One of Trumpworld’s most amazing feats of dark sorcery is the redefinition and weaponization of “antisemitism.”

We have known what antisemitism is for 2,000 years; it really requires no introduction at this point. The first Trump administration managed to put out a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that didn’t mention Jews or Judaism, but the rest of us know what happened and, roughly speaking, why. Vilifying Jews and blaming them for practically anything has been a popular habit of mind in many societies since forever; when that hatred is harnessed by the political class, things get ugly.

Now the people who couldn’t bring themselves to mention the Jews in connection with the Holocaust have a whole new definition of antisemitism. Forget the 2,000 years; the new definition is strictly contemporary and quite specific. The new “antisemitism” consists of criticizing the current right-wing government of one nation in the middle east. If you don’t approve of what Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF are doing in Gaza, you’re an antisemite. If you speak up on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza or elsewhere, you’re an antisemite. That’s it! Even if you’re a Jew. 

I’m not technically a Jew, because my Jewish parent was my dad and Judaism is inherited from the mother. (This point was brought home to my Jewish wife when she inquired at a local synagogue here in Middletown if we could get married there: we could not.) Antisemitism nearly prevented me from being born: 80 years ago when my Jewish father wooed my Presbyterian mother in St. Louis, his Jewishness was a deal-breaker for several years. Dad was devoid of religiosity; the problem was his tribe. She said “Yes” on his third try; her family and her church never really came around. 

Having made it into existence, I don’t particularly “look Jewish.” This I have been told, usually after somebody says something antisemitic and I say “boo!” and it’s awkward. In any event, I have heard my share over the years. I was born in 1956; most of the really ripe stuff dates from some time ago. That could mean Americans don’t make random antisemitic remarks to people they don’t really know as often as they used to, or maybe I’m just not getting around as much. 

Here’s where it gets weird. The Trumpers have come up with this bogus definition of antisemitism that they can apply to college students waving Palestinian flags or attending pro-Palestinian rallies. Some of the foreign ones get deported. The charge? “Antisemitism.”

Behind the absurdity and outrage of the Trumper definition of what may be the world’s oldest and best-established hatred, something sort of worse is hiding. They’re being deported for antisemitism? Seriously? That’s now how we deal with people whose attitudes we don’t like?

Forget about the Trump nonsense; let’s say some of these protesters are actual antisemites, common-garden bigots like the people who couldn’t handle my mom marrying my dad and like the jerks and jackasses who have said stuff to me over the years. The idea, apparently, is that now bigotry is an actionable offense. We decide you have a certain habit of mind– not that you did some dreadful crime because of it, but simply that you have this attitude, this prejudice, and on the basis of this habit of mind we’re going to lock you up, deport you, whatever seems required. This to cure you of your way of thinking, or perhaps to banish your way of thinking from our fair nation. 

It sure is going to be entertaining to watch! As each new administration comes in it can promulgate the new definitions of whatever nasty habits of mind it wants to target, and then take legal or administrative action against people they decide have the wrong habits of mind. What fun!

So here am I, of all people, making the point that even actual antisemitism, the ancient kind, isn’t supposed to be treated like a crime. If the Trumpers (or anyone else) can make some sort of official offense out of this (or any other) bad attitude, we are outside any legal bounds. We are, literally, in the land of the thought police.  

Eric Kuhn lives in Middletown.