The Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City (Jason Hancock/Missouri Independent).
Despite Missouri lawmakers failing this year to pass legislation targeting antisemitism in public schools and colleges, the Anti-Defamation League concluded in a new report released Friday that the state has still made progress at combating what it called “anti-Jewish sentiment.”
The report, which aims to evaluate all 50 states on a series of criteria, points to required Holocaust education in public schools, the establishment of the Holocaust Education and Awareness Commission and a 2020 prohibition on public entities contracting with companies engaging in boycotts of Israel as key areas of progress in Missouri.
And this year, the legislature established the “Missouri Task Force on Nonprofit Safety and Security,” which will be responsible for studying and making recommendations on the security needs of nonprofit organizations at elevated risk of terrorist attacks. It also created a fund designed to help eligible nonprofits cover the costs of security enhancements.
Jordan Kadosh, director of the Missouri-based ADL Heartland, called the task force “critical in the fight against antisemitism.”
The report comes as the ADL says there has been a spike in antisemitic incidents in Missouri over the last two years since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas in Israel that resulted in 1,200 civilian deaths.
The attack started a war between Israel and Hamas militants that, according to Palestinian health authorities, has killed more than 60,000 people in Gaza, with nearly a third of the dead under the age of 18. Israel now faces growing international condemnation over conditions in Gaza, where the U.N. says there is mounting evidence of famine and widespread starvation.
Missouri is home to approximately 59,600 Jewish residents, representing 1% of the state’s total population.
While the ADL says Missouri has made progress, according to its criteria, there are areas the group hopes lawmakers will address when they return to session in January.
Atop the list is legislation debated this year that would require the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Department of Higher Education to assign a staff member to monitor “antisemetic discrimination and harassment” and investigate whether schools have responsibility for incidents.
The bill would also encourage schools to teach pieces of Jewish-American heritage.
Though it passed the Missouri House, it failed to garner traction in the Senate.
And it faced criticism over its use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
Though the definition has been adopted by a majority of U.S. states and included in orders at the federal level, the lead drafter of the definition has spoken against its application “as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus.”
The bill also included a list of possible examples of antisemitism, most notably “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.” Critics argued the bill was an attempt to silence any critique of Israel’s actions in Gaza on college campuses.
During House debate, the bill’s lead sponsor pushed back on that criticism.
“The bill is intended to keep the Jewish students safe on campus,” state Rep. George Hruza, a Republican from Huntleigh, said in April. “It really is not taking sides or some kind of position on the conflict in the Middle East.”
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