The inclusion of two new policies aimed at combating antisemitism in the FY25 budget that was just finalized by Governor Maura Healey and the Mass. Legislature is prompting sharp pushback from critics.
One of the new budget’s outside sections, which do not directly address spending, requires that the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education make available “resources relative to antisemitism and societal bias,” including model curricula and professional development opportunities. That outside section does not define antisemitism, a term whose meaning has grown increasingly fraught amid sharp public debate over Israel’s war in Gaza.
However, a second outside section can be interpreted as indirectly endorsing one specific definition of the term. That section creates a new special commission on combating antisemitism in the Commonwealth — tasked with, among other things, “mak[ing] recommendations for the implementation of the United States National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.”
That strategy, which was released by the Biden Administration in May 2023, cites the definition of antisemitism created by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA. The IHRA’s list of antisemitic acts includes “claiming that a state of Israel is a racist endeavor,” which the IHRA says “den[ies] the Jewish people their right to self-determination.”
Elsa Auerbach, a UMass Boston professor emeritus who is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace Boston and the daughter of Holocaust refugees, argues that the IHRA’s definition effectively silences legitimate criticism of the state of Israel.
“It’s being used to weaponize antisemitism, to shut down any critique of Jewish supremacy in Israel and Palestine,” Auerbach said. “There’s no other way to describe what the Israelis are doing than Jewish supremacy, with a separate legal system [for Palestinians] — and this is not even talking about, yet, the genocide in Gaza.”
Auerbach also said that by including new policies involving antisemitism in the budget, lawmakers elided the scrutiny the proposals would have received in the standard legislative process.
“These sections are kind of a covert end run to insert this perspective of what counts as antisemitism without a true democratic process,” she said. “There is no public input whatsoever. There’s no hearing. This is just [legislators] deciding that they want to do this.”
Barbara Dougan, the legal director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations Massachusetts, voiced concern about lack of public input in the budget process as well, calling the outside sections “a backdoor way to create substantive law.”
In addition, Dougan questioned lawmakers’ exclusion of other types of bigotry from the new measures.
“The level of Islamophobia in Massachusetts is at an all-time high, and we’re seeing some pretty horrible things,” Dougan added, citing a report that CAIR-MA released last week. “We have a case where a student was poisoned … That’s the level of violence and harassment we’re seeing against Muslims in Massachusetts.”
“Our problem is not the fact that this is addressing antisemitism — It’s the fact that it only addresses antisemitism,” Dougan added. “And the far wiser course of action, we believe, is to take a serious look at all forms of religious discrimination that are taking place in Massachusetts. Because if you only look at one form, I do think the unspoken message is that the other forms aren’t that important.”
The outside sections were supported by the Anti-Defamation League New England, which urged supporters to tell Governor Healey they backed the new measures before the budget was finalized, and by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, which called the provisions involving the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education “an important step in educating students about the root causes and impacts of antisemitism and bias in our society” in an email sent to supporters after the budget process was completed.
In that same email, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston said the creation of the new commission on combating antisemitism had been the subject of “a public and troubling campaign … led by groups … some of which have a history of injecting antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories into our civic discourse.
“This only lent more validity to the need for public leadership and a commission addressing antisemitism,” the email said.
In addition to Jewish Voice for Peace Boston and the Council on American-Islamic Relations Massachusetts, more than 60 other progressive groups wrote to legislative leaders and Governor Healey before the budget was finalized to object to the outside sections.
Peggy Shukur, the vice president of the ADL’s East Division, told GBH News that the creation of a state commission to combat antisemitism is “a clear indication of the Commonwealth’s commitment to [addressing] a problem that really has an outsized and growing impact in Massachusetts.”
In addition, Shukur pushed back at the idea that the commission’s creation offers a de facto endorsement of one particular definition of antisemitism.
“If all this commission was supposed to do was to follow ... everything that was said in the National Strategy [to Combat Antisemitism], there wouldn’t be a commission,” Shukur said. “This is a commission that’s being asked to craft something very thoughtful that responds to trends of antisemitism in Massachusetts, that looks to the National Strategy for guidance, and looks at other existing efforts to combat antisemitism so we can have the best practices and the best response.”
Shukur also took issue with the idea that measures aimed at combating antisemitism should address other forms of bias.
“Sometimes it’s a moment to talk about all of them together, and see that through line which clearly is there,” she said. “And there are other times to focus on one.”
Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, made a similar point.
“Antisemitism is a specific and particular kind of hatred that represents, shows up, and impacts our community in specific ways,” Burton said. “It’s not the same as homophobia; it is not the same as anti-Black racism. And it needs to be understood as a particular and specific form of hate in order to effectively combat it.”
Burton also rejected the idea that using outside budget sections to take new measures against antisemitism is problematic.
“There are 264 outside sections in this budget this year,” he said. “The Massachusetts Legislature has a history of enacting legislation as part of its budget process. And yet this is the only thing these people are complaining about? It makes me wonder if they are using a complaint about process to hide behind, in service to other, more nefarious agendas.”
State Senator John Velis (D-Westfield), who introduced the budget amendment that created the outside sections, told GBH News that his interest in the new measures began with hearing “horrible stories” from his constituents about their recent experiences as Jewish Americans, and then embarking on further study of antisemitism himself.
“History is literally replete with hatred towards Jews, and I think it’s just morally reprehensible,” Velis said. “Obviously, all forms of hatred [are] awful, [are] reprehensible. But the number is so astronomical, so disproportionate with respect to Jews, I think it was really important to create this commission and also the education [piece] very specifically on antisemitism.”
Velis also bristled at the suggestion that his proposals could imply that criticism of the Israeli state as inherently antisemitic.
“Literally the first thing that I said in my remarks in support of this amendment [was that] anyone who suggests that criticism of Israel is antisemitic is just wrong — period, end of story,” Velis said.
“I find that to be asinine, that anyone would think that what I’m saying is that criticism of Israel is antisemitic.”
