The Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther weaponizes both its architects’ anti-Palestinian racism and the concept that speech critical of Israel is criminal.
At the very least, Project Esther’s architects hope that voices supporting basic international humanitarian ideals–access to food, water, shelter, freedom from indiscriminate detention or murder, freedom from occupation, apartheid, and genocide in accordance with international law–for Palestinians become associated with terrorism in the mind of the general public. Ideally, such voices will face criminal punishment or be deported.
Opposing antisemitic hate is The Heritage Foundation’s public justification for this project. This is an appealing and worthy effort. An array of organizations representing mainstream American Jewry, progressive causes, and Palestinian dignity have demonstrated the project aims to destroy and criminalize political opposition wearing a mask of the appealing and worthy effort.
An Effort to Advance Heritage Foundation’s War on Anti-Zionist Groups and Progressives
Heritage Foundation’s universal resource locator (url) for the project starts with the label “progressivism” and the project is identified as “Issue Brief Progressivism” which offers insight into the intended target of the work.
Pitch documents the Heritage Foundation sent to potential project supporters outlined plans to “undermine a collection of anti-Zionist nonprofits and progressive groups” and included tactics like having non-citizen activists deported and employing law enforcement in a manner “to ‘generate uncomfortable conditions’ for progressive activists.”
Jonathon Jacoby, whose organization works to fight antisemitism, says that Project Esther shifts the debate about Israel’s policies by equating anyone who criticizes the state with material support for terrorism. “It’s no longer about ideology or politics; it’s about terrorism and threats to American national security,” Jacoby said. New York Times journalist Katie Baker adds, “Project Esther exclusively focuses on antisemitism on the left, ignoring antisemitic harassment and violence from the right.”
Just as the Islamic State and its ideological allies grossly determine which Muslims fit their vision of Islam and then attack the rest, Project Esther’s architects–a group of seven only one of whom is Jewish–determine which Judaism is correct and attack those who do not fit this vision.
A New York Times opinion piece exploring Project Esther penned by Michelle Goldberg is headlined “The Trump-Supporting Christians Accusing Jews of Antisemitism.” Goldberg writes, “Whether intentionally or not, Heritage was deploying a classic antisemitic trope, the notion of the wealthy Jewish puppet master.” In her op-ed, Goldberg notes that Project Esther targets “run-of-the-mill liberals,” “the majority of Jewish House Democrats who declined to censure their colleague Rashida Tlaib for anti-Israel language, including her defense of the slogan ‘From the river to the sea,'” “Jewish congresswoman Jan Schakowsky,” and “Jewish senator Bernie Sanders.” Goldberg observes, “Indeed, one clue that there’s something off about Project Esther’s definition of antisemitism is how often it tags Jews as perpetrators.”
Named enemies in the document text include several Jewish-led organizations whose crime is objecting to Israeli policies. Some of the groups listed by Heritage Foundation are, “National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP or SJP), alternatively known as the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC); American Muslims for Palestine (AMP); [and] Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP).” A footnote adds to the enemies list, drawing from the anonymously-led doxxing website Canary Mission, “…CODEPINK; Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS); the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR); IfNotNow (INN); Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA); and Within Our Lifetime (WOL)” (pg. 14).
In its reporting The Forward notes pitch materials for Project Esther echo common antisemitic tropes, “The Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther, a conservative plan to counter antisemitism, sees the problem as one in which a handful of ‘masterminds,’ including Jews like George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, are seeking to ‘dismantle Western democracies, values and culture,’ according to internal Heritage documents obtained by the Forward.”
Project Esther’s Architects
Seven key people can be identified as Project Esther’s architects. The original brainstorming group included Heritage’s James Carafano, Luke Moon, Mario Bramnick, and Ellie Cohanim. The four co-chair Heritage Foundation’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism project. Project co-authors are Robert Greenway and David Flesch. Heritage’s Victoria Coates oversees the project.
James Carafano is senior counselor to the president and E.W. Richardson Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. In 2006, Carafano concluded the primary victims of groups alleging Islam endorsed their horrors were other Muslims. This is in line with mainstream thinking by the U.S. Military, intelligence services, and American Muslim civil society groups. Unfortunately, in 2015, Carafano accepted an invitation from the rabidly Islamophobic Frank Gaffney and appeared on his podcast to advance the common Islamophobic trope that the Muslim Brotherhood is waging “civilizational jihad” and the American Muslims are committed to a mythological plot as part of this. During that conversation, Gaffney asserted “you have to understand that what we are dealing with is not a religion which is protected. It is a political, totalitarian, military doctrine. They call it sharia.” Carafano then went on to liken the struggle against this ideology to the Cold War struggle against communism.
Luke Moon is the executive director of the Philos Project, which “equips Christians to stand with Israel and the Jewish people, support persecuted Christians in the Middle East, and foster a revival of Western values rooted in the Hebraic origins of our faith.” After Dr. Munther Issac, pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, gave a Christmas 2023 sermon lamenting the Gaza genocide’s onset, Moon displayed the ideological purity displayed in Project Esther and deployed a common Islamophobic trope. In the Christian Post, Moon writes, “Rather than confronting the Theology of Empire, Munther Isaac is the Christian voice for the Empire of Islam, the very Empire that has ethnically cleansed the Middle East of both Christians and Jews. It is a tragic and cynical tactic to attempt to be the Christian mouthpiece for Islamic oppression, and aside from its immorality, it has been proven time and time again to be a losing strategy to protect Christian lives.” “Christians,” Moon continues, “should not only reject the appropriation of Jesus — they should reject the Christians defending it. The salvation for those who are suffering in Gaza will not come from the Palestinian Jesus in the rubble, but from Jesus of Nazareth who was born to a Jewish family in Bethlehem — The City of David.”
Mario Bramnick is chairman of the board and president of the Latino Coalition for Israel.
Ellie Cohanim “previously served as U.S. Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism at the U.S. Department of State by appointment of the President of the United States and the US Secretary of State,” according to a biography accompanying her writings for the website of the virulently Islamophobic Center for Security Policy. Cohanim is the only Jewish member of this group.
Robert Greenway directs the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation.
David Flesch is a senior policy analyst for Middle East and North Africa at The Heritage Foundation.
Victoria Coates is a vice president at Heritage Foundation. She oversees Project Esther. She previously served as national security advisor to U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) During her time with Cruz, designated hate group leader Frank Gaffney Jr., retired Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin, and other Islamophobes served as foreign policy advisers to Cruz. Gaffney is a key promoter of the bizarre conspiracy theory that Muslims in public service are infiltrating the government on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. Coates has published extensively on the website of Gaffney’s Islamophobic Center for Security Policy. Boykin believes “Islam should not be protected under the First Amendment,” and that there should be “no mosques in America.” Coates was also “former deputy national security advisor for the Middle East and North Africa under President Donald Trump.” Her office contains a collection of Israeli prime minister figurines.
A Broad Spectrum of Groups have Rejected Project Esther and the Trump Administration’s Efforts to Co-Opt Concerns About Antisemitism to Advance Broader Administration Goals of Demonizing Immigrants and Undermining Due Process, Free Speech, Free Press, and Peaceful Protest
Jewish Insider reported that the World Jewish Congress, named by the Heritage Foundation as a partner, said they had nothing to do with the project. In a similar vein, the political arm of the Christian Zionist organization Christians United for Israel was also named as a partner and similarly said they were, in fact, not.
In parallel, there is a mass, mainstream movement to oppose the Trump administration’s efforts, inspired by Project Esther or not, to exploit real concerns about bias to undermine due process, free speech, free press, and peaceful protest.
In April 2025 over 550 Rabbi’s and Cantors joined a statement saying in part, “the way in which the Trump administration claims it is combating antisemitism is not about protecting Jews — it is instead overtly abusing the issue to divide Americans, undermine democracy, and harm other vulnerable communities.” The statement was backed by J Street and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.
That same month “ten organizations representing a broad swath of mainstream American Jewry – including three of the four denominations” coauthored a statement saying in part “we reject any policies or actions that foment or take advantage of antisemitism and pit communities against one another; and we unequivocally condemn the exploitation of our community’s real concerns about antisemitism to undermine democratic norms and rights, including the rule of law, the right of due process, and/or the freedoms of speech, press, and peaceful protest.” Signatories included the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, National Council of Jewish Women, American Conference of Cantors, Central Conference of American Rabbis, HIAS, Rabbinical Assembly, Reconstructing Judaism, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, and the Union for Reform Judaism.
Also in April Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs said, “Antisemitism is real and it requires robust, constructive solutions.” She added, “What’s happening now, though, is exploiting the Jewish community’s legitimate and real concerns about antisemitism to undermine rule of law, due process, educational institutions and our democracy.”
Finally, still in the same month, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) said it “has repeatedly insisted that universities must take action to counter and prevent antisemitism on their campuses. However, the broad, sweeping, and devastating cuts in federal funding that a growing number of American research universities have been subjected to in recent weeks, under the auspices of combating antisemitism, will damage America’s standing as a center of innovation and research excellence.”
When interviewed by the New York Times, project architects could not assert that the Trump administration has adopted the project. That said, many observers do see elements of the plan in actions the Trump administration has undertaken. Most notably, the administration conducted several high-profile arrests of pro-Palestinian activists and more quietly canceled a number of student visas.
If rule of law, due process, and the freedoms of speech, press, and peaceful protest are essential pillars of a healthy democracy then Project Esther threatens all. Its architects wrap their anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, and hate for progressives in a shroud and proceed to assert they anyone who does not hold the correct viewpoint should be silenced, subjected to government harassment, and charged with crimes. This extremism has had the effect of causing groups with very different viewpoints on Israel’s policies of apartheid, occupation, and genocide to reject it.
References
Baker, Katie. “The Group Behind Project 2025 has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement.” New York Times, 5/18/2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/project-esther-heritage-foundation-palestine.html (accessed May 31, 2025)
Deutch, Abby. “Heritage Foundation struggles to find partners in fight against antisemitism.” Jewish Insider, October 14, 2024, https://jewishinsider.com/2024/10/heritage-foundation-project-esther-combat-antisemitism/ (accessed May 31, 2025)
Goldberg, Michelle. “The Trump-Supporting Christians Accusing Jews of Antisemitism.” The New York Times, May 19, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/opinion/antisemitism-israel-palestine-esther.html (accessed June 2, 2025)
The Heritage Foundation. “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism” October 7, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/project-esther-national-strategy-combat-antisemitism (accessed May 31, 2025)
Rosenfeld, Arno. “Scoop: Internal Project Esther documents describe conspiracy of Jewish ‘masterminds’ seeking to dismantle Western values.” The Forward, December 6, 2024, https://forward.com/news/680626/project-esther-heritage-jewish-conspiracy-antisemitism/ (accessed May 31, 2024.)
