The emergence of Project Esther, a campaign launched by the Heritage Foundation in the wake of escalating campus protests over Israel and Gaza, demands a careful, unflinching response from those of us who live at the intersection of Jewish leadership, moral conviction, and communal responsibility. While it presents itself as a defense of Jewish students and a safeguard against antisemitism, its underlying strategies and motivations raise serious concerns—not only about the integrity of the fight against antisemitism but also about the future of free inquiry, ethical discourse, and Jewish moral agency.
The project’s very name, invoking the biblical Esther, is rich with symbolism but troubling in context. Esther is a heroine who risks everything to save her people—not by silencing others, but by speaking truth to power. She does not call for the banning of speech; she uncovers hidden dangers, navigates a complex political world, and insists on the full humanity of her people. To invoke her name in a campaign that seeks to curtail protest, criminalize campus dissent, and equate political critique with bigotry is to fundamentally misunderstand the essence of her courage. The Esther of the Bible spoke up to stop a massacre; Project Esther leverages Jewish pain to justify suppression.
Let us be clear: antisemitism is real and rising. October 7 shattered illusions about the permanence of Jewish safety, and in its aftermath, Jewish students on college campuses have been harassed, threatened, and demonized. Calls for violence, praise for Hamas, and the erasure of Jewish suffering are not merely offensive—they are dangerous. We are not wrong to be afraid, nor to demand better from our institutions. But it is precisely because the threat is real that our response must be principled, rigorous, and rooted in truth.
The danger of Project Esther lies in its willful collapse of distinction: between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, between protest and persecution, between discomfort and danger. In the campaign’s messaging, legitimate critiques of Israeli policy are treated as inherently antisemitic, and all expressions of Palestinian solidarity are framed as threats to Jewish life. Such conflation is not only intellectually lazy—it is strategically disastrous. By blurring the line between criticism and hate, we undermine our credibility, alienate potential allies, and risk turning antisemitism into a partisan wedge rather than a shared moral concern. We also flatten the experience of Jewish students themselves, many of whom hold complex, sometimes critical views about Israel, and who deserve spaces that nurture moral nuance rather than demand ideological conformity.
There is also the matter of provenance. Project Esther was not born from within the Jewish community. It is a product of the political right, emerging from institutions that have long trafficked in xenophobia, Islamophobia, and—in some cases—antisemitic dog whistles. The sudden zeal with which these actors have embraced the cause of Jewish safety is worth scrutinizing. When the same political forces that have platformed white nationalism now claim to be the defenders of Jews, we must ask: whose interests are actually being served? The deployment of Jewish trauma to silence dissent, punish universities, and consolidate political control is not an act of solidarity—it is exploitation. It reduces Jews to symbols in someone else’s culture war and turns our legitimate fears into tools for repression.
What makes this moment so fraught is not only the increase in antisemitism, but the temptation to outsource our moral clarity to those who promise protection. But Jewish tradition has never relied on power alone. Our prophets did not curry favor with kings—they rebuked them. Our sages preserved dissenting voices in the Talmud as a sacred expression of integrity. The Jewish people have always understood that survival and complicity are not the same thing. It is not enough to be defended—we must be represented truthfully.
To stand against Project Esther is not to excuse or minimize antisemitism. It is to insist that the fight against antisemitism must not become indistinguishable from the machinery of political control. Jewish safety is not served when we become the justification for censorship, nor when we allow non-Jewish political actors to define for us what antisemitism is and how it must be confronted. Safety without autonomy is not safety; it is subjugation in disguise.
What we need now is something harder, but holier: the courage to hold multiple truths. To defend Jewish students without silencing others. To condemn antisemitism without weaponizing it. To insist that the Jewish people are not fragile, not helpless, and not reducible to someone else’s partisan caricature. The legacy of Esther is not one of silence or obedience. It is a legacy of discernment, timing, risk, and voice. It is, in the end, a story about what happens when someone dares to act—not because it is politically expedient, but because it is right.
That is the Esther we need now. Not a banner for suppression, but a beacon of moral clarity. Not a symbol for political opportunism, but a reminder that even in exile—even in fear—we are called to act not only with courage, but with conscience.