FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 5, 2025
Contact: Liv Kunins-Berkowitz | liv@jewishvoiceforpeace.org | 510-314-7660
JVP Action: Congress Hearing on Antisemitism Does Nothing for Jewish Safety, Advances Authoritarianism
Washington D.C. (March 5, 2025) — Jewish Voice for Peace Action is gravely concerned that the Trump administration and right-wing actors in Congress are using false accusations of antisemitism as a pretext to crush free speech and dissent in civil society and exert unprecedented control over American universities.
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing entitled Never To Be Silent: Stemming the Tide of Antisemitism in America. At a time when antisemitism is actively endorsed in the Republican party — as evidenced by Elon Musk and Steve Bannon’s recent Nazi salutes — the Republican senators leading this hearing have zero credibility in seriously addressing antisemitism. It is clear this hearing is political theater intended to attack the Palestinian rights movement as it works to end a genocide. Although it will do nothing to promote Jewish safety, it will expand authoritarian policies to dismantle civil liberties, and enable the MAGA Right to score cheap political points.
Members of Congress are dangerously and inaccurately conflating support for Palestinian freedom with antisemitism. This conflation allows for anti-Palestinian and anti-democratic actors to pretend to care about Jewish safety, while in reality working to silence those who protest for Palestinian human rights or other social justice causes.
Jewish Voice for Peace Action Political Director Beth Miller; Professor Barry Trachtenberg, Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University; and several Jewish college students are available to comment.
Beth Miller, Political Director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action:
“The Trump administration and its allies in Congress are operating under the guise of fighting antisemitism, while actually working to attack the Palestinian rights movement, universities, and civil liberties. Just yesterday, Trump doubled down on his plans to jail and deport anti-war student organizers, and to punish universities for allowing students to protest and exercise their civil liberties. It’s time for Congress to wake up and start fighting back.”
Barry Trachtenberg, Presidential Chair of Jewish History at Wake Forest University, Member of Jewish Voice for Peace Academic Advisory Council:
“These false accusations of antisemitism evacuate the term of its meaning precisely at the time when real antisemitism is dramatically rising, including from leaders like Elon Musk and Steve Banon. Distorting the meaning of antisemitism and making Jews the face of a campaign to crush free speech is deeply dangerous to Jewish Americans and all of us who work for collective liberation.”
Hershel Barnstein, University of Maryland, Class of 2025
“Hearings like this will set a precedent that allows for authoritarian attacks on any group that opposes the MAGA agenda. As a Jewish student, I refuse to allow my identity to be fuel for fascist crackdown on my fellow students.”
Ellie Baron, Bryn Mawr College, Class of 2025
“It is essential we continue working to dismantle real antisemitism while also defending our friends and community members who are falsely accused of antisemitism. The only way forward is through forging greater solidarity with all people who are targeted by fascism and supremacist ideologies, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism.”
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JVP Action is an independent, non-partisan, 501(c)(4) political and advocacy sibling organization of Jewish Voice for Peace. It is a multiracial, intergenerational movement of Jews and allies working towards justice and equality for Palestinians and Israelis by transforming U.S. policy.