How antisemitism is sweeping California – Latest News
Antisemitism has reached alarming ranges within the United States, and California, which prides itself on tolerance, is no exception. It has reached almost each main neighborhood. A narrative from Davis, California, illustrates the issue.
The first time I visited Davis was in May 2025. I used to be invited to handle Jewish college students at UC Davis, and anticipated a quiet, innocuous go to to a college city.
Instead, I walked into one thing completely totally different.
The Jewish college students I met spoke in hushed tones about how they had been afraid to be overtly Jewish on campus. Faculty members confided that they had been reluctant to talk out. And members of the native Jewish neighborhood made it clear that they really feel deserted by the very establishments which can be supposed to guard them.
Antisemitism has reached alarming ranges within the United States, and California, which prides itself on tolerance, is no exception. AP
Earlier this 12 months, a UC Davis professor who had publicly threatened “Zionist journalists” and their households retained her place regardless of widespread outrage.
But hatred has unfold past campus — dressed up within the language of so-called social justice.
The City of Davis Human Relations Commission produced what it calls the “MAPA Report” earlier this 12 months. The report focuses on the native experiences of Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, and their “allies” (therefore the acronym).
On the floor, it sounds cheap enough. After all, each neighborhood deserves to really feel secure, revered, and heard.
But in case you learn the report, a chilling sample begins to emerge. This is not a doc about defending a weak neighborhood. It is a doc that singles out one other, far more weak one.
The report constantly and systematically casts the Jewish neighborhood — notably these related to Israel or Zionism — not as a minority in need of safety, however as a major source of hurt.
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The report incorporates, with out problem or qualification, a sequence of excessive and inflammatory claims about Jews and “Zionists,” presenting these unsubstantiated claims as legit testimony somewhat than biased assertions.
The report contains a grievance about “Zionist intimidation and the cowardice of others to stand up to Zionist fascism.”
Another remark within the report claims that Davis is being influenced by “a small group of ultra-nationalist and supremacist Jews who were creating havoc for the city.”
Imagine, for a second, if a city-sponsored report included comparable language about another minority group. It could be rightly dismissed as bigoted. Here, it is offered as insight.
The most troubling aspect of all is the report’s repeated reliance on the idea of the “weaponization of antisemitism.” This is not offered as a contested declare or as one perspective amongst many. It is embedded as a central concept.
Think about what which means. If antisemitism is a “weapon,” then those that report it should not victims — they’re the villains. And if raising awareness about antisemitism is itself suspect, then antisemitism turns into, by definition, not possible to show.
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It is a basic rhetorical entice — and as soon as this concept is formally adopted by an official physique, it turns into one thing far more harmful: A coverage framework.
And that is precisely the place this is heading. Because this report is not simply descriptive — it is prescriptive. It lays the groundwork for coaching applications and civic insurance policies primarily based on a newly constructed idea of “Anti-Palestinian Racism,” a framework that dangers equating help for Israel — and even expressions of Jewish id tied to Israel — with bigotry.
To make issues worse, the method that produced this report solely deepens the priority.
There was no severe use of police knowledge. No engagement with college or faculty district information. No significant response to Jewish communal organizations — together with Hillel, Chabad, and regional Jewish management — all of whom formally objected to the report.
We’ve seen this playbook earlier than — in Canada, in components of Europe, and more and more throughout North America. Redefine the phrases. Blur the strains. And then institutionalize the new, hateful narrative.
But right here’s the half that ought to alarm everybody, not simply Jews: this isn’t occurring on the fringes. It’s occurring in Davis — a metropolis that prides itself on being educated, considerate, and morally severe.
If this may occur in Davis, the place can’t it occur?
You don’t fight one type of prejudice by encouraging one other.
You don’t construct inclusion by scapegoating a minority.
And you actually don’t promote justice by distorting actuality.
The hazard is not theoretical. According to latest reporting within the Sacramento Bee, the Davis City Council is now weighing whether or not to undertake suggestions stemming from the MAPA report, amid sharp objections from native Jewish organizations and vital division within the neighborhood.
What started as a commission examine has rapidly turn into a stay political battle — one that may decide whether or not the town formally endorses the framework it incorporates.
The query is whether or not these in positions of management could have the braveness to say, “Enough is enough.”
Rabbi Pini Dunner is the senior rabbi at Beverly Hills Synagogue.
