The two witnesses Democrats have invited to testify at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes — aimed primarily at the rise of antisemitic and other hate crimes since Oct. 7 — hold views on combating antisemitism that largely fall out of step with the mainstream Jewish community.

Democrats, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), have called Kenneth Stern, a former Jewish communal official who opposes key steps that most mainstream Jewish groups support to combat campus antisemitism, and Maya Berry, the director of the Arab American Institute, which is deeply critical of Israel and many efforts to combat antisemitism.

Stern, now the director of the Bard Center of the Study of Hate at Bard College, is a former official at the American Jewish Committee who was involved in the original drafting of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

But breaking with most major Jewish organizations, Stern has been outspoken against the use of the IHRA definition on college campuses, including opposing the Trump administration’s executive order on antisemitism on college campuses and the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Most mainstream Jewish groups support both.

He has defended the “right” of anti-Israel campus groups to call for “intifada” as protected free speech and alleged that the implementation of the IHRA working definition on college campuses is a project of “rightwing Jewish groups” to “[suppress] political speech” and “champion the chilling of expressions that pro-Israel Jews find disturbing.”

In his opening statement to the committee, obtained by Jewish Insider ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Stern will testify that “advocating for genocide against anyone of course should be robustly condemned; but the mere expression of such ideas (whether intended as such or heard as such) should be countered, not as a matter for discipline.”

Stern will also say that it is a good thing that David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, did not face any disciplinary action when he spread Nazi propaganda on Louisiana State University’s campus as a student in 1968. “This would have allowed him to claim the status of martyr, and changed the subject to his right to speech as opposed to the content of his hate,” Stern will say.

Meanwhile, the Arab American Institute, of which Berry is the executive director, accused Israel on Oct. 15, 2023, a week after the Oct. 7 attack, of “ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” and demanded a cease-fire. The group supports boycotts of Israel.

Berry, in the past, has warned about the alleged weaponization of antisemitism and overbroad definitions of antisemitism. She has also argued that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel is not antisemitic, a position at odds with most mainstream Jewish groups. She has described Zionism as racist.

Berry, while acknowledging that antisemitism “is a real and growing problem,” lambasted the Trump executive order and the implementation of the IHRA definition as an effort to grant “appearance of legitimacy to the politically motivated desire to conflate the real problem of anti-Semitism with criticism of the state of Israel,” aimed at silencing pro-Palestinian advocacy.

She has also attacked the Anti-Defamation League for its work to combat antisemitism on college campuses and described Kenneth Marcus, then up for confirmation as the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, as “dangerous.” Marcus founded and currently leads the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which focuses on combating antisemitism.

Berry’s written testimony focuses primarily on hate crimes data and reporting, and federal enforcement of hate crimes laws.

Republicans, meanwhile, have called Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a group which supports IHRA legislation and engages in lawfare around antisemitism among other Jewish and pro-Israel efforts. He was also an attorney for former President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.

Goldfeder has testified at other congressional hearings since Oct. 7. He spoke at a House Judiciary Committee hearing back in May about the need for universities to both ensure First Amendment protections while also guaranteeing the civil rights of Jewish students on campus. 

Since Oct. 7, the National Jewish Advocacy Center has filed lawsuits against several U.S. companies and groups that it claims provided support to Hamas despite its designation as a terrorist organization. Among those NJAC has sued on behalf of victims of Oct. 7 are the Associated Press, UNRWA USA, Americans for Justice in Palestine and Students for Justice in Palestine.

In his testimony, Goldfeder is set to express support for the IHRA definition, noting that it has seen consistent support across four presidential administrations, a majority of U.S. states and most of the Jewish community. 

“Of course, Jews are not monolithic, and there is a small minority within the Jewish community, including my distinguished friend Dr. Stern, that do not support this bill because they are afraid it might be misapplied in some way to restrict speech,” he will testify. “First, it is important to reiterate that this minority does not represent the Jewish community, which has spoken in a clear and loud voice.”