There’s a wave of new bills to define antisemitism. In these 3 states, they could become law

Lawmakers in more than a half-dozen U.S. states are pushing laws to define antisemitism, triggering debates about free speech and bringing complicated world politics into statehouses. “For anybody that didn’t think that anti-Zionism could cross into antisemitism, the rest of the world could see that it had,” said Democratic Rep. Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of Georgia’s Legislature and one of the sponsors of a bill that the state Legislature passed last week. A coalition of organizations, including Jewish Voice for Peace and CAIR, issued a joint statement saying that the Georgia bill “falsely equates critiques of Israel and Zionism with discrimination against Jewish people.” Measures using the same definition of antisemitism — but in anti-discrimination laws — have advanced in legislative chambers in Indiana and South Dakota. “This bill is entirely about conduct — adverse or unequal treatment that’s prohibited in state law,” said South Dakota state Rep. Fred Deutsch, a Republican whose father was a Holocaust survivor. Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, a Democrat of Palestinian descent, said that the definition, when adopted by colleges, has stifled students’ right to free speech.