The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, developed both Project 2025 and Project Esther, which is meant to address antisemitism in the United States by cracking down on a so-called “Hamas Support Network” of anti-Zionist organizations and liberal foundations. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

By Arno Rosenfeld October 15, 2024

The organization behind Project 2025, the controversial blueprint for a second Trump administration, just released a plan to counter antisemitism. It’s called Project Esther, and, in short, suggests the federal government train its sights on “virulently anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti-American groups” that it calls the “Hamas Support Network,” or HSN, and compares to the German-American Bund that supported Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

The plan calls for using counterterrorism and immigration laws against leaders of this alleged network — which includes Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine — as well as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act that was used to bring down the mafia.

This dragnet would also target major progressive foundations like Tides and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which fund a handful of pro-Palestinian organizations as well as many other liberal causes.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Project Esther is full of grandiose language light on many specifics, but it’s worth paying attention to because of its authors. It was published by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which also wrote Project 2025. The think tank has helped shape the policies of Republican presidents for decades and is now focused on “institutionalizing Trumpism.” And its antisemitism plan was drafted by a coalition that includes the America First Policy Institute, which is often referred to as a “White House in waiting.”

(Ironically, “America First” was a slogan favored by some of the pre-World War II Nazi sympathizers that Project Esther condemns.)

This means that there’s a good chance that much of what’s in the 33-page Project Esther document could become federal policy if former President Donald Trump wins in November.

For that same reason, it’s also worth noting who was not part of writing the plan: Jewish organizations. Heritage told Jewish Insider that 57 organizations, including the World Jewish Congress and Republican Jewish Coalition, helped create the document, but those organizations and others told the publication they played no part in the process.

In fact, Project Esther accuses “America’s Jewish community” of “complacency” and says some elements are “blind and deaf” to the menace posed by the “Hamas Support Network.”

“They haven’t sufficiently focused on the core of the problem,” James Carafano, who helps run Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, said in the Insider article. As for why Project Esther ignores the threat of right-wing antisemites including white supremacists, he said: “White supremacists are not my problem because white supremacists are not part of being conservative.”

Only one Jewish group, the ultra-conservative Coalition for Jewish Values, is publicly listed as a member of Heritage’s task force. Six Evangelical Christian organizations are among the 12 groups that founded the task force in November.

Part of the reason for this may have been revealed by another policy paper on antisemitism released Monday by the America First Policy Institute, which claimed that “woke antisemites won’t stop with Jewish students.”

“Christians are certainly the larger target,” wrote Christopher Schorr, a policy analyst for the group.

READ MORE:

• What American Jews should know about Project 2025 and its connection to Christian Nationalism (Forward)
• Heritage Foundation struggles to find partners in fight against antisemitism (Jewish Insider)

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount