The Politics of the Gesture: The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, Antiracism, and Intersectionality

Pamela Nadell hits the bullseye when she concludes her "Preface" by noting that the (re)introduction of the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act constitutes "the politics of the gesture." Ostensibly aiming to reassure Jews, in fact the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act would not only chill free speech, but also unwittingly separate Jews from others who face racism in the United States today. While I heartily applaud most of Nadell's intervention, I push back against her acceptance of the IHRA definition, which is part of the problem with the symbolic politics that now circumscribes the debates about antisemitism and (anti-)Zionism. In doing so, I consider some of the ways in which the politics of anti-antisemitism exemplified in the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act finds itself split off from antiracism. I conclude with the suggestion that dampening down Judeophobia entails a rethinking of its entanglement with xenophobia, Islamophobia, and Negrophobia, but congruently with a reconsideration of intersectional approaches to racism.

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Responses to antisemitism and (anti-)Zionism are now part of a cultural code that distinguish the Left and the Right, the secular and the religious. What Anita Shapira once suggested about Israelis, I would contend is now a transnational phenomenon in the Western world. Reactions to antisemitism and anti-Zionism are "part of an ideological basket, tagging one's political membership."¹

Discourse about Israel and Zionism is now a wedge issue. For too many to the left of the Democratic Party's mainstream, hyping Israel's flaws and original sins is about virtue signaling; the Israeli or Zionist Other a foil for defining one's progressive values. For too many on the Right, defense of Israel and Zionism often reflexively leads to denigration of Israel's critics as antisemitic. Add to this mix that for the surging altright, the Jewish state is the vanguard of an ethno-religious nationalism to be copied elsewhere, even as this view sits paradoxically alongside conspiracy theories about Jewish global domination. Given the precipitous global rise in attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions, it becomes clear why many Jews feel isolated, caught in no-man's land. Once sure of American exceptionalism, post-Pittsburgh, Jews in America share the unease of their brethren elsewhere. What Shapira noted about Israelis is true of Jews generally: "The pendulum between existential anxiety and the dizziness of power are variations on a theme."² Campus politics have become a front line in this battle since these ideological and symbolic issues are starker in academia.

The result is a heightened surveillance of the academy by anti-antisemitic watchdog groups, including stalwarts like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, alongside even more alarmist newcomers like the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Brandeis Center, and AMCHA. A side effect of the politics of the gesture is that while the professed purpose of these groups is to monitor incidents of antisemitism and to defend Jewish students' rights, they may inadvertently help stoke new cases by giving activists a megaphone. This is because today every episode involving Jews, Israel, or Zionism on a high school or college campus is quickly turned into a struggle over defining antisemitism and measuring its depth and consequences.

Nadell acutely explains why the alarmism is unwarranted. While students are occasionally exposed to Judeophobia and there are explosive clashes on some campuses, this does not make them "hotbeds" of antisemitism. She presents the data about how the overwhelming majority of Jewish students feel safe on campus. She also recounts her clear-eyed experience about how campuses generally respond in most cases of racism, whatever form they may take, even as she rightly acknowledges that Jews must always remain vigilant given the history of antisemitism.

The hyperbolic response of watchdog organizations is constituted by several factors that are in direct contrast to the goal of damping down what Nadell aptly calls the "volume control" when it comes to Judeophobia. First, fundraising for advocacy organizations is connected to amplifying the fear. Second, while little can be done directly to effect the politics in Israel, skirmishes won on the home front...