called 'bad Jews' for their activism
At Columbia University, a group of Jewish faculty members who supported Gaza protests are filing claims with a federal antisemitism fund, arguing that they were harassed and branded 'bad Jews' for their political views — a challenge that forces a reckoning with who holds the authority to define Jewish identity, and whether the very language of protection can be turned into an instrument of conformity. Their case arrives at a moment when American Jewish life is visibly fractured over Gaza, and when the boundaries between political disagreement and identity-based harm have become genuinely difficult to draw. What they are asking, at its core, is whether antisemitism can flow inward as well as outward — and whether federal policy is prepared to answer that question.
- Jewish faculty at Columbia who backed Gaza protests say they were not merely criticized but harassed — called 'bad Jews,' professionally isolated, and pushed to the margins of their own community for holding dissenting views.
- Their decision to file with a Trump administration antisemitism fund designed for external threats creates an immediate institutional tension: the fund was built to defend Jews from outside attack, not to adjudicate disputes within Jewish life itself.
- The claims expose a fault line in American Jewish identity politics, where criticism of Israeli government policy is increasingly conflated with antisemitism — a rhetorical move that these faculty argue was used against them as a weapon of silencing.
- Columbia has become a pressure cooker where administrators, donors, students, and faculty are all pulling in different directions, leaving little room for the nuance that cases like this demand.
- If the fund accepts these claims, it sets a precedent that intra-community identity-based harassment qualifies for federal protection; if it rejects them, it effectively rules that Jews cannot commit antisemitism against other Jews — either outcome reshapes campus speech policy going forward.
At Columbia University, a group of Jewish faculty members who publicly supported Gaza protests have begun filing claims with a federal antisemitism fund established by the Trump administration. Their move centers on a pointed question: can antisemitism be wielded against Jews themselves, as a tool to enforce political conformity?
The faculty describe being called 'bad Jews' — a phrase that implies their activism disqualified them from authentic Jewish identity. The harassment went beyond argument. Colleagues distanced themselves. Professional relationships broke. Some faculty found themselves isolated within the very community whose identity they share. What they experienced, they argue, was not mere disagreement but identity-based attack.
The fracture they are exposing runs deep in American Jewish life. Not all Jewish Americans hold the same views on Gaza. Some oppose Israeli military operations. Some advocate for Palestinian rights. Yet when these faculty spoke publicly, they encountered a rhetorical move that collapses those distinctions — treating criticism of Israeli policy as hatred of Jews, and therefore as proof of being a deficient Jew oneself.
The Trump administration's antisemitism fund was designed to address threats from outside Jewish communities — hate crimes, discrimination, conspiracy theories. These Columbia faculty are asking it to do something different: to recognize that antisemitism can be deployed from within, as a mechanism to police political speech among people who share the same heritage.
That request creates genuine tension. Antisemitism carries a long and serious history of real harm, and the term can also be weaponized in political disputes to delegitimize opponents. The faculty argue both things happened to them simultaneously — real harassment rooted in their identity, used to silence their political voice.
What happens next carries consequences beyond one university. If the fund accepts these claims, it establishes that intra-community identity-based harassment can qualify for federal protection even within political disagreement. If it rejects them, it signals that antisemitism, as a matter of law and policy, is something that only arrives from the outside. Either answer will shape how campuses, institutions, and communities navigate the increasingly entangled relationship between identity, politics, and the language of protection.
At Columbia University, a group of Jewish faculty members who publicly supported Gaza protests have begun filing claims with a federal antisemitism fund established by the Trump administration. Their move raises a sharp question about who gets to define antisemitism—and whether the label can be weaponized against Jews themselves for holding unpopular political views.
These faculty members say they were targeted with a particular kind of attack: they were called "bad Jews" for their activism. The phrase carries weight. It suggests that supporting Palestinian causes disqualifies someone from authentic Jewish identity, that there is a correct way to be Jewish and they had chosen wrong. The harassment they describe went beyond disagreement. Colleagues distanced themselves. Professional relationships fractured. Some faculty members report feeling isolated within their own community.
The claims filed with the antisemitism fund highlight a fracture running through American Jewish life that campus activism has made impossible to ignore. Not all Jewish Americans support the same policies toward Gaza. Some oppose Israeli military operations. Some advocate for Palestinian rights. Some believe both things can be true at once: that antisemitism is real and dangerous, and that criticism of Israeli government actions is legitimate. Yet when these faculty members spoke up, they encountered a rhetorical move that conflates the three—that to criticize Israeli policy is to hate Jews, and therefore to be a bad Jew oneself.
The Trump administration's antisemitism fund was created to address external threats to Jewish communities. The fund typically addresses attacks from outside the Jewish community—hate crimes, conspiracy theories, discrimination. What these Columbia faculty are doing is different. They are asking the fund to recognize that antisemitism can come from within, that it can be deployed by other Jews as a tool to police political conformity. They are asking the fund to see harassment rooted in ethnic and religious identity as antisemitic even when the harassers and the harassed share the same heritage.
This creates a genuine tension. Antisemitism is a real phenomenon with a long history of real harm. But the term can also become a cudgel in political disputes, a way to delegitimize opponents by questioning their moral standing. The Columbia faculty are arguing that what happened to them was both: they experienced real harassment rooted in their Jewish identity, and that harassment was deployed to silence their political speech.
The university itself has been a flashpoint for these debates. Campus protests over Gaza have been intense and sometimes chaotic. Administrators have faced pressure from multiple directions—from students and faculty demanding divestment, from donors and alumni demanding crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speech, from Jewish students and faculty reporting feeling unsafe. In that pressure cooker, nuance tends to evaporate. You are either with us or against us. You either support Israel or you support antisemitism. You are either a good Jew or a bad one.
What happens next matters beyond Columbia. If the antisemitism fund recognizes these claims, it would establish a precedent: that intra-community harassment rooted in identity can qualify for federal protection, even when it occurs in the context of political disagreement. It would suggest that the fund's scope extends not just to defending Jews against external enemies, but to mediating disputes within Jewish life itself. Alternatively, if the fund rejects these claims, it sends a different message—that antisemitism, as a legal and policy matter, is something that happens to Jews from the outside, not something Jews can do to each other.
The Columbia faculty are not asking for much, in one sense. They want their harassment recognized. They want the record to show that they were targeted because of their Jewish identity, even though their politics were deemed unacceptable. They want the same protection extended to them that would be extended to any Jewish person facing identity-based attack. What makes their case difficult is that it forces a reckoning with how identity and politics have become entangled, and how the language of protection can become a language of control.
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Faculty members describe being called 'bad Jews' for their activism and facing professional isolation within their own community— Columbia faculty filing antisemitism claims
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why would Jewish faculty members file antisemitism claims against other Jews? Doesn't that dilute what antisemitism actually means?
That's the tension they're naming. They're saying antisemitism doesn't stop being antisemitism just because it comes from someone who shares your identity. Being called a "bad Jew" for your politics is still an attack rooted in your Jewishness.
But couldn't someone argue they were just disagreeing with their politics, not attacking their identity?
They could argue that. But these faculty describe something more targeted—isolation, professional consequences, the message that supporting Palestinian rights makes you less authentically Jewish. That's not just disagreement.
What does the Trump antisemitism fund normally do?
It addresses external threats—hate crimes, conspiracy theories, discrimination from outside the Jewish community. What's novel here is asking it to recognize harassment that comes from within.
So this could set a precedent?
Exactly. It could expand what antisemitism funding covers—or it could clarify that the fund is meant for external threats only. Either way, it's a test of how we define and protect against identity-based harm.
What's at stake for Columbia specifically?
The university is caught between pressure from multiple sides. These claims suggest that even the people trying to navigate that pressure carefully—faculty who are both Jewish and pro-Palestinian rights—are being pushed out. That's a campus speech problem.