For Immediate Release: January 29, 2025
Media Contact: [email protected], 212-213-2113 #501
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In response to President Trump’s reported executive order, supposedly aimed at combating antisemitism, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action CEO Jamie Beran issued the following statement:
“Donald Trump’s reported executive order’s stated goal is to address antisemitism, but in reality, it is an excuse to exploit real Jewish fear and trauma to enact authoritarian policies — policies that functionally make all Americans, including Jews, unsafe. It’s the latest cynical attempt by Republicans to use antisemitism and Jews as a tool to divide and attack their perceived enemies to further their dangerous authoritarian agenda.
Jews know from our history that policies limiting free speech and activism and targeting other marginalized communities have never kept Jewish people safe. Jewish safety depends on our freedom to dissent and our solidarity with other targeted groups — including Jews who belong to those groups. And we can only fight antisemitism in solidarity.
All antisemitism is harmful — no matter where it comes from — but this reported executive order doesn’t actually fight antisemitism. Functionally, this is an executive order to deport activists and attack all of our Constitutional rights to free speech. It’s an excuse to target, silence, and persecute even more immigrants — particularly Arab, Muslim and Palestinian immigrants — all disguised as a policy to promote Jewish safety.
The order also promotes the false premise that Jews and Israel are one entity. This idea reinforces the antisemitic ‘dual-loyalty’ trope. Jews feel many ways about Israel and Palestine, and the protests on college campuses have included and continue to include many Jewish participants.
Republicans claim to be the defenders of Jewish safety. Meanwhile, Trump and his allies continue to promote the racist, antisemitic ‘Great Replacement Theory’ — a conspiracy that has inspired the perpetrators of multiple mass murders of Jews, BIPOC communities, and immigrants. Trump’s fiscal sponsor, Elon Musk, made Holocaust jokes in response to criticism of his Nazi salute. Trump himself has called Jews who don’t support him ‘disloyal’ on many occasions and continues to earn high marks from white nationalists and neo-Nazis alike.
We call their strategy of deflection and extortion Smokescreen Antisemitism. We see through their attempts to divide us from our neighbors. We know that what Trump and Republicans are selling is a threat to our safety as Jews and the safety of all people living in the United States.
We strongly denounce this order and call on other Jewish institutions to do the same.”
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action is uniting a movement of tens of thousands of progressive Jews across the country who are fighting for justice and equality for all. We are the only national Jewish organization focused exclusively on social change in the United States.
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