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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Jan. 31 signed a bill defining antisemitism in state law, a victory for proponents who saw a similar effort fizzle during the 2023 legislative session.
The win could be viewed as bittersweet, as the measure’s easy passage this year can be traced to a tragic series of events that has drastically altered the geopolitical scenario.
Groups monitoring hate speech against Jews tracked a marked increase in the weeks and months after Israel invaded Gaza to depose Hamas in the wake of brutal Oct. 7 terror attacks in which the group’s militants killed more than 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than 250.
Mr. Kemp made note of this “troubling rise” in anti-semitic incidents, especially in Georgia, in remarks during a signing ceremony at the State Capitol.
“These acts of hatred have taken on many forms, including harassment, intimidation, and even violence. Georgia has not been immune to that horrible reality,” the governor said in a statement. “Our Jewish citizens have experienced hate in the form of antisemitic flyers spread across neighborhoods, messages on social media calling for the death of Jews in Israel and around the world and even hateful gatherings outside synagogues.”
With many lawmakers eager to show solidarity with Israel during the ongoing war, House Bill 30 passed overwhelmingly — 129-5 in the House and 44-6 in the Senate. The bill references the working definition put forth by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which the U.S., Israel, and many other countries have endorsed. It instructs state agencies to consider the definition in weighing whether actions should be viewed as discriminatory.
Mr. Kemp framed the bill as a follow-on to historic hate crimes legislation Georgia passed in 2020 in the wake of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. That law allows for heightened penalties for crimes deemed to be motivated by discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, color, religion, national origin, mental disability, or physical disability.
Opponents of H.B. 30, including the Georgia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, worry that the bill would equate criticism of the state of Israel with hate speech.
CAIR’s leaders, who have regularly joined the Jewish community in condemning acts of antisemitism, assert that this law is designed to chill criticism around Israel’s Gaza bombardment, which Gazan health officials say has killed more than 25,000 people, some 70 percent of them women and children, according to Gazan health ministry numbers cited by the United Nations.
Dov Wilker, head of the American Jewish Committee’s Atlanta office, said the bill actually clarifies this issue.
“It does nothing to inhibit free speech and, in fact, distinguishes between legitimate criticism of Israel and attacks that are antisemitism in disguise,” Mr. Wilker was quoted by the Georgia Recorder as saying.
IHRA’s guidance addresses this issue, saying criticism of Israeli policies should be allowed but becomes antisemitic when the State of Israel is “conceived as a Jewish collectivity.”
Presciently, Israeli Consul General Anat Sultan-Dadon addressed the need to clearly define antisemitism during a Consular Conversations luncheon interview with Global Atlanta just days before the Oct. 7 attack.
“We hope that the definition of antisemitism will be adopted also on a state level, including in Georgia, because it is key to having the right kind of conversation into addressing the issue,” Ms. Sultan-Dadon said at the time. “Because if you can’t recognize what is antisemitic, then how can you begin to address it?”
She lamented the rise in antisemitic incidents being recorded in the state and beyond and framed it as a universal problem:
“We are living in times where individuals think it is acceptable to, in broad daylight, demonstrate with Nazi flags outside of synagogues here in Georgia here in Atlanta. They don’t even feel there is a need to cover their faces or disguise themselves, because they feel it is fully acceptable to proudly raise the Nazi flag. And I think that this should be of grave concern to all of us, not just to Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people, not just to the Jewish community, but to society at large. And I think that it begs the question: What is being done today to educate and to combat antisemitism in all its forms? Whatever is being done, we all need to do better, because it is unacceptable to see these expressions of hate targeting Jews, just like it is unacceptable to see expressions of hate targeting any other individual in society.”
Anat Sultan-Dadon, Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern United States
Mr. Kemp reportedly discussed the antisemitism bill in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel last May. On the trip, the governor and First Lady Marty Kemp visited Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
The consulate on Feb. 15 is hosting an event on “Holocaust Remembrance Through the Lens of Oct. 7” in Midtown. Learn more in the flyer below and register here.
