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.)
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.
Jews have, for the past 100 years, overwhelmingly voted for Democratic presidential candidates. Still, there are some (including Trump) who believe he will fare better this year because of Israel and fear of rising antisemitism. If that is true, it will be deeply disappointing. By every metric I can see, he’s lying when he talks to and about Jews. He’s not going to be the “best friend”—or even a nice casual acquaintance—to Jews in the United States.
AdvertisementTrump has tried to position himself as the candidate who is tough on antisemitism. This is difficult to take seriously, given that he could not make it through an event on fighting antisemitism without preemptively blaming Jews for his potential electoral loss. He has also repeatedly said that Jews who do not vote for him are disloyal and “need to have their heads examined,” conditioning our worth as citizens and as Jews on our support for him. And he has pushed racist and xenophobic rhetoric and ideology that is........