An official definition of antisemitism is now legally binding in North Carolina after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper signed it into law Monday.
House Bill 942, which sponsors call the Shalom Act after the Hebrew word for “peace,” passed the state legislature almost unanimously.
But some critics, including lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, fear its new rules could impede on people’s First Amendment rights. Those concerns weren’t enough to stop the bill from gaining broad bipartisan support in the months following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas. The bill passed with support from every Republican in the state legislature and nearly every Democrat.
“Defining antisemitism is important to stopping it, and this new law helps do that as antisemitic incidents are on the rise,” Cooper said. “While we protect the right to free speech, this legislation helps to make our state a more welcoming, inclusive and safe place for everyone.”
Approximately 1% of North Carolina residents are Jewish, according to a 2021 estimate by Brandeis University‘s Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies.
The bill adopts the same definition of antisemitism as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance — a definition of the term that can now be used for educational purposes, or for prosecuting hate crimes. It lays out 11 examples of antisemitic behavior or beliefs, including:
- Calling for the killing of Jews because of “a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion”
- Making comments related to “the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.”
- Denying the existence or the scope of the Holocaust.
- Criticizing the government of Israel as racist or comparing any of its policies to Nazi Germany.
- Accusing non-Israeli Jews of being more loyal to Israel than to their own country.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has praised governments and private organizations across the world — now including North Carolina — that have adopted the rules since it first created the list in 2016.
“Its broad international implementation has allowed monitoring organizations to better track antisemitism across borders, and has provided researchers and civil society organizations with a way to better moderate content online, including by training AI tools,” the IHRA states on its website.
Cooper also signed another bill into law Tuesday, a series of changes to tax laws, rules for high-cost home loans and more in House Bill 228. But the antisemitism bill has received far more attention, both inside and outside the legislature.
North Carolina, like much of the rest of the Western world, has a history of antisemitism. The state was formerly a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan, whose members terrorized religious minorities such as Jews and Catholics, and racial minorities including Black and Native American residents.
And while membership in the group has waned, the KKK is still active in North Carolina. Frazier Glenn Miller, who was convicted in 2015 for murdering three people at a Jewish community center in Kansas, was a North Carolina native who in the 1980s founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at his farm in Angier, just south of Raleigh, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
He ran for governor in the 1984 Democratic primary, receiving less than 1% of the vote, and he ran in the Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in 1986, receiving 3% of the vote, the SPLC reported.
The SPLC estimates 50 active hate groups still exist in North Carolina, including explicitly antisemitic groups such as the Goyim Defense League and the Loyal White Knights of the KKK, based in Caswell County. Hundreds of fliers pointing readers to a Goyim Defense League website were delivered last year to neighborhoods in North Raleigh.
