On August 4th, 2025, the Newton Beacon published an opinion piece by Prof. Margaret Litvin.

In her article, Litvin discusses the work of The Massachusetts Special Commission on Combatting Antisemitism (SCCA) and specifically criticizes its K-12 recommendation to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

In their Oct. 2 response to this article, Yelena Margolin and Irene Margolin-Katz argue that most Russian Jews are Zionists, and therefore “Soviet antisemitism cannot be dissociated from anti-Zionism.”

Margolin and Margolin-Katz present Litvin’s reasoning as: 1) Jews in the Soviet Union were accused of loyalty to Israel, 2) because there were many Jews who were not Zionists, this means that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are unrelated, hence 3) IHRA, which says that anti-Zionism IS antisemitism, is wrong. They spend much of their response disputing the second point above by expanding on the deep connection that many Russian Jews do have to Israel. This a gross misinterpretation of Litvin’s straightforward argument. While anti-Zionism and antisemitism are distinct notions, Litvin does not at all claim that the anti-Zionist claim of the soviets was “disassociated” from antisemitism. On the contrary. On a background of already deeply rooted traditional antisemitism in the Soviet Union, Litvin explains, anti-Zionism was used as a weapon, with the additional bigotry in the assumption that EVERY Jew supported Israel, without asking them. This assumption is wrong and dangerous, regardless of the number of Jews that actually were devout Zionists.

Margolin and Margolin-Katz conclude: “We have personally seen how demonization of Israel turns into hate and violence against any Jew. This is why the IHRA definition of antisemitism warns against demonization of Israel.”

This is precisely the logically flawed justification for the IHRA definition that Litvin points out: just because an anti-Zionist stance and antisemitism have been strongly linked in the Soviet Union doesn’t make, as the IHRA definition states, every anti-Zionist stance antisemitic. In addition, Litvin highlights the parallel between the Soviet approach and the IHRA definition: it is just as flawed to assume that every Jew is a Zionist as it is to assume that every anti-Zionist is antisemitic, and both stem from completely conflating Jewish identity with support for Israel.

As a Newton resident and parent, and also as an Israeli-American Jew, I am deeply concerned by the rhetoric reflected in the essay by Margolin and Margolin-Katz, and by the work of the SCCA, which utilizes legitimate fears of antisemitism to establish a “Don’t Say Palestine” culture and promote indoctrination of school students instead of exposing them to a range of legitimate perspectives.

Sincerely,

Noam Shoresh
West Newton