In January, Trump signed an Executive Order to combat antisemitism stating, “My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”
While some Jews took comfort in this statement, many others were alarmed. Assigning Jews “protected status” while targeting other vulnerable communities reinforces the stereotypes that Jews wield disproportionate power, thereby creating division between Jews and other minorities and potentially making Jews a target of additional hate crimes.
Another unfortunate byproduct of the Executive Order is the uptick in disingenuous accusations of antisemitism being used for political gain, a tactic used most recently by Republican Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran.
Harran, who is seeking re-election in November, recently accused Democratic Bucks County Commissioner Bob Harvie of antisemitism because of statements Harvie made at the last Commissioners meeting comparing ICE’s current law enforcement tactics to those used in pre-Holocaust Germany. Harvie warned of the democratic backsliding enabled by misinformation and the erosion of due process.
“For someone who’s spent a lot of time studying World War II, there are definite parallels that I see happening,” Harvie said. “Not nearly as great as what happened in 1920s Germany, 1930s Germany, but certainly not too far away from being in the same ballpark. And it’s concerning. It’s something that all of us should be more focused on.”
Harran, who is Jewish, responded with outrage, claiming that Harvie had crossed a line. But as Danny Ceisler, a Jewish military veteran and Democratic candidate for Sheriff pointed out in a public statement, “Commissioner Harvie did not call him a Nazi, nor did he invoke the Holocaust in any way.”
Ceisler, whose grandfather helped liberate Nazi concentration camps during WWIl, accused Harran of “shamelessly exploit[ing] our shared religion and the memory of the Holocaust in a political stunt.” The intent, Ceisler argued, was clear: to deflect legitimate criticism of Harran’s recent enrollment in ICE’s 287(g) “task force model”, a program designed to extend the reach of the Trump deportation machine by enlisting local police and sheriff’s deputies to do ICE’s work at their own expense.
READ: ICE Deports Immigrant Mother of an Infant and 3 Children Who Are US Citizens
Ceisler has been a sharp critic of 287 (g), stating, “This [287g] is going to take deputies away from their important work across the County, it is going to cost Bucks County taxpayers a lot of money and it’s actually going to make our community less safe, which has been proven time and time again by other places that have tried to do this and then pulled it back.”
The partnership model Harran enlisted in would actually empower his deputies trained for the program “to challenge people on the street about their immigration status — and possibly arrest them.” The program was previously suspended by the Obama administration after a 2011 Department of Justice investigation concluded it led to racial profiling and widespread constitutional violations.
This strategy of using false accusations of antisemitism to protect dangerous or authoritarian-leaning policies has become a disturbing mark of the Trump era. Trump himself has repeatedly positioned his administration as staunchly pro-Israel and pro-Jewish, while simultaneously embracing white nationalists, downplaying threats from neo-Nazi groups, and using antisemitic tropes to attack political opponents. More recently, Trump’s truce with the Houthis (without any guarantee of protections for Israel) and his acceptance of a “flying palace” from Qatar (one of the most significant funders of Hamas), has raised alarms even amongst more Conservative Jews.
Sheriff Harran’s desire to partner with ICE while using claims of antisemitism as a shield mirrors Trump’s tactic of eroding democracy while vowing to protect Jews. ICE has come under fire numerous times over the past few months for violating civil rights and ignoring the Constitution. Harvie’s comparisons of these tactics to pre-WWII times are not antisemitic, but rather a warning cry against policies that target immigrants, limit civil rights, and centralize police power … all of which are markers of fascism, a form of government which has historically been deadly to Jews.
Another issue with using Jewish trauma as a political cover is that it makes it harder to identify and resist actual threats. For example, while the campus protests were mostly peaceful, there were numerous accounts of Jewish students being harassed and even barred from classes. Even more frightening was the targeting of Governor Shapiro at his Passover seder and the deadly attacks on the Squirrel Hill synagogue. Unfortunately, when every criticism of the Israeli government or Trump’s authoritarian tactics are labeled antisemitic, these very real and dangerous examples of antisemitism get diminished in the public eye.
Using false accusations creates a fog of cynicism, making it harder for people to distinguish between performative outrage and genuine threats. Equally concerning is the cover they provide for policies that truly do echo authoritarian regimes.
What we are seeing in Bucks County is not an isolated incident. It is a microcosm of a broader national trend, in which antisemitism is no longer just a tool of hate groups but is increasingly co-opted by political figures seeking to avoid accountability.
In this case, the issue isn’t whether Harran is Jewish — it’s whether his accusations are sincere or cynically strategic. Ceisler believes it’s the latter. “Using Judaism as a shield to deflect legitimate criticism is cowardly and beneath the office he holds.”
