Antisemitism and the Attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

This strategy has direct, real-world consequences. State laws banning so-called diversity, equity and inclusion explicitly forbid teaching that racism is embedded in American society. At the same time, these laws mandate Holocaust education while prohibiting discussion of the systemic racism that shaped it . This contradiction forces educators into an impossible position: teaching about Nazi policies without acknowledging how they were influenced by Jim Crow laws in the US. Even more broadly: teaching about systemic hatred without recognizing the system itself.

Imagine a history teacher teaching about the Holocaust. In attempting to show how the leaders of Nazi Germany studied US Jim Crow laws, they would risk violating these new state restrictions. If they further connected this history to modern voter suppression efforts in those same states, they could find themselves punished with dismissal or civil litigation – much like pulling the Monopoly” Go to Jail” card.

There’s nothing new about these divide-and-conquer tactics. One of the oldest antisemitic strategies is to position Jews as a buffer between the ruling class and marginalized communities — ensuring that public frustration is redirected toward Jewish communities rather than those in power .

This played out in Tsarist Russia, where pogroms were unleashed to deflect economic grievances away from the monarchy and onto Jewish villages. A similar pattern emerged during the McCarthy era in the US, when Jewish intellectuals and activists were disproportionately

targeted as alleged communist threats. By singling out Jewish figures in leftist movements, the government created a wedge between Jewish and non-Jewish organizers, in the process weakening multiracial resistance to state repression.

Today, President Trump and his enablers are deploying the same strategy: using Jewish fears, some deeply valid, to push Jewish leaders into a reactionary stance that isolates them from other communities still battling racism and bigotry, their most natural allies.

It is a cynical ploy, but hardly a surprising one. After all, the president has boosted the claim that some Jews view him as “The King of Israel” while simultaneously laying claim to Gaza as his next real estate venture. Fulfilling campaign promises, Trump has called for the arrest and deportation of students involved in pro-Palestinian protests and has threatened, sometimes successfully, to pull federal funding from universities accused of failing to protect Jewish students. But state surveillance and censorship do not equal safety. What would protect Jewish communities is the same thing that protects all communities: real, sustained, accountable partnerships across lines of race, faith, and identity. The president will never build those partnerships because they would threaten his power.

Antisemitism doesn’t wait for democracy to collapse. It accelerates it. And no single community can hold the line alone. Protection, real and lasting protection, comes when no group is left to face hate in isolation.