Letter from Scholars of the Holocaust, Jewish History, and Antisemitism Against the Adoption of the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism in New Jersey

The New Jersey term of the current Senate and General Assembly will conclude on Monday, January 12, 2026. Throughout this term, a coalition of Jews, Palestinians, and Muslims in New Jersey have been fighting against legislation that would enshrine the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism into New Jersey law. On Friday, January 9, Speaker of the New Jersey General Assemblyman Craig Coughlin decided not to move the bill up for a vote in the Assembly on the last day of the term, this Monday. There is now massive pressure on him, on New Jersey Senate President Nicholas Scutari, and on New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to bring the bill up for a vote. In this letter, scholars of the Holocaust, Jewish history, and Antisemitism outline the reasons for why the decision by Speaker Coughlin should be supported and the political, historical, and ethical problems that adopting the IHRA definition would entail.

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January 11, 2026

Dear New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Senate President Nicholas P. Scutari, and General Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin:

We are a group of scholars of the Holocaust, Jewish history, antisemitism, and related fields. Many of us are Jews, including Israeli Jews. We write to thank you for choosing not to move Bill A3558 to a vote in the current New Jersey General Assembly and Senate term. Your decision protected the constitutional rights of people who live and work in New Jersey and ensured that the important struggle against antisemitism is not marginalized in the name of silencing criticism of Israeli state policies and violence against Palestinians.

There is a large body of scholarship (for example) and public commentary that has exposed the many problems of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “working definition of antisemitism,” which serves as the basis of Bill A3558. We note here the obvious: 7 of its 11 examples focus on Israel, not on Jews. This flawed conflation of a people with a state is itself antisemitic, for it seems to confirm the antisemitic idea that ties all Jews—their interests and loyalties—not to the states where they are citizens but to a foreign power. The list of examples also includes one that tags as antisemitic any criticism of Israel as a racist state. This is absurd because charges of structural racism are a common critique of many states, including the United States. Americans have a First Amendment Right to criticize any state, including their own, and just as criticizing Russia’s racist occupation of Ukrainian territories is not the same as racist slander against Russians, criticizing Israel’s racist occupation of Palestinian territories is not the same as racist slander against Jews. Bill 3A558 would thus violate the constitutional rights of people who work and live in New Jersey.

The IHRA definition, furthermore, targets Jews for criticizing Israel, which is another absurdity, for Jews who criticize Israel often do so as a way to express their Jewish identity. There is, in fact, a long and rich history of Jews criticizing Zionism and Israel, which includes political and religious organizations and parties. Targeting Jews for the way they express themselves as Jews is very clearly not part of a struggle against antisemitism, but antisemitic itself. The state has no place to dictate to Jews how to express their Jewish identity. Doing so would violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act because it would subject Jews to harmful stereotypes about what constitutes “authentic” Jewish identity.

Finally, New Jersey already has strong antidiscrimination laws that protect all people who live and work in the state, including Jews. There is no need for legislation with a definition of antisemitism that, for the reasons mentioned above and many other reasons, has been hotly contested and rejected by many Jews in New Jersey, across the US, and around the world, including Israeli Jews. Indeed, Kenneth Stern, the American Jewish lawyer who drafted the document that served as the basis for the IHRA definition, is a vocal critic of its use in legislation to silence criticism of Israeli policies and violence against Palestinians.

The claim of Jewish Federations in New Jersey that they represent all Jews in the state is simply false. Many Jews in New Jersey are members of Jewish Voice for Peace in Northern New Jersey, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action in South Jersey, and other religious, cultural, and political Jewish organizations that have criticized and rejected the IHRA definition and the claim that any one organization or group represents all Jews. One of the reasons they do so is because they recognize the real danger of antisemitism today, which primarily stems, as it always has, from White supremacists and Christian nationalists on the right. The IHRA definition remains silent about this historical and contemporary source of antisemitic ideas, persecution, and violence. Many Jews in New Jersey know that legislation that will codify the IHRA definition into law will marginalize the real struggle against antisemitism, focusing attention on protecting a foreign state, Israel, from any criticism, rather than protecting Jews.

We thus congratulate you on your decision not to move Bill A3558 to a vote in the New Jersey General Assembly and Senate this term, and we urge you to remain committed to this decision also in the next term.

Sincerely,

Raz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in
the Study of Modern Genocide, Stockton University

Rebecca Alpert, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Temple University

Leora Auslander, Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor in the Departments of Race, Diaspora,
and Indigeneity and History, The University of Chicago

Omer Bartov, Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Brown University

Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History,
Emeritus, Stanford University

Peter Beinart, Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of
Journalism, City University of New York

Joel Berkowitz, Director of Jewish Studies and Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee

Shamma Boyarin, Assistant Professor of Religion, Culture and Society, University of Victoria
British Columbia

Renate Bridenthal, Professor (retired), Brooklyn College, CUNY

Judith Butler, Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School, UC Berkeley

Eric Cheyfitz, Ernest I. White Professor of American Studies and Humane Letters and Professor
of Native American and Indigenous Studies, Cornell University

Sarah Combellick-Bidney, Associate Professor of Political Science, Augsburg University

Jon Cox, Associate Professor, Department of Global Studies, and Director, Center for Holocaust,
Genocide, and Human Rights Studies, UNC Charlotte

Hasia R. Diner, Professor Emerita at the Departments of History and the Skirball Department of

Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

Michael J. Drexler, Professor of English, Bucknell University

Debórah Dwork, Director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes
Against Humanity at the Graduate Center—CUNY

Marjorie N. Feld, Professor of History, Babson College

Keith Feldman, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley

Emmaia Gelman, Director, Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism

Terri Ginsberg, Rutgers University, author of Holocaust Film: The Political Aesthetics of
Ideology

Shai Ginsburg, Chair, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University

Amos Goldberg, Associate Professor, Holocaust History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Atina Grossmann, Professor of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Cooper
Union, NY

Wolf Gruner, Shapell-Guerin Chair in Jewish Studies and Professor of History, University of
Southern California

Jean Halley, Professor of Sociology, Graduate Center and College of Staten Island of the City
University of New York

Marianne Hirsch, Professor Emerita, Comparative Literature and Gender Studies, Columbia
University

Brett Kaplan, Professor and Conrad Humanities Scholar in the Program in Comparative and
World Literature, and Director of the Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory
Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Marion Kaplan, Professor Emerita of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University

Shira Klein, Associate Professor and Chair of History, Chapman University

Susan S. Lanser, Professor Emerita of Humanities, Brandeis University

Nitzan Lebovic, Professor of History and Apter Chair of Holocaust Studies, Lehigh University

Mark LeVine, Department of History, UC Irvine

Laura S. Levitt, Professor of Religion, Jewish Studies, and Gender, Temple University

Charles H. Manekin, Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies (Emeritus), University of
Maryland

Atalia Omer, Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

Rosalind Petchesky, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Political Science, Hunter College & the
Graduate Center, City University of New York

Judith Plaskow, Professor Emerita, Manhattan College

Benjamin Robinson, Associate Professor of Germanic Studies, Indiana University Bloomington

Shira Robinson, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, George Washington
University

Penny Rosenwasser, City College of San Francisco

Doug Rossinow, Professor, Department of Ethnic, Gender, Historical, and Philosophical Studies,
Metro State University

Michael Rothberg, Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Holocaust Studies, UCLA

Cathy Lisa Schneider, Professor Emerita, School of International Service, American University

Joan W. Scott, Professor Emerita, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study,
Princeton

Victor Silverman, Emeritus Professor, Pomona College

Santiago Slabodsky, Florence and Robert Kaufman Chair in Jewish Studies, Hofstra University-
New York

Tamir Sorek, Liberal Arts Professor of History, Pennsylvania State University

Leo Spitzer, Vernon Professor of History Emeritus, Dartmouth College

Jessie Stoolman, Postdoctoral Researcher, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Estelle Tarica, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese/Jewish Studies, University of California,
Berkeley

Barry Trachtenberg, Rubin Presidential Chair of Jewish History, Wake Forest University

Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan

Max Weiss, Professor of History, Princeton University

Howard Winant, Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emeritus, University of California Santa
Barbara

Orian Zakai, Associate Professor of Hebrew Literature, George Washington University

Ran Zwigenberg, Professor of Asian Studies, Jewish Studies, and History, Pennsylvania State
University