Michigan lawmaker seeks to bar antisemitism under state's anti-discrimination law

Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News on Jun 3, 2025

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LANSING, Mich. — A Jewish state lawmaker from Oakland County is seeking to amend the state's anti-discrimination law to bar antisemitism specifically and hopes to convene a statewide commission on how to combat targeted violence.

State Rep. Noah Arbit, D-West Bloomfield, said he planned to introduce the legislation Tuesday and also hopes, separately, to create a statewide targeted violence prevention commission in the governor's office and to incorporate more education resources in schools, including college campuses, to identify and address antisemitism, hate, radicalization and polarization.

While the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act already includes protections based on religion, Arbit argued that protections based on ethnicity and a specific definition of antisemitism are needed since discrimination against people of the Jewish faith is sometimes difficult to capture under the umbrella of religious protections.

"Antisemitism is sometimes hard to define and it's sometimes hard to describe," Arbit said. "It's not always intuitive for people who haven't had the education to understand what it looks like, what it sounds like and how it manifests."

The law would adopt a standardized definition of antisemitism to assist state agencies, particularly universities and colleges, that are investigating instances of antisemitism as a form of ethnic discrimination, Arbit said.

"You can't fight something that you can't identify," Arbit said. "It's a little like nailing Jell-O to the wall sometimes. If we have this tool in law, I believe that we will strengthen our ability to fight it."

Arbit announced the legislation during a press conference Tuesday with fellow Jewish lawmakers, state Rep. Samantha Steckloff, D-Farmington Hills, and state Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield. The press conference was held to address the killings of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington D.C. last month and Sunday's attack on peaceful Jewish protesters in Boulder, Colorado, where a man is accused of throwing Molotov cocktails into a group that had gathered to bring attention to Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Those attacks were not just protests against the ongoing Israel-Hamas war but an attack on American Jews in particular, Moss said.

Moss, who is running for Congress in Oakland County's 11th District, said he supported efforts seeking peace in Israel, but said phrases such as "globalize the intifada" in support of that end led to violence such as the recent attacks in Washington, D.C. and Boulder, Colorado.

"It’s targeting American Jews here at home and making us responsible for every single political decision that’s made in carrying out this war,” Moss said. "... This is when anti-Zionism does bleed into antisemitism here at home."

Steckloff noted each of Michigan's Jewish lawmakers has received calls from the FBI informing them of credible threats made against them. Steckloff said she has a police detail for her home.

"We cannot continue to hate American Jews because of what’s going on overseas," Steckloff said. "Every single member up here has spoken against the atrocities that we’ve seen against the Palestinian people. We’ve stood up here and spoken against the atrocities we saw on Oct. 7.”

Arbit's legislation would add "ethnicity" as a protected class under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act and define it as a group of people with shared attributes such as language, religion, ancestry, culture, nationality, history, traditions or social treatment. The bill specifically names antisemitism as a form of discrimination based on ethnicity.

The legislation defines antisemitism as a hatred of Jews; severe disparagement of Jews or Jewish culture; justifying the killing of Jews in the name of a "radical ideology;" "rhetorical, violent or physical anti-Jewish manifestations" against Jews, their property or community institutions; making stereotypical or dehumanizing allegations such as alleging Jews control the media, government or economy.

The legislation also defines antisemitism as Holocaust denialism, accusing Jews of being more loyal to Israel than the United States or singling out Jews as being ineligible for state sovereignty or political self-determination.

Antisemitism does not encompass criticism of the state of Israel, the legislation says.

The law would only apply to discriminatory conduct, Arbit said, not constitutionally-protected free speech or criminal conduct, which is covered by other state laws. Arbit said the legislation, while intended to help address antisemitism, is not a "cure-all."

"Anti-Jewish racism, like all racism, is a societal ill and public health problem that we need to tackle as such," Arbit said.

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