Free Speech and The Right to Boycott

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom."

-Justice Louis Brandeis

T'ruah is committed to fighting against concerted efforts to suppress free speech in the United States, including the right to boycott.

Currently, about 35 states have passed or enacted laws or executive orders targeting boycotts of Israel and/or West Bank settlements. T’ruah does not endorse or participate in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement; at the same time, we maintain committed to our country’s bedrock principle of free speech, including the right to economic boycott.

These anti-boycott laws are often passed under the guise of fighting antisemitism, but criticism of Israel — including in the form of a targeted boycott — is not inherently antisemitic. [For more on this, read our Very Brief Guide to Antisemitism.]

Anti-BDS laws set a dangerous precedent. Lawmakers in several states have already begun proposing and passing copycat laws restricting the state from doing business with companies that ‘discriminate’ against firearms or ammunition manufacturers or fossil fuel companies.  

The threat of these laws is only growing, and we are sounding the alarm.

Our work includes:

• T’ruah opposes legislation that seeks to prohibit the boycott of Israel and/or settlements. T’ruah – together with J Street and other partners in the Progressive Israel Network – has filed amicus briefs in cases in Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas, in which we affirm that boycotts must remain a protected form of free speech for all of us, and not be restricted by political whims, even when we personally or collectively disagree with the motivations behind those boycotts.
• In 2023, T’ruah will release a new resource for the general public laying out the harms of anti-BDS legislation. This brief guide will provide clarity around a contentious and confusing issue. We hope it will help Jewish clergy, elected officials, students, and everyone else in our community engage in critical conversations about our constitutional freedoms and efforts to limit free speech in the United States.
• We educate and empower rabbis and cantors to oppose legislation that seeks to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism into domestic law or policy. The core IHRA definition itself is not problematic. However, the full definition includes a series of contemporary examples of antisemitism that wrongly equate what may be legitimate expressions of free speech with antisemitism — with real consequences for Palestinian rights activists, educators, human rights organizations, and others — while making it harder to fight actual antisemitism.As an organization committed to holding Israel accountable for its human rights abuses as well as to stopping antisemitism wherever it occurs, the codification of IHRA and the spread of anti-BDS laws directly endanger our work and that of our partners.

Partners