A Columbia University task force set up to combat antisemitism on campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks is attempting to avoid one of the most contentious issues in university debates over the war: Its members have refused to settle on what the definition of “antisemitism” is.
Left-wing Jews often support the newer, Jerusalem Declaration definition, which takes a more tolerant approach toward criticism of Israel, including toward boycotts and sanctions of the Jewish state. Another definition, known as the Nexus Document, stands in the uneasy middle.
At Harvard and Stanford, antisemitism task force members have faced harsh criticism for not supporting the more sweeping definition; that tension was one reason the co-chair of the task force at Stanford decided to resign.
At Columbia, the task force chairs are trying to avoid falling into a similar trap. But fighting something without defining it could prove difficult.
“If you want to understand any issue and any problem, you need to have an understanding of what it is,” said Dov Waxman, an expert on antisemitism at UCLA. “You can’t count something if you’re not able to understand what it is.”
He recommended that the Columbia task force refer to more than one definition, as the Biden administration did last year in outlining its antisemitism strategy. The task force has not ruled out such a step, Mr. Lemann said.
