House Pass­es Bill To Cod­i­fy Def­i­n­i­tion Of Anti-Semi­tism

The GOP-led House passed a bill on Wednes­day to cod­i­fy a def­i­n­i­tion of anti-Semi­tism meant to guide enforce­ment of fed­er­al anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion laws con­cern­ing edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams — at a time when protests in response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza have sprung up at uni­ver­si­ties across the coun­try and spurred safe­ty con­cerns for Jew­ish stu­dents.
Near­ly three-quar­ters of the cham­ber, includ­ing 187 Repub­li­cans and 133 Democ­rats, vot­ed in favor of the Anti­semitism Aware­ness Act. Twen­ty-one Repub­li­cans and 70 Democ­rats vot­ed against the mea­sure. Nine mem­bers of each par­ty did not vote.
Intro­duced by Rep. Mike Lawler (R‑NY), the bill adopts the work­ing def­i­n­i­tion of anti-Semi­tism put for­ward by the Inter­na­tion­al Holo­caust Remem­brance Alliance (IHRA) that says anti-Semi­tism is “a cer­tain per­cep­tion of Jews, which may be expres …