What is Project Esther?
Project Esther was created by the Heritage Foundation. Framed as “A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism,” the document was written without including or consulting any Jewish organizations and has not been endorsed by any mainstream Jewish organizations. It proposes tactics to combat antisemitism that the vast majority of Jews oppose, and in fact, that many Jews believe make antisemitism worse. Project Esther’s proposals amount to a full-scale attack on the progressive and Democratic ecosystem, using Jews as a pretext to carry out their extreme agenda, including deportations and defunding of higher education. Project Esther views the fight against antisemitism solely through the lens of fighting pro-Palestinian movements and progressive activists, which it seeks to tie to the terrorist organization, Hamas. By sharp contrast, the Biden Administration and much of the Jewish community treat antisemitism as a civil rights issue that demands a holistic approach to combat it, as outlined in the Biden Administration’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.
What Are the Proposals in Project Esther?
The majority of Project Esther is an exposition focused on what they call the “Hamas Supporting Network,” or HSN. As Project Esther puts it, “the ‘pro-Palestinian movement’ is part of a global Hamas Support Network (HSN).” While the lengthy description of the imagined HSN is quite robust, they are deliberately vague in their policy proposals and deliberately broad in their effort to paint the pro-Palestinian movement as inherently tied to terrorists. In addition, Project Esther completely ignores antisemitic movements on the right, including white supremacists and dangerous right-wing extremist groups whose antisemitic views are well-known and have resulted in violence.
The following are widely understood to be key proposals of Project Esther:
- Deportation of foreign students and faculty associated with pro-Palestinian activism and the revocation of visas and green cards for pro-Palestinian speech.
- Designation of civil society groups as terrorist-linked; the Project’s authors frequently invoke counterterrorism to disrupt the HSN.
- Cuts to federal funding for higher education institutions and other organizations accused of tolerating antisemitism.
- Removal of the curriculum and professors seen as sympathetic to Palestinians.
- Monitoring of student groups and activist networks.
- Ban foreign investment in American nonprofits and schools. The project specifically notes a number of high-profile funders of progressive nonprofits, including the Open Society Foundation (OSF), run by George Soros, a prominent Jewish philanthropist and Holocaust survivor. Invoking the foreign influence of Soros is often an antisemitic dog whistle. Both mainstream Jewish groups like the ADL and civil rights organizations, like the SPLC have additional resources on Soros conspiracy theories.
Project Esther in the Trump Administration and the Republican Party
Like its counterpart, Project 2025, Project Esther is serving as a roadmap for the Trump Administration to target higher education institutions and DEI programs. Trump appointed Leo Terrell, who associates with neo-Nazis, to lead the Justice Department’s antisemitism taskforce. In line with Project Esther’s guidance, the taskforce has focused on targeting pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses:
- Faculty have faced disciplinary action, including suspension, and surveillance
- The Trump administration has pulled hundreds of millions in federal funding from top universities, claiming the institutions promote antisemitism
- The Trump administration has revoked over 300 student and faculty visas
- Campus activism is being tracked and treated as extremist behavior
- Students have been detained and denied due process because of their association with pro-Palestinian movements
- Republicans threatened to enable the administration to revoke passports from U.S. citizens over alleged support ot terrorist organizations, granting wide discretion over who to target and limited opportunities for appeal
- The administration is targeting progressive nonprofit organizations that fund vital civil society organizations, most notably forcing the Justice Department to investigate the Open Society Foundations, a nonprofit run by George Soros, which is frequently the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories
- Republicans in Congress are introducing bills and holding congressional hearings focused on limiting the power of unions and diminishing workers’ rights, using antisemitism as an excuse to hurt workers and their political power
- Trump signed executive orders to investigate and target left-wing activist groups, threatening Democratic funding and freedom of speech
Similarly, Republicans in Congress are pushing legislation aligned with Project Esther’s goals to censor political opposition, including legislation to:
- Allow the Treasury Secretary to designate nonprofits as “terrorist supporting organizations,” without evidence, and suspend their tax-exempt status without due process (H.R.9495/H.R.6408 Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act). Republicans attempted to include similar language (Section 112209) in the House reconciliation package.
- Revoke nonprofit status for organizations that make political contributions after receiving donations from non-citizens, while creating a loophole for organizations that take contributions from foreign corporations (H.R. 8314 – No Foreign Election Interference Act)
- Allow the federal government to insert itself in state ballot initiatives and determine who is allowed to fund those campaigns, blocking certain foreign entities – creating loopholes for foreign corporate involvement while blocking foreign individuals (H.R.3535 – Stop Foreign Funds in Elections Act)
- Block foreign donors from giving to organizations engaged in electoral work while allowing a carveout for corporations (H.R.4563 – ACE Act)
What Should People Know About Project Esther?
- Rather than provide a comprehensive, whole-of-government and nonpartisan framework to combat antisemitism, Project Esther weaponizes the issue to promote the Heritage Foundation’s extremist agenda.
- Project Esther excluded Jewish organizations in the drafting process, and no major Jewish organizations have endorsed it. The Jewish community actively rejects many of Project Esther’s main provisions.
- A strong majority of Jews believe deporting pro-Palestinian activists will make antisemitism worse, not better.
- By a more than 24% margin, Jews believe that cutting funding to universities or institutions makes antisemitism worse, not better.
- Project Esther focuses specifically on quelling progressive movements by targeting activists and controlling higher education institutions, turning the fight to combat antisemitism into a partisan effort that promotes a government censorship agenda and limits democratic activity. It does not address antisemitism on the right, which has continued to gain prevalence under the Trump administration.
- Project Esther opens the door for criminalizing protest, targeting political opponents, eroding academic freedom, and utilizing deportation to threaten dissent.