by Emily Tamkin in Slate.
The Heritage Foundation—the same group that dreamed up Project 2025—has a plan that is ostensibly intended to fight antisemitism called Project Esther. The proposal suggests that the federal government go after “virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American groups,” which it calls the “Hamas Support Network.” The plan suggests using immigration laws, counterterrorism laws, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law successfully used against organized crime.
Project Esther suggests using these methods to pursue, among others, Jewish Voice for Peace, a leftist, anti-Zionist Jewish group. It does not address white supremacy or antisemitism from the right. It accuses American Jews of “complacency.” A dozen groups came together to make Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, but only one of them, the conservative Coalition for Jewish Values, is Jewish. Heritage is not alone in a fight against antisemitism that attacks and overlooks Jews: As the Forward has noted, the America First Policy Institute’s writings on antisemitism include the charge that “Christians are certainly the larger target” to “woke ideology.” (Again, this was in a policy paper on antisemitism.)
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In a way, Project Esther offers a neat encapsulation of what Donald Trump is offering American Jews for his second term: policies and pronouncements that claim to be in the name of Jews but won’t actually benefit us, and will likely cause us harm.
The rest of the piece is equally terrible, but it’s good coverage and indicates why our work is so critical.
Image credit: Gage Skidmore on Flickr.