Antisemitism bill vote canceled

Last Monday, June 23, minutes before a scheduled hearing, the New Jersey Assembly’s Community Development and Women’s Affairs Committee canceled a vote on a proposed bill to codify a state definition of antisemitism based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition.

The IHRA standard is widely recognized and has been endorsed by 46 countries, 37 U.S. states, and more than 1,200 organizations, municipalities, and universities worldwide, according to a statement released by the CEOs of the five New Jersey Jewish federations on Tuesday. The statement expressed dismay about the cancellation and announced a walkout from the hearing by Jewish community advocates in protest.

Jason Shames, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, had planned to speak in support of the bill at the hearing. “It clearly defines hate, bias, intimidation, harassment, toward Jews, no matter what the context is, and here in New Jersey in particular, the opponents of it have been really oppressing the Jewish community,” Mr. Shames said. “And so by passing IHRA, there’ll be consequences for that conduct. It makes it clear what antisemitism is and holds people to that standard.”

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The proposal does not curtail free speech as opponents have argued, he added. “If you want to stand on a soapbox in a park and critique the Israeli government, go ahead. But if you start harassing someone because they’re Jewish, that’s not okay. That’s not a difference of opinion. That’s not a free speech matter. That’s attacking us because of our identity. That’s antisemitism.

“We were told that after a lot of delays, and a lot of editing of the language, the bill was going to be up for a vote,” Mr. Shames continued. “The hearing was supposed to start at 10 o’clock, and at about 10 o’clock, I was told by Gary Schaer and Rosy Bagolie,” the Assembly members who had introduced the bill, “that it was being pulled for a vote and the hearing was only for discussion purposes.

“I was livid and offended and concerned,” Mr. Shames said. “Everyone knows what’s going on statistically with antisemitic incidents and bias crimes. The numbers are crazy. We’ve been talking to elected officials for a while. So why am I going to have to raise all these issues yet again, without it going anywhere? And so I made a decision that I was going to make it clear to this particular committee that I was not going to be a part of a charade anymore, that Jews were tired of this being delayed and being discussed, that we demanded action, and I wasn’t going to participate and be a part of that process.

“I believe that Jews need this law to protect ourselves because our enemies are overly aggressive, and there needs to be accountability and responsive action. And so when I sat down in front of the committee and I got the mic, I threw out what I was going to say. Instead I said, ‘I’m not going to be a part of this.’ I asked everyone on the pro side of the IHRA bill to join me in walking out, and almost everybody did.

“I’m tired. As a leader of the Jewish community, and representing 125,000 people living in Jewish households, I don’t want to have to make the case anymore for why we need protection and why we need different laws. I want action taken. That’s it. Everything else is noise and a delay.

“I was not going to sit there and amuse the committee and the opponents of the bill for no reason. I feel like everybody in that room, including the anti-IHRA block, knows the statistics. And I don’t have to sit there, and I don’t think the Jewish community needs to sit there, and explain why we’re asking to be protected. It’s ridiculous. I don’t believe any other racial or ethnic group would have to do that. If it were any other group, it would have been done a long time ago. We don’t understand why the state with the fourth largest number of Jews has to fight bitterly and aggressively to get this done, when it’s simply the right thing to do.”

Mr. Shames is optimistic that the bill will be passed. “The case for strong antisemitism legislation is rooted in actual data, and some elected assemblymen and women are going to have to have the conviction to support the data,” he said. He also pointed to the strength of the Jewish voting bloc. “I think that the state Legislature has to understand that there are over 600,000 Jews in this state, and so the elected officials should pay more attention to that.”

The bill lists three sponsors and 55 co-sponsors in the 80-person Assembly, he added, so almost three-quarters of Assembly members have signed on. “There have been a lot of discussions about how to get this back on track, Mr. Shames concluded. “This week has been a whirlwind. I’ve had a lot of support from elected officials about this. And so I think whatever I did on Monday, apparently people did notice it, so hopefully if it propels us forward, then I’ll know my gut on that was correct and it was a chance I had to take.”

Linda Scherzer, who directs the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest, was also deeply disappointed by the cancelled vote. The five Jewish Federations of New Jersey “have been working collaboratively for a long time to get this bill posted and passed, and so we, like every Jew in the state of New Jersey, have a deep vested interest in seeing the bill passed,” she said.

“There seems to be a sense among opponents of the bill that if we win, they lose, and they are not understanding the practical intent of this bill,” she continued. “The bill addresses the fact that antisemitism has risen exponentially in the state. It does not prevent criticizing Israel or Israeli government policy.”

Last June, a New Jersey Senate committee passed a similar bill following a hearing that was originally scheduled to be held in person but was moved to Zoom at the last minute due to security concerns. “The state capitol police said that they were concerned about possible public violence,” Ms. Scherzer said. “There were going to be hundreds of people, both pro and against this bill, and the capitol police said this cannot be held in person. I was outraged that the people that we call our neighbors, the people who we live with in this state, had allegedly threatened violence.”

A lot of the testimony at that Zoom hearing focused on the war in Gaza, Ms. Scherzer continued. “After delivering my testimony, I reflected on it, and I thought, if I could do this all over again, I would probably spend at least half my time speaking to the opponents” of the bill who were talking about what Israel was doing rather than the bill in question. She wanted to tell them that “it doesn’t have to be that one side wins and one side loses. We’re neighbors. We need to sit down and talk to each other. This is a nuanced conversation. It is a complicated war, obviously. And it was just outrageous to me that they were not recognizing the outrageous forms of harassment and bullying” happening at Rutgers and other universities.

Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter chairs the Community Development and Women’s Affairs Committee. In response to a text asking why the vote was canceled at the last minute and if or when she anticipated the proposal being brought to a vote, she responded that “[t]he Assembly has the authority to allow a Discussion on Bills as a first step for any Committee to hear from the communities and constituencies impacted by legislation.  The hearing was the first time the bill was heard in any Assembly Committee.”

Assemblyman Schaer, the bill’s author, was not consulted on the decision to cancel the vote. “As the author of the bill, I have certain rights and privileges, and that is that before the bill can be modified in any way, shape, or form, I have to be agreeable to it,” Mr. Schaer said. “And I was never queried about anything. So it’s a bit more unusual than I’ve ever seen in my 20 years in the Assembly, and I’m not familiar with anyone who’s ever seen anything like it either.

“I received no communication in advance,” Mr. Schaer continued. “I found out when I walked into the hearing room. Assemblywoman Sumter asked for a moment of my time. She said that she and the speaker,” Assemblyman Craig Coughlin, “had concluded that the bill did not have necessary support to pass.” Mr. Schaer asked how that was possible since 57 Assembly members were listed as sponsors or co-sponsors and was told that “‘the speaker likes to do everything with 41 Democratic votes and not be in any way reliant on the Republicans. Well, that’s all well and good, but you’ve got to have a buy-in to that, and I would have preferred looking for Republican support. The bill clearly has bipartisan support. And probably 25 to 30 Democrats had signed on.

“Mr. Coughlin shared with me that on that occasion he was afraid that it would cause massive demonstrations at the State House, and that our state troopers might not be able to protect the building or the occupants in such a case,” Mr. Schaer added. “I couldn’t comment on that. I’m not that familiar with the capabilities of the State Police and how many of them there are, although I think it’s 3,000, and that to me could pretty much control any kind of a crowd, but that’s beyond my pay grade.

“I mentioned to him that seems to be the price of democracy, right? It’s a hefty price, but it’s one that one willingly pays.”

Going forward, Mr. Schaer thinks that if the Jewish community gets more involved in advocating for the bill and in the election process, it might see its concerns better addressed. “They should make their voices heard more,” he said. “We say that about every group. They should be reaching out to their representatives and letting them know how they feel about everything. That’s why the representatives are representatives.

“America’s greatness is based upon its people, and when its people exercise what for us is fundamental, and that is the right to vote, to choose representation. These are things that are important. So it’s pretty clear what we need to be doing. We need to stop being apologetic for being who we are. I’m a Jew. I’m not any better than anyone else, but I’m certainly not any worse.”

Mr. Schaer estimates that there were “several hundred members of the Arab community” at last Monday’s meeting. If in addition to the Jewish organizational leaders who attended, there were a thousand individual community members, “that might make a difference.”