Can the Biden Administration Define Anti-Semitism?

One answer is affirmed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, a group of 35 countries (including the U.S.). The IHRA defines the term as “rhetorical and physical manifestations” of hatred toward Jews. Defacing synagogues and cemeteries, harassing people wearing Jewish religious symbols and, at the extreme, assaulting or murdering people because they are Jewish are examples. These kinds of incidents have been rising in the U.S. and elsewhere.

But another expression of anti-Semitism has recently grown more common, especially in higher education and parts of popular culture. It takes forms such as Holocaust denial or minimization, comparing Israeli policies to those of the Nazis, and denying the Jewish people “their right to self-determination” by claiming that Israel is a “racist endeavor.” According to the Amcha Initiative, a nonprofit focusing on campus hostilities, these kinds of attacks on “Jewish identity” occurred during the 2021-22 academic year at 60% of schools with large populations of Jewish students.

The IHRA’s definition, which includes both types of anti-Semitism. is widely endorsed by governments and numerous private organizations. But it isn’t legally binding. Even so, in 2019 the Trump administration issued an executive order aimed at extending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to cover discrimination “rooted in anti-Semitism.” It called on federal agencies to “consider” using IHRA’s definition while keeping in…