How New Jersey failed the IHRA

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

That’s the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. It is not legally binding in those places that have accepted it; to a nonlawyer, reading it for its surface meaning, it seems bland.

But no.

More than 45 countries, including the United States, have accepted the definition, and so have 37 states and about 1,200 municipalities and other organizations.

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But not New Jersey. Legislators here, in the state with the third largest per capita number of Jews, and in 2024 the state with the largest number of antisemitic incidents per capita, have worked hard over the years, as we have chronicled in the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News, to get this definition passed. Most recently, it was close to passage — assumed certain to pass — in late June, only to fail. Again.

According to Jewish Insider, the bill was pulled because outgoing Governor Phil Murphy feared that supporting it would place Democrats at risk of being primaried by opponents to their left, who see it, despite its being only advisory and not, to repeat, legally binding, as inherently threatening to their right of free speech.

It seems likely that Mr. Murphy and other politicians would fear being pulled into debate about Israel, which has gone from being a feel-good to a wedge issue.

In response, 99 — that’s as of this writing, on Tuesday — rabbis from across the state have written a letter urging the governor to restart the process of getting the IHRA accepted.

The project would have to start anew because the state has both a newly inaugurated governor, Mikie Sherrill, and a new legislative session, its 222nd.

The rabbis come from across the state. Each has signed as an individual, representing only him or herself, not an organization, but there are Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis on the list.

The four who spearheaded it — Rabbi Daniel Cohen of South Orange, Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz of Short Hills, Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner of Closter, and Rabbi E. Samuel Klibanoff of Livingston — Reform, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox — all come from our two coverage areas.

Rabbi Cohen, speaking from a shul trip to Israel, recalled how upsetting it was when the bill failed last summer. “It finally came up for a vote in the state Assembly, from what we could see there were enough votes to pass, and then all of a sudden it was pulled,” he said. “The reporter from the Jewish Insider” — Marc Rod — “checked and double-checked and triple- checked the story” about Mr. Murphy pulling it to protect some legislators. But now he’s gone.

“Governor Sherrill indicated that if it comes to her desk, she’ll sign it,” Rabbi Cohen said. “Remember, it’s just guidance, not law. If it’s true that Governor Murphy pulled it for political considerations, that’s shocking. Basically what that says is that politics are more important than Jewish lives.

“At a time when antisemitism is expanding, is exploding all over the world, it’s a tool to help define antisemitism and so be able to talk about it. When you can define it, you can address it.

“We have to call on the new governor and the new Assembly to get it started again.

“We have to say, number one, don’t play politics with our safety. And number two, just bring it up and pass it. If you’re going to do something about antisemitism, if you’re going to stem its rise, if you look at what happened in Australia” — with the massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney during Chanukah — “and you look at what’s happening in Canada” — where antisemitic incidents are rising at an alarming rate — “and when you have governments that are just giving lip service to protecting their Jewish population, it just emboldens the haters. The numbers are staggering.

“We need leadership who clearly says that this is not acceptable.

“One of the things that is really striking to me is that right after October 7, there were some university presidents who came out immediately and made strong, clear statements about what would and would not be acceptable behavior. Those campuses tended to have fewer problems.

“Leadership matters, whether it’s on a campus or in the government. It really matters. Pulling the IHRA definition was a failure of leadership, at a time when we really need it.”

Israel used to be a safe issue, and antisemitism was unacceptable, at least in public. “The mere fact that signing this is politically risky shows how much the world has changed,” Rabbi Cohen said.

Rabbi Kirshner was similarly unimpressed with Governor Murphy’s failure to allow the bill to move forward.

“The point of the letter was to draw attention to the issue and hopefully to rattle the cages of our legislators and Governor Sherrill.

“This wasn’t her decision, of course. But the lobbyists and legislators did a lot of work over the last 18 months to bring this legislation to the finish line. We were there. We had the votes. It was going to happen.”

Then Governor Murphy stopped it.

“Rabbi Cohen put it best when he said that they’re playing politics with our lives,” Rabbi Kirshner said. “It was a silly and hurtful move by Governor Murphy. I’ve been disappointed in him. He didn’t go to Israel after October 7. There are a lot of Jews in New Jersey. Plenty of Israelis. Many other governors went.”

And Rabbi Kirshner added, “this legislation is important.” At least in part, it’s because Jews wrote the definition. “Can you imagine a group of men aged 50 to 70 deciding what misogyny is? A group of white people deciding what racism is? A group of straight people deciding what’s anti-LGBT?

“Meanwhile, we’re allowing groups like CAIR” — the Council on American-Islamic Relations — “to define what antisemitism is, because they want to demonize the State of Israel.

“We’re not going to stand for that.”

Rabbi Kirshner addressed the idea that the IHRA definition of antisemitism would keep people from “criticizing the democratically elected government of Israel.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “We have been criticizing the government of Israel within minutes after it was founded. If anyone thinks that if the definition is accepted, we can’t find a Ben-Gvir or Smotrich government problematic, is ridiculous.”

Rabbi Kirshner has a solution to the problem.

He believes that the process to accept the definition must begin again, although “the legwork has been done,” so it should go a bit faster than it did the last time. Still, the rules demand that with a new legislative session, consideration of bills must start from the beginning.

But, Rabbi Kirshner said, “an executive order by Governor Sherrill would put the IHRA in effect until the legislation can be brought back up and passed. That might take up to a year; until then, put an interim executive order in place, solidify this in the state, and move forward.

“That’s what I think could and should happen. I don’t want the definition to live only as an executive order.  I want it to be in place as a stopgap measure, as the legislative process moves forward.

“That way, Mikie Sherrill can solidify her role in the Jewish community. The overwhelming majority of the Jewish community is in favor of this legislation.

“And as for those who want to critique Israel’s current government, I’ll join you. But pass this legislation!”

There was one more related issue about which Rabbi Kirshner had strong feelings.

“The IHRA definition is not about free speech,” he said. “We know that everything that has freedom also has guardrails. We know that you’re not allowed to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded building, but if there really is a fire, we have an obligation to yell ‘fire.’

“We are not taking away people’s freedom to speak, but we’re also not allowing people to demonize Jews,” Rabbi Kirshner concluded. “We’re not allowing them to intimidate our kids on campus, to stop the Jewish state from existing, or to try to stop our right to be a part of society.”

Talking about the IHRA bill’s failure to advance, Rabbi Klibanoff said that “after everything we’ve all been through in the last two and a half years — really, for the last 2,000 years — this is very disheartening. It is disappointing, to say the least.

“In Livingston, we have our Rosie Bagolie” — that’s Assemblywoman Rosaura Bagolie, the Democrat representing Legislative District 27 — “who has been working tirelessly on getting this passed. We were so close to getting it passed, so to have it knocked  down as it was, for an extraneous reason, is adding insult to injury.”

He hopes that this is a setback, not an end to the fight.

“Governor Sherrill was my congresswoman for a bunch of years, so we have an established relationship already,” Rabbi Klibanoff said. “She has always stated her commitment to getting this passed. That’s what she has told us. I hope that’s still true.”

Former Lieutenant Governor Tahesha Way, who is running in the Democratic primary that will lead to the special election that will fill Governor Sherrill’s now-vacant Congressional seat, spoke in his synagogue, Congregation Etz Chaim, last week, Rabbi Klibanoff said. “She’s a lawyer, and she said that before she came to that conclusion, she discussed with fellow attorneys and judges to learn if they thought if could impinge free speech. The answer, she said, was absolutely not.

“The whole purpose of the IHRA is to create a definition of what is and what isn’t antisemitism.

“Given that 37 states already have adopted it, isn’t it a shame that our very large, very Jewishly populated state has not?”

One thing that all three rabbis, who all say that they’re good friends, agree is a positive result of the IHRA situation is how it brings them together across movement lines. They’re all Jewish together, they say. As is the fourth rabbi in this group, Matthew Gewirtz, who was in Israel and unable to talk when this story was written but agrees with his friends.