Anti-Defamation League chapters across the country issued rare statements condemning newly elected Democratic House members, raising concerns about their approaches to antisemitism.

The representatives-elect condemned by local ADL branches include New York’s Claire Valdez, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier; New Jersey’s Adam Hamawy; Illinois’ Daniel Biss; Pennsylvania’s Chris Rabb; and Colorado’s Melat Kiros. The statements directly calling out new lawmakers mark an unusually confrontational and political posture for the anti-hate group.

ADL’s New York/New Jersey branch said that the group of members elected in those two states “marks a shift in our region’s political landscape” and that the organization “has serious concerns about DSA rhetoric and positions that normalize antisemitism, deny Jewish peoplehood or condition Jewish participation in public life based on special litmus tests.”

ADL Midwest senior regional director Rebecca Weininger said that ADL has “serious concerns about” Biss’ approach to antisemitism, particularly his refusal to provide police support to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. when he was the city’s mayor to clear an anti-Israel encampment on campus, which “raises serious questions about whether the safety, dignity and equal access of Jewish students were treated with the urgency they required.”

Weininger said that Biss’ response to questions about that incident — blaming AIPAC — and his support for repealing Illinois’ anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions law raises further concerns.

“[W]e expect him to recognize when rhetoric about Israel or AIPAC crosses into antisemitic tropes, collective blame or hostility toward Jewish Americans,” the group said. “We expect him to engage respectfully with Jewish constituents, including those whose views and beliefs differ from his own.”

Biss, alongside New York’s Lander, has been positioning himself as a voice of Jewish Democrats vocally critical of Israel, and both visited Michigan in the final weeks of the Senate race to speak to Democratic Jewish voters about Abdul El-Sayed.

J Street, which supported Biss in his primary, lambasted the ADL for its statement, calling it a “shanda” and said it reflects “how far the ADL has drifted from the organization it once was.”

Of Kiros — who refused to describe as antisemitic the firebombing of an Israeli hostage awareness march in Boulder, Colo., which killed an elderly Holocaust survivor — ADL Mountain States regional director Susan Rona raised “serious concerns” about her “deeply flawed understanding of antisemitism.”

“Refusal to condemn or even recognize a blatant act of antisemitism can fuel an increasingly hostile environment for the Jewish community and has no place in politics or public discourse,” Rona said.

About Rabb, the ADL’s Philadelphia chapter said that he has a history of “invoking antisemitic tropes that delegitimize Israel and of aligning with figures who promote antisemitism” as well his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America, which rejects Israel’s right to exist.

“Such positions can fuel an increasingly hostile environment for the Jewish community and should have no place in politics or public discourse,” the group said. “The Jewish community of Pennsylvania deserves elected leaders who will stand unequivocally against antisemitism and hate, no matter their form or source.”