On March 26, Rümeysa Öztürk of Turkey, a 30-year old doctoral student at Tufts, was confronted on a Somerville street, forced into an unmarked car by men and women dressed in black and driven off.

I watched the footage again and again, remembering a terrible story I’d been told as a child.

In 1945, my mother’s brother — Henri Roger Ejbuszyk, then 17 — was arrested on a Paris street. There is no way of knowing who took him. It could have been German Nazis in full regalia, or soldiers of the collaborationist French military, or local police. It might have been a civilian who hated Jews.

The Trump administration has weaponized antisemitism in its war on “wokeness” and diversity, equity and inclusion. Over the last several weeks, we have seen the administration wield claims of “fomenting antisemitism” as a reason to bypass due process, detain international students, and seek to supervise the workings of universities to insure they comply with the anti-DEI samizdat.

To be clear, antisemitism is a problem. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found a 344% increase in antisemitic incidents across the U.S. in the last five years. And some — though by no means all — campus protests against the war in Gaza have included antisemitic slurs, posters and chants, and that has put Jewish communities on campus and nation-wide on high alert. President Trump is using this increase in hateful speech and action as justification for an assault on free speech and academic independence.

Many Americans may not realize that the administration’s actions are following a playbook created by The Heritage Foundation in a nasty little (33 page) codicil to Project 2025 named “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.” Dated October 7, 2024 — exactly one year after the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians — it describes a shadowy international conspiracy the Heritage Foundation has named The Hamas Support Network (HSN). It also blames the Jewish community and elected Jewish officials and representatives for stupidly failing to acknowledge and even enabling the threat it poses to the very soul of America.

According to Project Esther: Within the United States, the HSN receives the indispensable support of a vast network of activists and funders with a much more ambitious, insidious goal—the destruction of capitalism and democracy. As their ends align, the HSN and its nihilist supporters indoctrinate the gullible into supporting Hamas and hating Israel to create the street mayhem that serves their ends.

Hamas is an Islamist militant group that has been designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including the United States. And while Hamas does receive support from entities in Iran, Turkey, Qatar and many other places around the world — the HSN is not a real thing. There is no such single entity.

Project Esther is a playbook — an exercise in cynicism by an administration eager to prey on people’s worst fears — named for a biblical heroine who is credited with saving her people from annihilation. Esther does this by exposing a murderous plot against her people, a plot devised by an antisemitic advisor who sells the idea to a lecherous, feckless king.

The Heritage Foundation’s white paper kicks off with an almost comically goyish mistake, a tip-off that no Jews were involved in its creation: “In the Torah, the Book of Esther …”

You don’t have to be a rabbi to know that The Book of Esther is not part of the Torah, a.k.a. the Pentateuch, which is comprised of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Book of Esther shows up toward the end of the Hebrew bible, in a section called “Writings,” which also includes Proverbs, Psalms and the beautiful erotic poetry of Song of Songs.

Project Esther dismisses right-wing antisemitism in a few short paragraphs, pronouncing the Klan and the American Nazi party relics of the past, which they ain’t. It reads:

America is no stranger to hate groups. In the aftermath of  the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan initially focused on anti-black, racist policies. … In the mid-20th century, in reaction to the civil rights movement, the Klan once again refocused on its anti-black, racist policies … However, it was never a major target of concerted action by The federal government. In fact, by all accounts, the Klan petered out mostly due to the Great Depression and its followers’ inability to pay for membership. 

I beg to differ: the Klan’s white supremacist, racist, antisemitic, Christian nationalist, beliefs and fondness for violence are alive and well. Its offspring include the Proud Boys and members of various right wing militia groups. To wit: the infamous torch-lit Nazi chant “Jews Cannot Replace Us” march in Charlottesville, Virginia, an event Donald Trump characterized as having “very fine people on both sides” during his first term.

Protesters gather outside federal court ahead of a hearing for Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian man arrested at a Vermont immigration office during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship and a legal permanent resident who led protests against the war in Gaza at Columbia University.

According to data reported by the ADL, nearly all antisemitic murders and violence in the United States in recent years have been the work of far-right and antigovernment extremists.

Fun fact: a proposed Antisemitism Awareness Act has been held up in Congress because, in part, some members want to make sure they will still be allowed say that the Jews killed Jesus, an antisemitic falsehood. You can’t make this stuff up.

Meanwhile, Jewish leaders all over the country have been protesting the blatant weaponization of antisemitism. Last month, the Minnesota Rabbinical Association released a letter about constitutional rights and Jewish safety, which was signed by 40 of its 43 members. It reads, in part:  History has taught us that whenever a government restricts the rights of a given group, oppression of the Jews will soon follow. We have learned that our safety and freedom as Jews is irrevocably bound up with the safety and freedom of all people.

I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but you can’t make antisemitism go away by censoring antisemites.

According to Nazi ideology, Jews were an inferior race, responsible for Germany’s defeat in WWI as well as the economic depression of the 1920s. Nazis thought that Germany could only fulfill its manifest destiny by killing all the Jews and other “undesirables” including physically and mentally disabled people, Gypsies and gay people.

Both my parents lost family members during the Holocaust. My uncle survived in Auschwitz for two years. He was murdered at the age of 19.

That was 80 years ago.

Today, we’re seeing the demonization of immigrants, Muslims, Palestinians, drag queens, trans youth and anyone who holds up the Constitution as a bulwark against authoritarianism. And Rümeysa Öztürk is still in custody in a Louisiana detention facility — one of several international students who were arrested for their involvement in protesting Israel’s war in Gaza. Her “crime” as far as we know, was co-signing an op-ed in the Tufts Daily critical of the university’s response to the war.

There’s a Jewish notion, or tradition, or wisecrack, that you should always keep a packed suitcase by the door ready in case you have to flee for your life. I used to shrug it off as a holdover from centuries when we depended upon the unpredictable goodwill of non-Jewish authorities. Not here, surely.

America is not Nazi Germany or Spain during the inquisition, but I’m not scoffing anymore. If Trump gets the gigantic $100 million-plus military parade he wants in honor of his next birthday (which conveniently coincides with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army) I might consider getting some new luggage.

Published May 5, 2025 WBUR-Cognoscenti