovereignty over approximately 23,871 square miles or 87% of that territory. At various times in recent history (including deals proposed in 2000, 2008 and 2014), Israel has offered up to 99.3% of the remaining disputed territory in exchange for peace. Each time the Palestinians refused.

Second, while Jayapal’s statement contains vilification of Israel as a whole and its leaders in particular, there is no mention of the PA or its President, Mahmoud Abbas, who have repeatedly confirmed that the PA will use their very last penny if necessary to pay salaries and stipends to incentivize terrorists who kill innocent Americans and Israelis. There’s no mention of the fact that while Israeli schoolchildren are uniformly taught to yearn for peace, Arab schoolchildren in Israel, Gaza and PA controlled cities are taught to glorify war and terrorism, and that under official PA policy they stand to make more money for their families if they grow up to be killers and martyrs rather than doctors or lawyers.

Third, as she made clear in her statement, Jayapal does not understand—and seemingly does not seek to understand—the Israeli point of view on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Contrasting the Jewish people’s historical trauma from pogroms, persecution and the Holocaust with the Palestinians’ feelings of hopelessness about peace, as her statement does, creates a false framework that depicts the debate incorrectly. The suffering of the Jewish people historically has nothing to do with their legitimate claim to the land of Israel, and implying that this generational suffering is all that they bring to their “side” of the “debate”—as opposed to the Palestinians who just want the same rights as their neighbors (which, again, they have)—completely denies the Jewish people’s religious, historic and indigenous ties to the land. The Jewish people’s rightful ownership long predates the United Nations and well precedes the horrors of the Holocaust. No one ever gave Israel to the Jews—certainly not the Palestinians—and no one can ever take her away. Any two-state solution needs to begin with this fundamental understanding that somehow eludes Jayapal: The Jews are in Israel, and always have been, and will continue to be there, by right and not on sufferance.

Jayapal’s non apology concludes by turning to her own background, and she lets us know that as an immigrant woman of color, she should be excused for her own antisemitic racism because obviously she is sensitive when a people’s very existence is called into question. Except that, as a practical matter, and despite her race and gender, she continues to dehumanize and implicitly justify terror against Israelis whom she apparently feels deserve just what they get for being so darn difficult and wanting to exist in their homeland.

At bottom, Israel is not a racist state, and does not implement racist policies. Despite Japayal and her friends’ best efforts, nothing will change these truths. But it is high time that propagandists like her be relegated to the dustbin of political history, rather than voted to lead a caucus of over 100 members of Congress.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Gabriel Groisman is a partner at LSN Law in Miami, FL, a Jewish rights leader and the former Mayor of Bal Harbour, Florida.

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Speaker McCarthy Certainly Got This One Right

By Mark Goldfeder

On Tuesday evening House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) canceled an event that Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) was set to host today at the U.S. Capitol with the purpose of mainstreaming her antisemitic historical revisionist views. Tlaib may yet find another (less prestigious) venue and, of course, she has the right to say whatever she wants, however abhorrent, about Jews and the Jewish State. But the public should hold her accountable for the lies she is now spreading; they have been used to justify the murders of Americans and Israelis.

Tlaib's "Nakbah Day" commemoration was designed to "educate members of Congress and their staff" with a falsified Middle East narrative. But the modern history of Israel is not lost in the shrouds of time, and there are clear contemporaneous records that give the lie to Tlaib's words.

In 1922, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine officially established an area in the Middle East to be a national home for the Jewish People and entrusted it to Great Britain. Jewish people came from around the world to buy and cultivate land to further expand the existing Jewish communities that had remained in Israel as a continuous presence since Biblical times. As Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for the colonies, explained,

"When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine... but the further development of the existing Jewish community... [I]n order that this community should have the best prospect of free development... it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance. That is the reason why it is necessary that the existence of a Jewish National Home in Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection."

Britain was allowed to change the terms in the territory east of the Jordan: it did so, and gave 77 percent of the original area to what is now Jordan. When the United Nations was formed, it proposed a partition plan for the remaining 23 percent: Resolution 181 would have created two states, an independent Israel and an independent Palestine. The Jewish community accepted those terms, and declared the State of Israel. The Arab community refused, and launched a genocidal war that they then lost.

Over time, Palestinians developed the "Nakba" myth, in which the would-be ethnic-cleansing Arab armies (who had failed in their stated mission to kill all the Jews) are reimagined as the helpless victims of a horrible catastrophe (or "nakba," in Arabic). The Nakbah legend—that the Jews came in and violently expelled the majority of Arabs from their homes—fuels much of modern anti-Zionism. And it is also worth noting that the 'Nakbah' commemoration is not even ostensibly about any kind of settlement or post-1967 occupation claims: this is nakedly a demonstration against Israel's very existence.

It is important to correct the record, for two reasons:

First, because truth matters. Primary sources from around the world describe how the vast majority of Arabs who left their homes did so either voluntarily, or under orders from the invading Arab armies—not from the Israelis.

Just read the Jordanian daily Ad Difaa (September 6, 1954), for example: "The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So, we got out, but they did not get in." Or just look at the UN Security Council Official Records (Third Year N. 62, April 23, 1948, p. 14), in which Jamal Bey Husseini, representative of the Arab Higher Committee, explained that "The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce . . . they rather preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did."

Oddly enough, and almost as if to reinforce what the real disaster was, the official 'Nakbah Day' is May 15—the anniversary of the day on which the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq all invaded Israel in their doomed attempt to destroy it.

The second reason to correct the record is because this lie in particular has deadly consequences for both Americans and Israelis.

In March 1976, in a column for Falastin a-Thaura (the PLO's weekly), Mahmoud Abbas noted that "The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live."

Then 'Nakbah Day' was invented by Yasser Arafat in 1998, and by 2011 Abbas' memory had faded in direct proportion to its rising popularity. Abbas, now president of the Palestinian Authority, rewrote history in a New York Times op-ed claiming that "Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened." But even that was not enough.

Just last year, in 2022, Abbas used the annual commemoration of the nakba—the same events Tlaib was to be marking at the Capitol—as an excuse to reaffirm his government's ongoing commitment to "pay for slay," the Palestinian Authority policy under which terrorists who kill Israeli or American citizens are celebrated as heroes and financially rewarded.

Of course, it was a disaster for the Arabs to reject the U.N.'s Partition Plan; ignore the Jewish people's legitimate and indigenous claims; and resort to deadly violence. But that does not mean there cannot be hope for a better future. The continuing disaster is the 'leadership' of people like Abbas and Tlaib who engage in the same delegitimization and denial that led to the mistakes of 1948, and think that this time, somehow, their results might be different. Hopefully that will change, but in the meantime kudos to the speaker for not letting Tlaib share her ahistorical, antisemitic views under the false imprimatur and borrowed respectability of a congressional event.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

National Day Of Hate should remind us of the limits of free speech

By Mark Goldfeder & GABRIEL GROISMAN

Law enforcement officials nationwide issued warnings to the Jewish community over the weekend after neo-Nazi groups designated Saturday a national “Day of Hate,” with organizers calling for their followers to “shock the masses.”

Sadly, this was not surprising given recent events.

Our country has experienced an alarming increase in antisemitism recently, including attacks that are reminiscent of another time and place. Jewish Americans have faced physical assaults, verbal onslaughts, and profanity-laced and ominous flyers dropped off at the doorsteps of Jewish neighborhoods around the country. A viral video this past week, for example, showed a group of bigots in Orlando, Florida, waiting outside a Jewish center to instigate and harass the members. One of the instigators shoved a megaphone in the face of a rabbi and screamed things such as: “kike,” “Heil Hitler,” “Do you think you should be put in ovens,” and “You filthy Jew.”

This incident was not isolated, and the perpetrators are not only white supremacists. By all accounts, antisemitic discrimination and hate crimes are at an all-time high in our country and are being perpetrated by multiple groups with different agendas. The time has come for a collective response.

Many might be concerned that cracking down on hateful conduct could violate Americans’ right to free speech. It is critical, however, for all elected and law enforcement officials, as well as members of the public, to better understand the outer bounds of freedom of speech under the law. The bottom line is that the offended party is not without redress in many of these cases.

To be sure, freedom of speech , even offensive and hateful speech, should be protected. But there are limits to what constitutes speech, and there are rules for when it crosses over into actionable conduct. A number of the individuals involved in organizing these antisemitic activities, for example, are convicted felons with histories of bigoted violence, and in light of their groups’ increasing hostilities and the very real threat they continue to pose, authorities must be vigilant in safeguarding potential targets.

The First Amendment does not protect any unlawful conduct, which includes trespassing, vandalism, harassment, assault, and the destruction of property. The First Amendment also does not protect someone who is making true threats, which the Supreme Court in Virginia v. Black (2003) defined as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” Nor does it protect intimidation, which is “a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”

There is no First Amendment protection for speech that involves incitement, which the court in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) explained includes speech that “is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Nor does the First Amendment protect speech that aims not to inform or persuade, but to disrupt lawful endeavors — activities such as participating in a private synagogue’s religious service. Obscenity is not protected under the First Amendment either, and violations of federal obscenity laws, which can include visual depictions, spoken words, or written text (like some of the filth on the distributed flyers), are criminal offenses.

Finally, the protections that the First Amendment puts in place are meant to protect citizens from the government abridging their speech — not to limit the rights of other private individuals. Private businesses and landowners can restrict certain speech, conduct, and demonstrations, in most cases, without triggering any constitutional issues.

It is important to be clear on these rules because the inflammatory, discriminatory antisemitic rhetoric that hate groups spread often leads directly to antisemitic violence. For example, just two weeks ago, one follower who had shared this particular network’s antisemitic propaganda was arrested on charges of shooting two Jewish men as they were leaving synagogues in Los Angeles.

The danger of incitement is real, and authorities must act quickly and decisively to immediately curb any behavior that crosses from free speech into unlawful conduct. Failing to do so will have disastrous results, not only for the Jewish community, but also for all Americans. As the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks once explained, “Antisemitism is the world’s most reliable early warning sign of a major threat to freedom. ... It matters to all of us. Which is why we must fight it together.”

Our leaders must make use of all the tools they have at their disposal, and this means understanding that the First Amendment is not a free pass to threaten, harass, intimidate, or otherwise violate the rights of others.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

A Blood Libel on Netflix

By Mark Goldfeder

On Thursday, December 1, Netflix will start streaming a blood libel.

The Jordanian film Farha focuses on the experiences of a young girl during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The protagonist, Farha, spends much of the movie watching as fictionalized, heartless Israeli soldiers brutalize Palestinian families, viciously killing men, women and children in cold blood. There is of course no documentation (Israeli, British, or Arab,) of any of the events in the film because they never actually happened; at the very least the film admits that it is ‘dramatized’ and does not pretend to be factual. But that does not mean it will not have an outsized impact on anti-Jewish hate and violence. Many people will watch the movie; few will stop to wonder if perhaps the whole thing was made up.  

And it is not just the demonizing, dehumanizing, and deceitful depictions of the ‘Jewish soldiers’ that are problematic. The movie is meant to depict the events of the ‘nakba’- a fanciful retelling of the 1948 war in which the would-be genocidal Arab armies failed to destroy a newborn Jewish state (and kill all its inhabitants in the process), along with those who tried to help them do it are romantically recast as the helpless victims of a horrible catastrophe. The foundational myth of forced displacement is at the root of much of modern anti-Zionism, and it is demonstrably false. There are primary sources- from the Arab side- attesting to the fact that the vast majority of Arabs who left their homes did so voluntarily, or under orders from the invading, not the Israeli, armed forces. Facts do matter, even when the people you are lying about are Jewish, and the entire story at the heart of this film is a lie.

Here are some things that the movie will not tell you: From the moment the two-state solution was announced, the Jewish community consistently called for peace and cooperation with its Arab neighbors. Instead, five Arab armies immediately launched a war of extermination against them- and urged the Palestinian Arabs to help their cause by getting out of their way. Many of them did just that, confident that the combined power of the Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Egyptian armies would make quick work of the Jews and then they would come home.

The contemporary accounts of these orders to leave come from a variety of Arab sources. For example, the Jordanian newspaper Filastin reported that “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.”  A refugee quoted in another Jordanian newspaper, Ad Difaa, explained: “The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in.” In the words of Haled al Azm, the Prime Minister of Syria during the war, “Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.”

The nakba myth removes all these facts- along with the Arab rejection of the UN Partition Plan; the additional wars designed to push the Jews into the sea; and the uncomfortable truth that an approximately equal number of Jews in Arab nations were forcefully expelled from their homes and absorbed into Israel. In its place, it presents a fabricated fairy tale that continues to serve as an open justification for killing Jews. The statements over time of Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, are a case study in the development of nakba mythology and the dangers it presents. 

In 1976, when he was the PLO spokesman, Abbas told Falastin a-Thaura (the PLO’s official weekly publication) that “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.” (emphasis added). By 2011, however, his historical memory had faded in direct proportion to the rising popularity of the nakba story, so he now believed “Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened.” This year, he used the commemoration of the ‘nakbah’ as an excuse to reaffirm and justify his government’s ongoing commitment to ‘pay for slay’- the Palestinian Authority policy under which terrorists who kill Israeli or American citizens are rewarded monetarily.

This is not a matter of perspective or worldview. A movie that malevolently depicts Israeli forces murdering defenseless Arab children at the founding of the State in order to feed the nakba mythology is nothing short of a modern blood libel. The nakba itself is a prime example of how dangerous lies, spun over time, eventually give license for rhetoric to turn into deadly violence.

In a world of rising antisemitism, demonstrably tied to anti-Zionism, it is dangerous and disgusting for Netflix to feed false and anti-Jewish information to the masses by giving a film like this a platform.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

No More Excuses—Time for Berkeley to Act

By Mark Goldfeder

Ever since some student groups at Berkeley Law School signed a pledge to exclude anyone that supports the existence of a Jewish state, there has been a very public debate about the legality of these so-called “Jew-Free” zones. In response to widespread criticism, the groups, led by Students for Justice in Palestine, issued a statement claiming that the bylaw was not antisemitic because it “does not attack Jewish people or faith.” 

The dean of the law school chose to ignore what the statement actually said, accepting this fairly thin excuse and writing that: “[A]t this stage, all some student groups have done is express their strong disagreement with Israel’s policies.” 

From a legal perspective, the dean (and the school) gave undo credence to the mischaracterization of the decision to exclude all Zionists as based on political viewpoint discrimination as opposed to anti-Jewish sentiment. Too bad the antisemites’ own attorney couldn’t help herself from saying more, thereby blowing that flimsy excuse completely out of the water.

Liz Jackson, a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, which represents SJP, recently clarified the position of the groups she represents, explaining that she knows “Some students say that their Jewish identity is so deeply identified with Zionism that this effectively discriminates against them, but that’s their subjective view and choice about how they understand their own Jewish identity.”

Here is the problem with that statement: Jewish people, and only Jewish people, get to define what is and is not part of their Jewish identity—not antisemitic groups like Palestine Legal or SJP. And for the vast majority of Jewish people across time and space, Zionism is and always has been an integral part of their Jewish, often their religious, identities. That does, in fact, transform that particular kind of Zionism into a category protected by state and federal civil rights law, whether SJP likes it or not. 

Discriminating against a Jewish person or group just because they are Zionist is illegal because Zionism is demonstrably not just a political movement. For thousands of years, Jews across the world have prayed to God at least three times a day (and often more) for a safe return to Zion. The Pentateuch itself references this ancient Jewish hope while the Prophets and Writings repeatedly record this ambition. More than half of the biblical commandments are specifically tied to the land of Israel, and doctrinally, belief in and hope for the return to Zion is part of the 13 Principles of Jewish Faith. 

Jews were Zionists before there were Muslims, and even before there were Christians. In multiple places throughout the New Testament, the yearning for redemption is expressed in terms of the by-then-already-classic formulation of Jewish Zionism (see e.g., Matthew 21:5 and John 12:15), while the Quran itself is quite clear about the long history of Jews in the Holy Land—and especially in Jerusalem. (See, for example, Surah Bani Isra’il, verses 1-7). While it is true that the Jews were twice expelled from their ancient kingdom of Israel, it is also true that they never fully left: Despite the fairly recent antisemitic lie casting Jews as colonialist outsiders, since biblical times there has always been an indigenous Jewish community living in the eternal Jewish homeland. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, Jews from around the world came to buy and cultivate land to further expand those existing Jewish communities that had remained in Israel as a continuous presence throughout all of the exiles.

Today, support for Zionism can take multiple forms, and mere political Zionism may not be protected, like any other political belief. Not all Zionists are Jews, and not all Jews are Zionists. But for those Jews for whom Zionism is a part of their Jewish ethnic heritage and identity, it absolutely is protected and they cannot be excluded on the basis of holding that belief. Anti-Zionism that allows for discrimination against Jewish people because of their affiliation with, affinity for, or support of the biblical/prophetic/historical/ethnic/cultural/Jewish ideal of Zionism is antisemitism. So is telling Jews what they can and can’t believe.

To be clear, it is the openly stated, on the record view of Palestine Legal and of SJP that they get to define what “Jewish identity” can include for Jewish people. And, if they feel that one or another Jewish belief should not be part of a Jewish person’s identity, they may freely discriminate against people for holding that belief, and that cannot be considered antisemitism. Should Palestine Legal, for example, decide tomorrow that keeping Shabbat or kosher observance is not really part of Jewish belief, just some Jews’ “subjective view and choice about how they understand their own Jewish identity,” then they can and should be free to discriminate against Jewish people who do observe Shabbat or keep kosher. Likewise, should they decide that taking mass is just something that some Catholics subjectively like to do but is not really part of their religion, they can freely discriminate against those Catholics who do practice the ritual.   

Nor was this a one-time accidental admission. When Jewish student leaders, the people who are ostensibly being excluded for their views, clarified that “When we say ‘Zionism,’ we mean the Jewish right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, which is Israel … This does not say anything about the self-determination of Palestinians,” Jackson doubled-down and “expressed disagreement with that definition of Zionism.” 

Here is the bottom line: Anti-Zionists do not get to define a Jewish person’s Zionism for them, cast it as merely political, and then discriminate against them for it. 

Berkeley made clear that if this was about Jewish identity, then they would step in. Palestine Legal just said the quiet part out loud: It was always about Jewish identity, and they were always aware of it. They just don’t like that part of Judaism. Consequently, they feel they should have the right to tell the vast majority of Jews that they are wrong about their own Jewish identity, and that they better purge themselves of those beliefs or they will be discriminated against.  

There goes that “political viewpoint” excuse. Your move Berkeley.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Antisemitism Finds a Home With the A.B.I.L.A

By Mark Goldfeder

The prominent American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA) has apparently been hijacked by the advocates of modern antisemitism. Sadly, illustrious New York law firms, the New York Bar Association, and Fordham Law School are among their unwitting enablers.

From October 20 to October 22, 2022 the ILA’s American Branch will hold its annual meeting in New York City. This year, the program includes a panel dedicated to the demonstrable lie that the Jewish state is racist, guilty of the crime against humanity of apartheid, and therefore deserving of criminal prosecution and economic ruin.

For the past month, the online program described the annual meeting on “Racism and the Crime of Apartheid in International Law” this way: “Today, in contexts across the world, from Myanmar’s abuses of Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State, to the Israeli authorities’ systematic oppression of Palestinians, to the Chinese government’s actions in Xinxiang against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, human rights organizations, UN bodies, experts, and scholars have concluded that the crime of apartheid is being committed with impunity.” In just one paragraph, the authors did their very best to casually lump Israel in with some of the worst human rights abusers in the world.

According to the official program, the Opening Plenary and Reception is taking place at the New York City Bar Association. The Centennial Gala is hosted by the law firm of White & Case LLP, the Opening Reception by Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, and the panel itself by Fordham Law School. The panel’s list of participants is a who’s who of Israel-bashing advocates and nobody from the other side. This stands in marked contrast to the promise of the ILA to exemplify a “diverse and inclusive community of individuals working or interested in international law,” the promise of legal practitioners to hear and evaluate all sides fairly, and the promise of the legal academy to ensure students and faculty are educated, not brainwashed.

Brainwashed they will be, however. The panel includes a UN official, E. Tendayi Achiume who charges Israel with vaguely defined international crimes at every chance she gets—sometimes working with an Israeli-designated terrorist organization to do so. Her UN anti-racism mission has a well-documented blind spot when it comes to advocating for racial and ethnic justice for Jews, and in 2021 Achiume herself signed a wildly antisemitic letter expressing outrage that UCLA dared to condemn antisemitic attacks in the United States (during a massive uptick of such incidents) without also condemning “Jewish supremacists” in Israel.

The panel also includes an academic, Victor Kattan, who claims that only the non-existent State of Palestine has sovereign title over Jerusalem, and has encouraged the Palestinians to file claims against the United States at the International Criminal Court for daring to move the U.S. Embassy to Israel’s capital city. But the highlight is probably Omar Shakir, an NGO activist and extremistwho has publicly supported and defended murderous terrorists and antisemites. For years he advocated and worked for the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and then, when Israel revoked his work visa for engaging in boycott activities, lied and claimed that he had not done so. Since then, he has worked hard to mainstream the thoroughly debunked Human Rights Watch report that denied Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state, dismissed its security concerns, and accused Israel of apartheid.

Lest you be concerned that a neutral moderator might ask these folks some hard-hitting questions for the benefit of those watching who may not know better, rest assured that the rabid anti-Israel spell will not be broken. The moderator is Mai el Sadany, a human rights attorney who, among other things, has demanded that the NY Bar Association rescind an invitation to Dani Dayan, the former Consul General of Israel in New York, falsely accusing him of racism, apartheid and other criminal activity. She has also accused the United States of collaborating with Israel to cover up human rights violations.

Lest you be concerned that a neutral moderator might ask these folks some hard-hitting questions for the benefit of those watching who may not know better, rest assured that the rabid anti-Israel spell will not be broken.

For the record, because facts matter, apartheid involves an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups committed with the intention of maintaining that regime. Israeli Arabs enjoy full equal rights, and hold positions in the highest levels of every branch of government. Israel does distinguish between citizens and non-citizens, as does every country, but that has nothing to do with race, which is why when Amnesty International made the same claim of apartheid a few months back, they had to literally invent a new definition that was not based on race in order to play a game of antisemitic double standard “gotcha” with the Jewish state.

It is dangerous when antisemites use the imprimatur and gravitas of once-respectable institutions to mainstream hate and lies. This is particularly so in a dangerous environment of rising antisemitic hated and the inextricable bond between accusing Israel of apartheid and antisemitism. We let these claims go unchallenged at our peril because study after study has shown that this kind of inflammatory, discriminatory, antisemitic, anti-Zionist rhetoric is actually dangerous, and leads directly to the kinds of antisemitic attacks against innocent Jewish people and institutions that we are seeing around the world.

Late last week, the law firms in question and Fordham Law School began to receive inquiries about why they would host and celebrate such a gathering. In response, the ABILA did two things: First, the program description in the online brochure was reworded so it did not explicitly accuse Israel of international crimes. Second, they added an additional speaker, ostensibly to bring balance to the panel. The speaker they added, however, Mia Swart, is an Al Jazeera reporter who has done fawning interviews with Omar Shakir “calling out Israeli apartheid,” and just last week tweeted in support of another event in which the leader of an Israeli-designated terror organization gave a talk on “Apartheid and Israel’s Assault on Palestinian Civil Society.” So much for offering a different perspective.

These changes were clearly made so that the hosts could have plausible deniability. They don’t have it. They know exactly what is going on—at their expense, and at the expense of all the attendees who deserve better.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Iowa Passes First State Antisemitism Bill

By Mark Goldfeder

On Wednesday, Iowa became the first state in the nation to pass a bill adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism for use when assessing the motivation behind illegal discriminatory conduct.

The bill, which is based on a model I drafted, was first introduced in Iowa over two years ago by the Israeli American Council, but it stalled during the Covid-19 shutdowns. Similar bills are currently pending in Georgia, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Arizona, and a number of other states are also considering such legislation. South Carolina and Florida have already adopted IHRA for similar use in their education systems, and a total of 19 states have endorsed the definition in some fashion.

Iowa deserves a lot of credit for being the first to get the job done, especially because there has been so much misinformation spread about the subject. As more and more states move to pass these laws with wide bipartisan support, it is important for the public to be crystal clear about what activities they do and don’t affect.

None of the bills in question in any way limit or chill any person or organization’s freedom of speech or expression. None of the bills create any new protected class, or enhance any punishment, or regulate or restrict academic freedom. Anyone can say whatever they want, however abhorrent, about Jews and about the Jewish state. Antisemitic speech is constitutionally protected—just like racist and sexist speech—and none of the bills attempt to change that. Of course, it is true that the IHRA definition should not (and could not legally) be used as a speech code of any sort, but that is explicitly not what these bills do. Those who continue to claim otherwise are either purposely misleading the public or inexcusably ill-informed.

Practically speaking, these so-called ‘”antisemitism bills” are, in fact, quite narrow. All they do is ensure that when analyzing the intent behind illegal discriminatory actions that target Jewish people, when there is an allegation that the action was motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, authorities consider (as rebuttable evidence) the world’s most well-accepted definition of antisemitism. For the record, that definition has already been officially adopted by over 865 separate governments, NGOs and other key institutions—including several departments of our own federal government.

Some people are genuinely curious about why these bills are necessary and important—after all, illegal discrimination is by definition already unlawful.

The bills are necessary as it relates to antisemitism because Jewish identity is so potentially multifaceted, (incorporating, as it does, aspects of religion, race, culture, national origin and ethnicity,) that without a standard definition for authorities to use as a reference it is easy for antisemites to hide behind this ambiguity by committing antisemitic acts, then claiming it was not antisemitism because it was not based on this or that particular characteristic. To that end these bills do not revise any existing anti-discrimination policies; they simply clarify a term and ensure that the rules will not be applied arbitrarily.

These bills are important as it relates to antisemitism because while Jews make up only 2% of the U.S. population, they account for 60% of all hate crimes directed at a specific religious group, and 13% of hate crimes overall. Unfortunately, those numbers are rising, and yet despite the demonstrable prevalence of antisemitic incidents, nearly half of all Americans say they have either never even heard the word antisemitism, or at the very least do not know what it means. You cannot fight a problem if you cannot recognize and define it.

Some have asked why Jews deserve their own group clarification. To be clear, these bills are not about establishing Jewish exceptionalism; they are just about ensuring equality. Jews need this additional clarification because history has shown that throughout the generations no other hatred has been this consistently amorphous and shifting. But notwithstanding the above, the importance of clarity in such definitions is not entirely unique to antisemitism. To the extent that any other group does feel that it is being routinely and systemically discriminated against, and that there is a need for a uniform consensus definition to clarify what is and is not bias-motivated illegal conduct, that group’s concerns should likewise be legislatively addressed.

Valid monitoring, informed analysis, and effective policy-making all require uniform definitions. Our states have a responsibility to protect their citizens from acts of hate and bigotry motivated by discriminatory animus—including antisemitism—and they must be given the tools to do so. Until now the absence of a legal definition of antisemitism has been an Achilles’ heel for those who expect their government to take a stronger stand against antisemitism, but this week, Iowans stood up to say that hate has no place in their state. God willing many other states will follow their lead.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Ga. Legislature should act on new antisemitism bill

By Mark Goldfeder

On Monday, State Rep. Mike Wilensky, D-Dunwoody, and State Rep. John Carson, R-Marietta, filed a bill that will fill a gap in Georgia’s existing antidiscrimination laws by providing officials with a standard definition of antisemitism -- the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition -- to be considered when assessing facially discriminatory conduct.

Wilensky’s bill comes as antisemitism is surging around the country, and the Peach State has not been immune.  Over the last five years Georgia has had 188 reported incidents of antisemitism, and in 2018 it had the highest number of incidents in the Southeast. Officials have a responsibility to protect their citizens from acts of hate and bigotry, and must be given the proper tools to do so.

Valid monitoring, informed analysis and effective policymaking all require uniform definitions. To that end, the IHRA definition is already used by the U.S. federal government, the 31 member countries of IHRA, the European Union, Serbia, Bahrain, and Albania, among others. It has been endorsed by a growing number of world leaders, including UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The Georgia bill does not revise any anti-discrimination policy; it just clarifies a term with an accepted definition to ensure that the laws will be administered properly.

There are two reasons why this bill is important, and why the IHRA definition is appropriate for a state like Georgia to use when considering the motivation behind discriminatory acts. (Full disclosure --- the bill is heavily based on a model law that I drafted). The first reason relates to the practical difficulty of defining antisemitism, and the second to the legal standard of objectivity required whenever assessing intent.

The practical problem in defining antisemitism is that it is a mutating virus; Jews are often condemned for being whatever a society, or a particular part of society, dislikes at the moment. Depending on which antisemite you ask, Jews can be simultaneously too liberal and too conservative, too rich and a drain on the society. They are at once too strong and too weak, too influential and too parasitical.

A definition of antisemitism that can encompass all of these possibilities and more needs to be able to cut through the timely rationales given for this timeless hatred. In order to actually protect people, we need a definition that focuses not on the reasons why people hate but rather on the actions taken by those expressing hatred; a conduct-based definition. The definition that best serves this goal is the IHRA definition, precisely because the examples it gives focus on the modern manifestations of antisemitism, meaning what antisemites do, as opposed to why they do it.

Critics have challenged IHRA’s use in policymaking on two grounds. First, they claim that it conflates political speech against Israel with antisemitism. That part is simply not true; there is a safe harbor provision in IHRA itself which says that “criticism for Israel similar to that leveled against any other country” is not antisemitism, as well as an express caveat that all of the examples given, including the ones about Israel, “could, taking into account the overall context,” be antisemitic. The reason the specific examples are provided (and are important) is explicitly not because all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but because there are those who falsely claim that no criticism of Israel can ever cross the line, and use their anti-Zionism as a thinly-veiled excuse for antisemitic action. For example, on campuses across the country, and even in Georgia, Jewish students routinely hear antisemitic comments, and when they complain are told that it’s fine because it was “merely anti-Zionism.” IHRA will help to objectively clarify that line, as it already does for Title VI complaints.

The second objection to using the IHRA definition in a policy context is that in the wrong hands, it could theoretically be used to stifle speech. That argument is a red herring. Of course, free speech is a core aspect of democracy; that is why such bills cannot and do not take the form of a speech code. But discriminatory harassment and criminal conduct are not just speech, even if words are sometimes used. Unlike speech, such conduct is absolutely subject to government regulation. Well-established Supreme Court precedent requires behavior to be “objectively offensive” to fall under the category of discriminatory harassment. To meet this “objectively offensive” standard, the definition used in the discriminatory antisemitism motivational analysis must be objectively well-accepted. The IHRA definition is once again the obvious choice.

The new Georgia bill already has bipartisan support, and in theory it should be a no-brainer for every legislator to sign on. But it was still an act of bravery for Wilensky, the only Jewish representative in the entire state, to shoulder the burden of ushering it through the Gold Dome when no one else had. For their courage in actually taking a stand and trying to make the world better, Wilensky and Carson deserve all of our thanks – and of course our political support.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

The Messenger Matters

By Mark Goldfeder

Last Wednesday, the House passed the Combating International Islamophobia Act, which would create an office within the State Department to monitor and report on violence, harassment, and abuse against Muslim people, schools, and religious centers.

A number of Republican lawmakers opposed the bill, worried that it might distract from, or even hinder, the fight against antisemitism. In theory, this should not be an issue. Islamophobia is dangerous and intolerable, religious freedom is a fundamental value, and we can and should monitor the spread of both diseases. As Rep. Scott Perry noted during the floor debate, we all agree that no one should be persecuted for his or her faith. But Republicans are not wrong to worry about specific ways that this new position might be abused given the sponsor of the bill, and if Democrats are surprised by this reaction, they have only themselves to blame.

The act was drafted by Rep. Ilhan Omar, a hatemonger who works to mainstream antisemitism. To date, she has avoided any real censure from the leaders of her party, who seem content to let her get away with it. As it relates to this bill, Omar has a personal history of making vile antisemitic comments and then victim-blaming her Jewish critics with false accusations of Islamophobia. This is true even when those critics are her own Democratic colleagues.

Perry was lambasted for claiming that Omar associates herself with terrorist organizations. He was not entirely wrong though, and context definitely matters. Omar is closely associated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the organization Perry referenced. She has keynoted its fundraisers and just this year was honored as its “American Muslim Public Servant of 2021.” CAIR has a long and problematic history of affiliation with Hamas, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization, as well as Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR was designated a terror organization in its own right by the United Arab Emirates, and as Perry pointed out in his comments, it was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist financing case in U.S. history.

Zahra Billoo, a senior executive at CAIR, recently gave a public address in which she smeared Jewish Zionist organizations and synagogues as “enemies” that are part of a “conspiracy” behind Islamophobia. She specifically called out organizations that want to have a good relationship with the Muslim community, rallying hard against the idea of cooperation and interfaith understanding. She also, quite insanely, blamed everything from issues at the border to police brutality on Jews and the Jewish state. CAIR pulled a page out of its honoree Omar’s playbook by predictably refusing to apologize, calling the outraged response to Billoo’s antisemitic comments a “smear campaign.” A few years earlier, when Billoo was voted off the board of the Women’s March for antisemitic tweets, she likewise responded by labeling anyone who opposed her “Islamophobic.”

In 2019, after Omar sparked outrage by first claiming that her colleagues who support Israel only do so for money, then accusing them of dual loyalty, two classic antisemitic tropes, Billoo breathlessly praised her friend for "broadening the conversation" about ways that people can criticize the Jewish state. Billoo and Omar’s CAIR relationship goes back several years, and just last month, they once again shared a stage at a CAIR event .

To be clear, Islamophobia is always wrong, no matter who it is directed against. But it is not, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has described it, an attack on Omar’s faith for a member of Congress to point out that she is associated with CAIR — the same way Omar insisted it was not antisemitic when she called a Jewish member of the Trump Organization a “white nationalist.” More importantly, it is not irrelevant to a debate about monitoring Islamophobia, when both Omar and CAIR, an enthusiastic endorser of the bill, have been known to weaponize false charges of Islamophobia as a sword and a shield against their “enemies” — and specifically to further antisemitic hate. Perry’s comments were made after Democrats called him “Islamophobic” for offering amendments that would prevent U.S. tax dollars from going to organizations with ties to terrorism. In that context, and given the author of the bill, his concerns are not unfounded.

Monitoring Islamophobia is important, but Republicans are right to be wary of Omar’s involvement and worried about any influence she might have on how the “monitoring” gets done. No one wants to hear a lecture about the evils of racism from an unrepentant racist. In her speech in support of the bill, Omar derided “cynics who would rather see us divided” instead of “standing united against all forms of bigotry.” If only she and her friends at CAIR really meant those things, perhaps this bill might have bipartisan support as it moves to the Senate.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Stop saving UNRWA from itself

By Mark Goldfeder

On Tuesday the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN group which is (theoretically) responsible for handling the welfare of Palestinian refugees, announced that the organization is facing a financial crisis and is “on the brink of collapse.” The statement came on the heels of an international fundraising conference that failed to come anywhere close to its goal of covering UNRWA’s annual shortfall, and a day after Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini appeared before the agency’s Advisory Commission expressing shock and indignation at the fact that he had to “beg” for money to meet his bloated budget.

Lazzarini should not be so surprised that the world is reluctant to continue bailing out his ever-sinking ship. It is high time that countries stop using periodic financial interventions to gloss over the very valid reasons why the organization is failing in the first place. For the sake of the Palestinian people that it was originally intended to serve, UNRWA deserves to be put out of its misery.

The original idea behind UNRWA was sound. It was founded in 1949 for “the alleviation of the conditions of starvation and distress among the Palestine refugees” from the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War. From the beginning, the agency defined Palestinian refugees as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period of June 1, 1946 to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” But in 1965, UNRWA unilaterally changed the eligibility requirements to include third-generation descendants. It did so again in 1982, this time redefining “refugees” to include all descendants of Palestine refugee males, regardless of whether they had been granted citizenship elsewhere.

UNRWA’s current definition is utterly inconsistent with how all other refugees are classified, including by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency responsible for every other (non-Palestinian) refugee on the planet. For example, under Article I(c)(3) of the UN Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, a person is no longer a refugee if he or she has “acquired a new nationality.” UNRWA’s definition, which is not anchored in treaty but was invented by the organization itself, contains no similar provision. According to one expert, 99% of UNRWA’s 5.7 million “refugees” are not actually refugees at all under the standard definition of that term, while others put that number even higher.

And the differences in agencies are not just definitional. Since its inception, UNHCR has managed to resettle tens of millions of people globally, while UNRWA has resettled – no one. In fact, (using their own numbers) the problem of Palestinian refugees has grown exponentially worse on UNRWA’s watch, despite the fact that they spend roughly four times the amount per refugee that UNHCR does, with over 30,000 personnel (nearly double UNHCR) and a $1.4 billion budget that is almost four times UNHCR’s. Of course those numbers are less surprising when you consider the serious abuses of power, including sexual misconduct, nepotism, bullying and retaliation, that its leadership have been accused of.

UNRWA claims to advocate for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but in practice the agency has overlooked terrorist group activity in some of its camps, allowed its schools to be used as human shields for Hamas military tunnels, allowed members of Hamas and other terrorist groups to hold UNRWA staff positions, falsely presented images that stir up hatred against Israel and continues to teach children to demonize and delegitimize Israel using violent propaganda. In short, UNRWA spends more to do less, while perpetuating a problem it was meant to resolve and undermining the peace process itself. That is why some countries, like Germany and the UK, have cut their funding in the first place.

The UN is often, and deservedly, criticized for singling out the State of Israel. But if the nations of the world want to actually help solve the Middle East conflict, they need to stop singling out the Palestinians as well.

Perhaps the UN should support the resettlement of Palestinian refugees – but they should do so only within a framework that would: a) not falsely blame the situation entirely on Israel, and b) involve even trying to accomplish the goal of resettling actual refugees from the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1948, using the internationally recognized definition of refugees that applies in every other instance. Doing so is far from impossible. As an example of how this might realistically look, take the 2000 Clinton Peace Parameters in which Israel agreed to allow 100,000 refugees to return – more than three times the estimated number of actual refugees under the definition, but still a reasonable amount. All other “refugees” were to be resettled in their present places of residence, the future Palestinian state, or in third-party countries, with Israel contributing $30b. to fund their resettlement.

In the meantime, it’s not surprising that it’s becoming more difficult to raise money for a corrupt agency whose culture the Palestinians themselves consider “highly problematic” and full of “entitlement and abuse.” A policy of support without accountability for an organization that has long done nothing but disservice to the very population it was meant to protect helps exactly the same amount of people that UNRWA itself does – no one.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Solidarity with the Palestinian People Includes Honesty

By Mark Goldfeder

On November 29, the United Nations celebrates its International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Established in 1977, it commemorates the anniversary of the General Assembly passing Resolution 181, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which called for the area to be divided into two independent States: one Arab and one Jewish.

In his official message, Secretary General Antonio Guterres noted that the situation in Palestine “remains a challenge to international peace and security,” and called for the international community to “reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the Palestinian people in their quest to achieve their inalienable rights.” He also referred to the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” and called for a two-state solution “based on the 1967 lines.”

It is incredibly odd but unfortunately telling that neither his nor any of the other UN statements commemorating the day even mentioned the very relevant fact that on Nov. 29, 1947, the Arab world rejected the UN’s Partition Plan.

Rather than declare a peaceful Palestinian State, the Arabs chose to instead declare a genocidal war—which they then lost. The rejection of the Partition Plan (and the ensuing decision to attack) is one of the main reasons why the Palestinian question remains unresolved.

Real solidarity with the Palestinian cause would include being honest about the full history of Nov. 29, and acknowledging the real-world consequences of decisions made that still affect the Middle East today. At the time, the UN blamed the Arabs for the violence and aggression that was clearly meant to undermine the Resolution and forcefully take land. Two of the five armies that invaded Israel, Jordan (in the West Bank) and Egypt (in Gaza), illegally occupied territory that they had taken through aggressive action expressly forbidden under international law. In 1967, Israel regained those territories in a defensive war under Article 51 of the UN charter. Ironically, to give meaning to the “1967 lines,” as the Secretary’s statement does, is to retroactively ratify aggression against the UN’s mandate and support illegal occupation.

The United Nations fails the Palestinian people every time it emptily reaffirms its commitment to their national aspirations while ignoring the missteps their leaders have taken on the path to its achievement. Today should be a time to take serious stock and recognize what is and is not possible. It is not possible to turn back the clock to November 29, 1947, and to completely erase the bloody effects of some very bad decisions. But it is still possible to fulfill the spirit of the UN Partition Plan—two nations, Israel and Palestine, living peacefully side by side.

To that end, Israel has repeatedly offered plans for division of the land, some of which were even supported by much of the Arab world. Israel has already given back over 87 percent of the territory it regained in 1967, and at various times in recent history has offered up to 99.3 percent of the remaining disputed territory, plus tens of billions of dollars, all in exchange for peace. Some of the Israeli plans even called for the division of Jerusalem. Each time, however the Palestinians refused, for the same reasons they rejected the Partition Plan—they do not recognize Israel’s legitimate and historical claims to these same areas, and they are thus unwilling to share.

Part of that unwillingness relates to a fundamental misunderstanding that many people have about Israel, the Mandate, and the events of November 29. To be clear Israel’s legitimacy is not rooted in the beneficence of others. The Jewish people’s rightful claims predate the League of Nations, and precede the horrors of the Holocaust. In the early 20th century Jewish people came from around the world to buy and cultivate land in order to further expand the existing Jewish communities that had remained in Israel as a continuous presence since Biblical times and throughout all their exiles. As Winston Churchill, then secretary of state for the colonies, explained, “When it is asked what is meant by the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be answered that it is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine … but the further development of the existing Jewish community … [I]n order that this community should have the best prospect of free development … it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.”

This year, November 29 also happens to fall on the first day of Hanukkah, when Jewish people around the world commemorate the Maccabean victory over the Seleucid Empire in 164 BCE and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem. Later, when Antioch VII demanded the return of land the Maccabees had won back in their defensive conquest, Simon, the last remaining brother of Judah Maccabee, responded: “We have not taken strange lands, nor are we ruling over foreign territory. We have returned to our ancestral inheritance.” (1 Maccabees 15).

As King Solomon, the Jewish king who ruled that same territory roughly 700 years before the Hannukah story, famously said, there is nothing new under the sun. While Jewish leaders celebrated Nov. 29, 1947 as the day that the world again recognized those claims, no one gave Israel to the Jews, and therefore no one has the right to ever take her away.

The real lesson of November 29th is that the Arab world made a critical mistake in rejecting the UN’s Partition Plan and ignoring the Jewish people’s legitimate and indigenous claims. But that does not mean there cannot be hope for a better future. Standing with the Palestinian people does not mean offering empty platitudes. Real solidarity requires being honest about hard truths and competing but legitimate claims, so that the same mistakes are not repeated over and over again.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Governments: Denounce Terror, Support Human Rights

By Mark Goldfeder

Last week the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. The internet immediately exploded with articles and tweets accusing Israel of trying to criminalize Palestinian civil society, while antisemitic activists like Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib called for “immediate consequences” for the Jewish State.

Even the State Department jumped on the empty virtue signaling bandwagon, with spokesperson Ned Price claiming, “We believe respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, and a strong civil society are critically important for responsible and responsive governance,” before adding that the U.S. will “be engaging our Israeli partners for more information regarding the basis for these designations.” For the record, Israel also believes in respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, which is why they made these designations in the first place.

The six NGOs were included on the list because of their strong ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S., EU, Canada and Israel designated terrorist organization. Among the problematic ties, these organizations have employed PFLP terrorists, diverted humanitarian funds from European donors to the PFLP, recruited members to the terrorist group, and hosted meetings for senior leadership including actual convicted terrorists. Far from being hidden or classified, much of the evidence is readily available, compiled over years by organizations like NGO Monitor, and it is important to note that the PFLP has not even bothered denying these connections.

Here is a small sample of that evidence: On August 23, 2019, PFLP terrorists detonated a roadside bomb and murdered innocent 17-year-old Rina Shnerb while she was hiking with her father and brother, who were also injured. Shortly thereafter, three PFLP members were arrested; all three were employed in senior financial roles at the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, one of the newly designated NGOs. In an official statement, the PFLP referred to one of those terrorists, who had led the operation, as a “commander, comrade, and hero.” The Bisan Center, another of the newly-designated NGOs, was headed by another one of the operatives on that very attack. As to the other organizations: Three Addameer employees appeared on the PFLP’s 2021 election slate; Defense for Children-Palestine is headed by two senior PFLP members; Al-Haq by a third (and a convicted terrorist to boot); and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees Vice President openly refers to it as the PFLP’s “feminist framework.”

Israeli law allows the Minister of Defense to declare an association a “terrorist organization” if it is: perpetrating or intentionally promoting the perpetration of terrorist acts; conducting training or providing guidance for executing terrorist acts; engaging in a transaction involving a weapon with the goal of perpetrating terrorist acts; or assisting or acting with the goal of advancing the activities of such a group.

It is hard to imagine that anyone is truly baffled by the idea that a humanitarian NGO—which may legitimately do some very good things­—could also be engaged in providing some material support for terrorists on the side. It is especially surprising for the State Department to express confusion about such a determination, given the nature of their own obligations under U.S. counterterrorism law. Moreover, 8 U.S.C. §1189 authorizes the Secretary of State to designate foreign terrorist organizations as such if they engage in terrorist activities. The statutory definition of “engage in terrorist activity” includes affording material support to a terrorist or terrorist organization even if such support is confined to non-terrorist activities. In addition, under 18 U.S.C. §2339, it is a federal crime to “knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization”—even if you happen to be a human rights organization that also does some good. Sadly, that happens not infrequently, and in 2014 the Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental money laundering and terror financing watchdog, issued a report specifically warning against the special risks proposed by non-profit organizations in this context. In fact, the leading U.S. case in this area, Holder v. Humanitarian Law, is literally and explicitly about human rights groups providing material support to terrorist orgs.

Price also claimed that Israel did not give the U.S. advance warning of the changes, but Israeli officials dispute this, saying they did give the Biden administration notice and proof, and are happy to do so again, with Israeli officials preparing to fly to Washington with evidence including “footage and receipts.”

To recap: The evidence that these six NGOs (at the very least) provided material support for terrorism is readily available and yet to be refuted; tellingly, none of the statements released by the various NGOs and activists condemning Israel bothered to actually address the underlying issue. Despite how it is being painted by reflexively anti-Israel groups and activists, including some members of Congress, the legal process Israel followed is not in any way unique. In fact, it is very similar to our own well-established practice. And if any of these organizations really do believe that a mistake has been made, there is an appellate procedure available, with claims to be submitted to the Advisory Committee regarding designations on Terror Organizations. Not surprisingly, none of the groups has yet appealed.

In the meantime, if all of those wringing their hands at the thought of these poor NGOs getting in trouble are really that concerned about their welfare, or even about human rights generally, there is one ready solution. The quickest way to solve this problem would be to stop focusing on how these groups ended up getting caught, and start pressuring them to actually stop supporting terror.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

A solution to antisemitism in the media

By Mark Goldfeder

Axel Springer, the publishing giant that just bought Politico, made waves last week when its CEO said in an interview that he wants all staffers to adhere to companywide guiding principles, including support for “Israel’s right to exist.” As Mathias Dopfner explained , this is simply part and parcel of his newsroom expectations for unbiased nonpartisan journalism.

Dofpner’s statement drew immediate criticism from those who see recognition of Israel’s right to exist, and a newspaper's requirement that those who report the facts not openly deny them, as a company enforcing “propaganda.” Articles twisted Dopfner’s words to make it seem as if he required everyone who works for him to actively support the Jewish state. To be clear, Dopfner never said that anyone could not or should not criticize the state of Israel or vociferously disagree with any or all aspects of its policies or leadership. All he said was that he did not want to print lies pretending that Israel does not have a right to exist — a right that even Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has openly affirmed .

If you cannot tell the difference between acknowledging Israel as a legitimate country and “partisan propaganda,” you might want to ask yourself whether you might be harboring some antisemitism. Here is a simple test: Are there any other countries in the world that you dislike and think should not exist? If the answer to the second question is no, then the answer to the first one is yes.

The pushback in this particular episode is surprising only because Israel’s right to exist should have been a fairly easy line to draw in the sand. Usually, the antisemitism in legacy media newsrooms is a little bit more nuanced. Still, there are times when it positively screams out.

In July of 2020, for example, former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss resigned, citing, among other things, alleged instances of unlawful discrimination and harassment. This included being called a Nazi by her colleagues and hearing disparaging comments about how often she would write about “the Jews.” In describing the editorial policies of the New York Times that she could no longer abide by, she called out a comparative willingness to amplify antisemitic voices without caveat as opposed to other problematic or controversial statements that received disclaimers. Casual antisemitism in the media is not really surprising and has not gone away — it’s just not every day that an editor confirms it.

The truth is there have been entire books written on the New York Times and its biased coverage of both Jews and the Jewish state. Sometimes it gets caught , and when the bias is egregious enough and there is overwhelming pressure, it apologizes . But more often, this bias goes unchecked because it is so routine that it has just become part of the background.

To be fair, the New York Times is not alone in its not-so-subtle antisemitic slanting. Study after study, report after report, and book after book after book have documented the persistent media stereotypes and misrepresentations that are contributing to a rise in antisemitism around the country and around the world — a fact made even more incredible given that research shows many people actually believe the antisemitic claim that Jews control the media.

The normalization of antisemitism in public media forums — from the lowbrow rants of John Oliver and Trevor Noah to the interview with proud antisemite Alice Walker that Weiss mentioned in her letter — allows hateful rhetoric, including classic and surprisingly unoriginal antisemitic motifs , to seep into public consciousness. What then should be done?

Over the last couple of years , there has been a very public pushback on cancel culture, with an accompanying desire to hear more about fixing than firing, to use identified problems as teachable moments that can perhaps effect real change. There is incredibly important work being done now on racial equality and gay rights, yet at the same time, there is another slow-boiling problem that needs to be addressed. In that spirit, what can we do about persistent media bias so insidious and deep that editors often seem unable to detect it, even when it is literally highlighted ?

Here is one solution, or at the very least a concrete first step toward eliminating conscious and unconscious antisemitism in the media: Journalists should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and refrain from publishing anything that violates its terms.

This idea is hardly radical, and I am not the first to propose it. Indeed, several other people and groups are working on similar initiatives, including Jeff Ballabon, formerly a senior executive at CBS News. But recent events, and particularly Axel Springer’s announcement, make the timing right for this to finally happen.

There must be some objective standard for what is and is not acceptable, and the IHRA definition is as close to a consensus as it is possible to get. It is already used by the federal government, the 31 member countries of IHRA, almost all 50 countries that comprise the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the European Commission, the European Parliament, Australia, Serbia, Bahrain, and Albania. It has been endorsed by a growing number of world leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and adopted by a growing number of universities. It is used by a variety of intergovernmental agencies, including the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, and nongovernmental agencies, including the Iraq-based Global Imams Council. While it is not an exhaustive definition, its use as a standard in media will increase the awareness and understanding of the parameters of contemporary anti-Jewish discrimination.

The IHRA definition is particularly helpful precisely because it includes useful examples of discriminatory anti-Israel statements that cross the line into antisemitism. Legitimate criticism of Israel is explicitly fine under IHRA, and if you are merely criticizing Israel, even harshly and regularly, then signing on to such a statement should not affect your writing or publishing one iota. If you are actually demonizing and delegitimizing the Jewish state or applying a double standard by requiring of it behaviors not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation, then maybe your paper should stop and think twice about the impression you are giving with your coverage.

It might be challenging at first to swim against the current, but when the world is finally recognizing that the current is antisemitic, it is time to take the plunge.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Three Things US Can Learn From EU'S New Strategic Plan

By Mark Goldfeder

Last week the European Commission, the Executive Branch of the  European Union, unveiled a new comprehensive EU Strategy on combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life to address a significant increase in incidents around the 27-country bloc. While the United States has seen a similar trajectory, our federal government has yet to develop an encompassing governmental response to the problem. Perhaps the EU will inspire the U.S.

On a practical level, the EU proposal contains a number of concrete suggestions—including annual stakeholder forums designed to maximize the effect of joint actions and funding, and additional resources dedicated to better understanding and tracking the spread of online hate—that could aid in the fight against domestic antisemitism. More broadly, it addresses three crucial areas in which U.S. federal and state policy have been lacking: defining, monitoring and preventing antisemitism.

First, the Commission actively encourages all member states to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, an essential tool used to determine its contemporary manifestations. The federal government does use the definition, but some politicians have been hesitant to embrace it because among its illustrations of things that could contextually be antisemitic are examples of problematic anti-Zionism, and these officials are ostensibly concerned that embracing IHRA would somehow stifle speech. That argument, however, is a legal red herring and the EU did not take the bait.

Aside from the fact that IHRA itself distinguishes between criticizing Israel and antisemitism, the use of a definition alone simply does not silence any speech—it just allows people to label it correctly. You cannot fight what you can’t define, and what the EU got right is that the IHRA definition is helpful precisely because it includes those useful examples of discriminatory anti-Israel acts that can cross the line into antisemitism—for example, “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” No one who labels sexist speech sexist, or racist speech racist is accused of stifling speech. In fact, officials are often praised for using their own speech to condemn these types of (legal) expression, without crossing the line into censorship. Our government should, consistent with the First Amendment, follow the EU’s lead and actively promote the implementation of IHRA in anti-discrimination policies at all levels. If necessary, they can even issue a handbook (like the EU did) for IHRA’s practical use. Meanwhile, passing the bi-partisan bi-cameral Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which reaffirms the use of IHRA on campus, would be a great step in this direction.

Next the EU recognized that under current reporting standards it is challenging to obtain reliable and comparable data on antisemitic incidents. The new plan commits resources to help Member States improve and align their methodologies for consistently recording, collecting and assessing information on hate crimes, including antisemitism. But those in the EU are not the only ones experiencing this problem.

In the U.S., under the Hate Crime Statistics Act (modified by The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act), the Attorney General, through the FBI, is tasked with monitoring crimes in which there was “manifest evidence of prejudice” against the victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity. The FBI  relies on local law enforcement agencies to submit data, but thousands opt out of the reporting, and, according to one report, even “among the 15,000 that do, some 88 percent reported they had no hate crimes.”

One issue is the lack of definitions: That same report found that “investigators frequently did not mark down incidents as motivated by bias, even if there was evidence suggesting this was so—a spray-painted swastika, for example, might be classified simply as vandalism and not also as a hate crime.” In 2019 (i.e. just before COVID), the number of agencies participating further declined, but the number of reported hate crimes actually rose by 113 percent, including a 14 percent increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes. All across the country 63 percent of the total reported religion-based crimes were directed against Jewish people and institutions, and one can only imagine the real number. Standardized and aligning methodologies for federal reporting of bias incidents—including but not limited to the use of IHRA—would be helpful in making sure that the statistics about antisemitism more accurately reflect reality. 

Finally, the EU plan contains several affirmative steps to attempt to prevent antisemitic sentiments from flourishing. Acknowledging that ignorance and indifference are key culprits, it lays out a number of educational initiatives focused on celebrating Jewish life, culture and societal contributions, while raising awareness about antisemitism and the Holocaust. It also calls for the Commission to ascertain that there is no antisemitism in EU textbooks or classrooms, and to ensure that EU funds are not allocated to antisemitic activities. 

If only the U.S. would do the same.

In stark contrast, the same week the EU established these programs, Governor Gavin Newsom signed California’s Assembly Bill 101 into law, making ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement. While there is nothing inherently wrong about the idea, the first draft of the bill’s model curriculum was so stunningly, openly antisemitic that Newsom himself apologized on behalf of the State, called it “offensive in so many ways, particularly to the Jewish community,” and vowed the draft “would never see the light of day.” Legislators redid the course to make it less objectionable, and appended seven amendments to confirm against anti-Jewish hate being taught. As Tammi Rossman-Benjamin has noted, “the fact that no less than seven “guardrails” were deemed necessary for preventing AB 101 from facilitating the widespread promotion of antisemitism is itself a stunning indictment of the bill and the dangers it poses for Jewish students and the Jewish community.”  But aside from that, as the LA Times warned, these measures will actually do absolutely nothing. The bill still allows schools to use their own curricula, and multiple districts and teachers’ unions have already signed statements promising to use the original, highly antisemitic, version of the course.

It did not have to be this way. For example, the bill could have just required schools to use the new model, or to submit their own curriculums for review. But apparently, as the AMCHA Initiative (an organization which fought against the bill) explained,  the concerns of hundreds of Holocaust survivors and their descendants, dozens of religious, civil rights and education organizations, thousands of Californians, and hundreds of students and parents begging the government to protect them and their families from state-sponsored antisemitism simply did not matter enough. The onus now shifts to Jewish parents and children in each of California’s 13,000 school districts to fend for themselves against the harmful and long-lasting effects of antisemitic material being taught to their children in a state-mandated class. 

Unless, of course, the federal government, like the EU, steps in where they can and should.  

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in federally assisted programs, and federal education funding is distributed to states and school districts through a variety of grants. A school district announcing its plans to teach discriminatory material is exposing itself to liability, and the Department of Education should proactively cut off funding from those who flaunt its rules. It should never have come to this, but the federal government must put these schools on notice that under Title VI they have an affirmative legal obligation to protect their Jewish students—even from their own teachers and unions if need be.  

The U.S. must do better, and do our part, in the global fight against antisemitism. That includes adopting and enforcing standards for defining, monitoring and preventing antisemitism. The tools are there, the time is now, and the EU has shown the way. 

If they can do it, so can we. 

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

UNC failing to properly confront anti-semitism

By Mark Goldfeder

There is an antisemitism problem at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and it is high time for the school to actually, actively, address it. The fact that UNC continues to allow a graduate student-professor who has expressed vile antisemitic views to teach a course about "The Conflict Over Israel/Palestine" – despite the fact that she has said she is not capable of teaching this particular course fairly, denies Israel's right to exist, and calls those with different viewpoints on the subject matter "dirtbags"– is just the most recent manifestation of a sickening tolerance for this particular form of hate.

Last week, UNC all but admitted that antisemitism remains a serious issue on their campus. In a statement from the Chancellor, the school acknowledged all the Jewish students and alumni who have been vocal about feeling marginalized and unwelcome and noted the concern from the broader community that the University has not done enough to recognize and combat antisemitism. UNC pledged to work harder at confronting antisemitism, but while actions speak louder than words even their words are unconvincing.

The statement came only after weeks and weeks of public backlash; not one but two separate federal Title VI antisemitism complaints that were filed with the Department of Education; and at least two concerned members of Congress, a Republican, and a Democrat, expressing their concerns to the school. The administrations' semi-contrition is even more suspect because this entire incident comes a mere two years after their last public antisemitism fiasco, when the University co-hosted an antisemitic conference and was forced to settle the ensuing Title VI complaint with the Department of Education. In their resolution agreement, the school agreed to "take all steps reasonably designed to ensure that students enrolled in the University are not subjected to a hostile environment." As the Chancellor now admits, they have clearly failed to do so.

Perhaps most telling, the University is still allowing that graduate student, Kylie Broderick, to teach her one-sided course, which is the equivalent of allowing a person with an openly racist agenda to teach a course about racism. The University's half-baked statement on antisemitism has only emboldened Broderick and her supporters, who have essentially now been given an affirmative pass, and they have started a new campaign to blame the victims and pretend that she is somehow the one being unfairly targeted for her views.

That position is ridiculous on its face: Broderick published and stands by her positions, and no one is calling for her to retract them. All they are asking is that she not be given a uniquely perfect opportunity to spread her discriminatory hatred and demonstrable lies at the expense of innocent students who are paying for an actual education and deserve to be given all the facts.

It is bad enough when radical left-wing publications allow nonsensical arguments about "academic freedom" to pollute their pages, but the problem is compounded when public figures lazily retweet these silly stories without bothering to do any background research.

Here then, is a response to the most recent Broderick offensive: Broderick and her supporters are apparently shocked that numerous concerned parties are opposed to her indoctrinating students with antisemitic blood libels. They claim that people exercising their right to criticize her stated views, and to criticize the University for giving her a platform to spread slander, somehow vaguely infringes on her academic freedom.

Broderick has a record of conflating issues and being imprecise (see her discussions of Israeli history, Sheikh Jarrah, BDS laws, etc.), but to put a fine point on the matter, academic freedom does not include the right to indoctrinate students with falsehoods by asserting propositions in ways that prevent students from expressing disagreement. It is quite understandable that a student would not feel comfortable challenging their professor's anti-Zionist perspectives, or even standing up for Israeli rights, when that professor has recently referred to Zionists as "dirtbags," or moderated an event that tried to legitimize violence against Israelis.

That is why some Jewish students decided not to register for this class, and that is why Broderick should not be allowed to teach this particular course. In fact, the only threat to academic freedom at play here at all is Broderick's violation of the students' academic freedom to be educated properly. Allowing professors to shut down the exploration of alternative viewpoints by effectively excluding those who disagree is to violate entirely everything UNC purports to hold sacred.

We cannot expect more from people like Broderick, who are willing to spread dangerous lies. But we can and should expect a school like UNC to do more than pay lip service to fighting antisemitism. The best way to fight antisemitism is to call it by its name and stop giving those who spread its dangerous falsehoods legitimization and cover.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

Kamala Harris should apologize for NOT REFUTING SLANDER ABOUT ISRAEL

By Mark Goldfeder

On Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris gave a talk about voting rights to students at George Mason University. During the question-and-answer session that followed, a student complained that “just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s an ethnic genocide and a displacement of people — the same that happened in America — and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”

Instead of taking the opportunity to actually educate the people in the room about the relationship between the United States and Israel, or even, at the very least, to correct the record by factually responding to the false and discriminatory allegations made against the Jewish State, the vice president instead thanked the woman for her contribution to the discussion and told her that “your truth should not be suppressed and it must be heard, right?”

Harris’ response was irresponsible and dangerous. She should immediately apologize, because facts matter and truth is not subjective.

Here are the facts: Last week, an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Congress approved (by a vote of 420-9) $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, a missile defense system that protects innocent Israeli and Palestinian men, women and children alike from the indiscriminate rockets attacks of terrorist groups like Hamas. Iron Dome uses radar to detect incoming missiles and shoot them down before they kill innocent people. It poses absolutely zero offensive threat to anyone, anywhere. All it does is reduce the death toll in Israel, and minimize the need for preemptive strikes and ground maneuvers.

Iron Dome’s store of interceptors was somewhat depleted last May after Hamas, a U.S. designated terror organization, fired over 4,300 rockets at Israeli population centers. It is beyond shameful that even nine U.S. lawmakers would vote against funding a defensive system that saves innocent lives. A vote against Iron Dome is nothing short of a vote for more effective terrorism, and for more dead civilians.

The vice president could have easily explained all this. She could have also clarified American military aid to Israel is generous to be sure, but it is an investment and not a charity. Supporting Israel in combatting Middle East terrorist groups and expansionist potentates is crucial for America’s own national security. Israel is our closest ally in the Middle East and our only reliable source of intelligence and cyber-defense in that region. As President Biden once said at an Israeli Day Celebration, “…Were there no Israel, America would have to invent one. We’d have to invent one because…you protect our interests like we protect yours.” Our shared security interests include but are not limited to preventing nuclear proliferation, combating terrorism, containing Iranian, Turkish and Russian expansionism, and promoting the rule of democracy. In addition, American military aid to Israel is actually spent in the United States, providing jobs and economic growth that benefit our own economy and defense industry.

The vice president could have, and should have, explained all that as well. But at the very least she had a responsibility to call out the harmful slander of Israel as a genocidal state, and to debunk the false narrative of Israel as an occupying power.

The idea that Israel is committing ethnic genocide against the Palestinians is just an uninspired update on a classic anti-Semitic trope: the blood libel. Thankfully it is also quite easy to refute — at least for someone who is interested in doing so. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide says that genocidal acts are “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” The problem with the claim that Israel is committing genocide (aside from the complete lack of evidence for such a charge) is that the irrefutable math here tells a very different story. Since 1967, the Palestinian Arab population has actually increased by 387%.

The vice president, however, said none of that. Nor did she push back on the fundamentally false narrative of displacement which denies the demonstrable historical and legal Jewish claims to the land and places the blame for the current situation entirely on Israel.

Maybe the student asking the question really did not know that the Jews are the indigenous people living in their own ancestral homeland. Maybe the others in that classroom weren’t aware that Israel has repeatedly (over 30 times) offered plans for peace and division of the land, and that some of those plans were even supported by much of the Arab world.

But the vice president knew, and she didn’t tell them.

Our government has a responsibility to protect its citizens from acts of hate and bigotry that are motivated by discriminatory animus- including antisemitism. Study after study has shown that the kind of inflammatory discriminatory rhetoric that the vice president heard and appeared to affirm eventually leads to violent anti-Semitic action, and to innocent Jewish people around the world getting hurt. The vice president had an opportunity to distance herself and her party from these demonizing and delegitimizing lies. Instead, she gave them validation.

No one is saying that this student should have had her question or her voice suppressed. Free speech, even wrong and offensive speech, is part of what makes our democracy great. But as Harris herself once said, “Anyone who claims to be a leader must speak like a leader. That means speaking with integrity and truth.”

An apology, and a correction, are the necessary next steps.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.

UNC-Chapel Hill’s New Antisemitic Anti-Israel Class Violates Federal and State Law

By Mark Goldfeder

Last week students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) showed up for their first class in a course called “The Conflict Over Israel Palestine.” But instead of learning about competing narratives and claims over the course of the semester, they will be treated to a one-sided antisemitic hate-fest from a graduate student professor who has been outspoken about her illegal plans.

It is clear that the course will be one-sided and antisemitic because the teacher in question, Kylie Broderick, has said so. In a tweet about how hard it is to pretend there are two sides to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she wrote “there is only 1 legitimate side – the oppressed – versus imperialist propaganda. I don’t ever want to encourage them to believe there is reason to take on good faith the oppressive ideologies of American and Western imperialism, Zionists, & autocrats.” In other posts she described all of Israel as occupied territory, and just a few months ago she spread a vicious blood libel, tweeting that “Palestinians are being murdered for just being alive & bc [because] they’re inconvenient to Israel & its patron, the US imperialist death cult.” 

That particular outburst was written while Israel was daring to defend itself from indiscriminate rocket attacks launched at its civilian population by a designated terrorist group. Five days later she wrote an op-ed in support of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in which she managed to squeeze in dozens of lies about the Jewish state while avoiding any mention of Hamas, the terrorist organization that started this round of violence.

After early reports about the course by Peter Reitzes, a board member of Voice4Israel of North Carolina, prompted some public pushback, UNC defended its decision to allow the class to be taught by a hostile professor who intends to demonize, delegitimize, and apply a double-standard to Israel by pretending that such an offering was somehow part of an “abiding respect for the First Amendment, academic freedom, and the open exchange of ideas.” 

UNC is just wrong as a matter of law. But the worst part is that they know it, and they do not seem to care.

As it relates to academic freedom, there is a difference between education and indoctrination. Per the American Association of University Professors 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure, an instructor who address “controversial matters” should present “the divergent opinions of other investigators” and “above all” should “remember that his business is not to provide his students with ready-made conclusions, but to train them to think for themselves, and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently.” 

As former Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Kenneth Marcus has explained, there is a difference between a professor sharing their opinion versus disingenuously presenting that opinion as if it were truth. In the first Supreme Court case to expound upon the concept of academic freedom, Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957), the Court wrote that “The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. …Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die.” In Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967) the Court again noted that “The Nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth ‘out of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection.’”

Allowing professors to share biased lies cast as truth in the guise of academic freedom while shutting down an exploration of alternative viewpoints is to violate entirely all that academic freedom is meant to protect. What student in their right mind would feel comfortable challenging a professor’s anti-Zionist perspective, when that professor has recently referred to  Zionists  as “dirtbags,” and moderated an event that tried to legitimize violence against Israelis? 

When it comes to the First Amendment, the freedom of speech—even offensive speech—must be cherished and protected. But as the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has made clear, there are times when even speech can cross over into harassment and invidious discrimination. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in federally assisted programs and activities, on the basis of race, color, or national origin. While Title VI does not include religion, discrimination against Jews may give rise to a violation if it is based on race or national origin. Under Executive Order 13899 (Combating Anti-Semitism), when evaluating potential Title VI claims, the government uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. Per the IHRA definition, it is antisemitic to, among other things, deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination, engage in blood libels, or apply a double standard by requiring of the Jewish state a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Speech crosses over from protected territory into harassing verbal conduct when it is “sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent so as to interfere with or limit the ability of an individual to participate in or benefit from the services, activities or privileges provided by a recipient.” In their messages to the University, members of the Jewish community on campus confirmed what should already be obvious; they are fearful that students who support and have a connection with Israel will be unwelcome or unsafe in this classroom environment, which is not only an impingement on their academic freedom but also a violation of Title VI, as well as other state and university policies against discrimination. 

A violation of Title VI may be found if discrimination is encouraged, tolerated, not adequately addressed, or ignored by administrators, and complaints alleging such violations may be filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights or in the federal district courts. But of course, UNC already knows all of this because this is not their first, nor even their first recent, Title VI antisemitism rodeo: In 2019 the University hosted an antisemitic conference, and was forced to settle the ensuing Title VI complaint with the Department of Education. In their   resolution agreement, the school agreed to “take all steps reasonably designed to ensure that students enrolled in the University are not subjected to a hostile environment.”  

The University’s commitment to that requirement is laughable, and in fact the Zionist Organization of America has already filed a letter with the Department of Education notifying them of the breach. But the potential result is no laughing matter. Study after study has shown that the kind of inflammatory discriminatory anti-Zionist rhetoric that Broderick intends to continue spreading under the banner of UNC eventually leads to antisemitic action, and to people getting hurt. Over the last few months, and particularly in the immediate aftermath of the most recent outbreak of violence in the Middle East last May, antisemitic attacks around the world shot up over 400%. On college campuses, in between dodging protests, ignoring death threats, and removing Nazi symbols, Jewish students have been subjected to campaigns that call Israel a colonialist settler state, negate the history of their people, and dismiss the lives of their co-religionists, if they are even worth mentioning at all.

This is not a new problem, but the intensification of an existing phenomenon. On university campuses around the country, antisemitism has become entrenched and systemic, with recent studies showing that the number of Jewish students experiencing antisemitism has spiked to nearly 75 percent. North Carolina has also not been immune from this alarming trend, nor has the Chapel Hill campus itself, and it is in this environment that UNC is knowingly shirking responsibility.

That is too bad for them. Universities have duty to protect students from hatred and bigotry motivated by discriminatory animus, including antisemitism, and students need to know that if the University won’t protect them, there are people who will have their back. If UNC will not do this the easy way, by standing up for its Jewish constituents and against unapologetic hate, then they will be forced to do it the harder way, and risk their federal funding—again. And this time, they will have to do more than make empty promises they don’t intend to keep.

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Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. has served as the founding Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Law and Judaism, a Trustee of the Center for Israel Education, and as an adviser to the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations. Read full bio here.