Members of the Legislature’s antisemitism panel reacted strongly to criticisms of their work raised by a group of university educators at the Sept. 8 meeting of the Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism.

Several members of the Massachusetts group Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff testified as the commission delved more deeply into the higher education realm, having issued its recommendations for K-12 last month.

Boston University’s Jeremy Menchik, an associate professor of international relations and political science and a former Anti-Defamation League (ADL) staffer, said the commission exaggerates “the character and the severity of antisemitism” in Massachusetts and that the K-12 report relied on statistical data that is “widely known to be systematically biased and unrepresentative.”

Menchik said the commission has failed to consider “the challenge of minorities within minorities” – that the 20% to 40% of Massachusetts Jews who don’t identify as Zionists, including anti-Zionist Jews, post-Zionist Jews and non-Zionist Jews – “are frequently bullied, harassed, marginalized or otherwise targeted for intolerance.” He noted, “Policies designed to combat antisemitism can increase the bullying of Jews by other Jews.”

Clark University’s Frances Tanzer, a professor of Holocaust studies and Jewish culture, picked up the thread by noting how the Trump administration employs “philosemitism” – the love of a stereotype of Jews. Under the guise that Jews who support Israel are at risk on college campuses and that schools must do more to protect them, the federal government has defunded universities and suppressed academic freedom and free speech, she said.

Finally, B.U. law professor Jonathan Feingold stressed that the commission’s work must be understood in context. The Trump administration, he said, is “weaponizing our collective anxiety about antisemitism to inflame division and instill distrust on our campuses, to crack left-wing coalitions, and to tear down the institutions – specifically unions and universities – that we need to check their authoritarian aspirations. Any serious approach to antisemitism today has to account for these dynamics.”

Feingold called the commission’s approach to antisemitism “reckless at times,” in that it is “giving Trump and his allies what they want.” The commission, he said, “has manufactured ammo for unfounded antisemitism accusations against our own educators and their union,” the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA). He said the commission “continues to unmindfully rehearse the ADL data and talking points that ground today’s misguided moral panic.”

The academics asserted, in their testimonies and in written statements, that it’s important for the commissioners to distinguish between a “problem” and a “crisis.” Prejudice against Jews – antisemitism – is a problem, they agreed. When prejudice is amplified and mobilized by the federal government in order to systematically persecute vulnerable minorities – such as Blacks, immigrants and trans people – that is a crisis that policymakers need to address through legislation, they said.

Several commissioners took issue with this distinction. “The effort to compare active prejudices against Black Americans versus Jews ultimately looks like an effort to diminish the concerns of Jewish people,” said Rob Leikind, regional director of the American Jewish Committee New England. “The seriousness of the problem may not fit in your paradigm, but I think in the minds of many of us, the urgency is present and real.”

Rep. Simon Cataldo, the commission’s co-chair, was even more blunt.

“This isn’t the ‘hate Olympics,’ professor,” he told Menchik. “It’s not a competition about who qualifies as being the victim of a crisis versus a problem.”

Cataldo’s co-chair, Sen. John Velis, also focused on the language. “I always try to view things through the lens of, what am I going to teach my kid, my 3-year-old son,” he said. “‘OK, buddy, you’ve got this injury on the playground’ – and I’m only saying the playground because I was at one yesterday – ‘You, on the other hand, you got hurt more.’

“Pushing aside the differences in the data, but that we should … you’re not suggesting ignore, that’s, again, my word, not yours. But I just think there’s something wrong with saying this is a problem, not a crisis, with what we have been exposed to through the duration of this commission. I mean, some of the stories have been horror stories.”

Cataldo also resisted the suggestion that the commission was promoting a Trumpian, right-wing agenda.

“We have heard so much testimony about the pervasiveness of [antisemitism],” he said. “So to minimize that, to categorize that as somehow a tool of some other sovereign … All I have to say to that is, to the students who are in schools where people of authority are doing that gaslighting, that delegitimizing, that minimizing, ‘I’m sorry, and we believe you.’ We believe the Jews who are coming forward.”

Cataldo repeated his characterization of the academics’ concerns as a competition. “If there is a number, whether it’s 2 1/2 times, what’s happening to other vulnerable groups, five times, 7 1/2 times, 10 times … 84% isn’t enough. If it’s 95% or 99% that qualifies us for the hate Olympics, professor, you just let us know. Feel free to let us know now. You can amend your written testimony. I’d appreciate it.”

One educator was not met with such animosity. In her testimony, Associate Professor Hilary Lustick of the UMass Lowell School of Education discussed the benefits of responding to antisemitic incidents by engaging in restorative practices, such as dialogue, rather than taking punitive action, such as suspension or firing.

In response, Cataldo, a former federal prosecutor, noted the commission’s K-12 report recommends “the expanded use of restorative justice” in school situations. He added that two fellow commissioners in law enforcement, Salisbury Police Chief Thomas Fowler and Essex County District Attorney Paul Tucker, have been “very supportive of those approaches.”

Sensing her remarks may have been misinterpreted, Lustick reiterated her suggestion of pursuing remedies that ameliorate rather than punish. “My understanding is that there have been a number of suspensions and terminations of teachers because of remarks that they’ve made,” she said. “I think that’s where the need for dialogue is.” Θ

Contact reporter Brett M. Rhyne at brett@jewishjournal.org.

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