The Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther is dedicated to damming the flood.
By Adam Turner, JNS
Antisemitism is an increasingly explosive and dangerous problem in the West, including in the United States. To deal with this challenge, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative nonprofit, has established Project Esther and an associated task force, of which the Zionist Organization of America is a member.
It is important to understand the vast scope of the problem. In the year since Oct. 7, 2023, the Anti-Defamation League has recorded more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the United States. Among those recorded confrontations were:
- A radical Muslim antisemitic college professor murdered an elderly, 69-year-old Jewish pro-Israel supporter.
- Teen antisemites rampaged through the halls of a New York high school—for nearly two hours—simply because they discovered a teacher had attended a pro-Israel rally. This mob forced the terrified educator to hide in a locked office as they tried to push their way into her classroom.
- In New York City, antisemites attacked a kosher restaurant multiple times, screaming obscenities, throwing objects and intimidating customers.
- At Harvard University, “Jewish students on campus have been subjected to a really hostile environment in which they have been intimidated, harassed and in some instances physically assaulted because they’re Jewish.”
- In Philadelphia, a group of antisemitic protesters rioted outside of an Israeli-style falafel shop, prompting the Biden White House and Josh Shapiro, the Democrat governor of Pennsylvania, to decry the attack.
- In Los Angeles, a violent mob descended on a synagogue, intent on intimidating worshippers. Masked and keffiyeh-clad goons maced and pepper-sprayed members of the local community while police, reportedly instructed not to intervene by city officials, looked on.
- In Washington, D.C., antisemites trespassed into the U.S. Congress and screamed antisemitic slogans before being arrested for obstructing the legislative process.
- In Washington D.C., the Char Bar, a kosher restaurant, was vandalized on the 86th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in Europe.
Some of these incidents were organized by the National Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine and/or Jewish Voice for Peace, among other far-left groups. Several of these organizations have received funding from nonprofits like the Open Society Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund or the Tides Foundation. The vast majority of antisemitic acts in the United States come from those on the left of the political spectrum.
The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee recently produced a report that detailed many other, often shocking, acts of antisemitism by left-wing groups on college campuses. Because these groups are left-wing, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, reportedly downplayed the incidents and even advised college presidents not to meet with Republicans in Congress on this issue. If colleges are incubators of antisemitic attacks, then they are also going to be propaganda mills for producing antisemitic educational content and force-feeding it to otherwise unsuspecting American college students.
Nevertheless, some deluded Jewish Americans have chosen to downplay the exploding problem of antisemitism on the political left and to blacken the name and motives of those, including the Heritage Foundation and other groups supporting Project Esther. They and their allies should be called out for their bad-faith promotion of such ridiculous and dishonest propaganda.
What the Heritage Foundation and other groups are doing is quite necessary. Project Esther will provide a blueprint to counter antisemitism in the United States and ensure the security and prosperity of all Americans. Heritage has created a National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism to lead a coalition to dismantle the infrastructure that sustains these left-wing groups and the antisemitic violence they inspire in the United States of America. This task force hopes to end this violence within 12 to 24 months.
The fact is that not all of the participants of this task force are Jewish; in fact, a majority of them are not. This is a great strength when dealing with antisemitism. After all, most antisemites are not Jewish.
Certainly, more Jewish Americans and Jewish groups should join Project Esther, the task force and any other solid efforts being made to combat the increasing antisemitism being promoted in the United States by some left-wing groups.
But regardless of who is going to do it, something needs to be done.
From the biblical story of Esther, we, Jews and Christians, know that if we remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but the American Jewish family will perish.
Now is the time to do it. Full-scale “Jew-hunts” are occurring in Europe right now. No law of human nature says that can’t happen in the United States of America, too.