What is to be done about the anti-Semitism that seems to be bursting forth everywhere? Discussions often run aground on the problems of protecting freedom of speech and making fine distinctions between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. But Yuval Levin explains that these aren’t, in fact, particularly intricate problems and, moreover, that there are clearcut policy solutions:

The students left to cower in their dorms at Cornell or the New Jersey residents vaguely warned by federal officials to “take all security precautions to protect your community” . . . could tell you that the problem is not speech but hateful intimidation. The boundaries between the two are not unexplored in our laws. They can sometimes be vague, and in those instances, some balance must be sought between rights of expression and the imperative of physical security. But they are often not vague at all. The states and the federal government have statutes in place to protect Americans subjected to terror tactics and hate crimes. Yet anti-Semitism can sometimes fall between the cracks of such laws, and of their enforcement.

This is in part because . . . contemporary left-wing anti-Semitism so often treats Israel as its subject but American Jews as its object. Concerns about it are frequently dismissed because its practitioners insist they are criticizing a foreign government, not fellow Americans. Yet their criticism is not a policy argument but a denial of Israel’s right to exist on the basis of its Jewish character, and they themselves plainly behave as though that message should have implications for Jews in America.

In this respect, anti-Zionism is not about geopolitics; it is about Jews. It is generally easy to distinguish from criticism of the particular actions of any Israeli government, and all the more so when it is attached to the intimidation of particular Americans on the basis of their Jewish identity.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.