A state lawmaker leading a panel investigating antisemitism in Massachusetts traveled to Israel in January on a trip funded by the Israeli government, saying the experience would help “inform” his work but which critics contend could cloud his objectivity.
Senator John Velis went to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the site of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack at the Tribe of Nova music festival, among other locations, in late January. Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs covered more than $6,100 in Velis’s travel costs, according to disclosures he filed with state ethics regulators.
A Democrat from Westfield, Velis is the cochair of the Special Commission on Combatting Anti-Semitism, which the Legislature created last year to recommend “strategies” and legislation to counter a surge in antisemitic incidents. Velis said in a Globe interview that if he was going to do a “deep dive” on antisemitism, it was important to have “some type of dialogue with folks in Israel.”
“If the subject is antisemitism, what better place [is there] to go and find out and to talk to people about their experiences?” said Velis, who is not Jewish.
But it quickly drew blowback from longstanding critics of the commission, who have charged the panel needs more “Jewish voices that support Palestinian rights.”
Elsa Auerbach of the Jewish Voice for Peace’s Boston chapter said Velis’s travels open “an enormous question about [his] neutrality” as commission cochair.
Auerbach is also a member of Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts, a coalition of Jewish, pro-Palestinian, and other groups that has accused commission members of having “conflated” criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
“One of the major talking points about the commission is that the organizations are not being impartial. We really have to question how impartial Senator Velis is if he himself is being funded by the Israel Ministry” of Foreign Affairs, Auerbach said.
Velis said he “vehemently” rejects any suggestion the trip compromised his objectivity. He said he does not believe anti-Israel comments automatically qualify as being antisemitic, echoing a point he made on the Senate floor last year when he pushed for the amendment to create the commission.
Velis said he also has visited and spoken with Palestinians in West Bank refugee camps. He said he personally arranged the visit separate from the Israeli-government trip, which he added shows his commitment to “hear every perspective I can” before the commission issues a report this fall.
“My question for [critics] is, did anyone hear me say, ‘It’s the Israeli perspective or bust? I just got back from Israel and this is what I found.’ It’s the exact opposite,” Velis said. “I’m going to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me — period, end of story."
The commission’s work has already generated headlines. Last week, commissioners zeroed in on educational materials on the Israel-Hamas war that the Massachusetts Teachers Association distributed, contending the materials are antisemitic, offensive, and, as Velis charged, “incredibly one-sided.” The materials include a replica of the Star of David made out of folded dollar bills and a poster promoting the Free Palestine movement that reads “Zionists [expletive] Off.”
On Wednesday, the MTA announced it would remove some of those learning materials and other resources from the union’s website.
Members of the group Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts, including Auerbach, also testified during a sometimes-heated exchange, prompting Representative Simon Cataldo, the commission’s other cochair, to warn that the panel would not entertain “attempts to undermine the credibility of mainstream Jewish organizations in Massachusetts.”
Together for an Inclusive Massachusetts includes representatives from the Massachusetts Peace Action, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group, as well as the Boston Workers Circle, a progressive Jewish group that split from a larger coalition of Jewish organizations in 2023, and Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish anti-Zionist organization.
The debate around the commission has laid bare long-running divides in the Jewish community, where the groups all say they are committed to fighting antisemitism but have accused one another of undercutting efforts to do so.
Jeremy Burton, chief executive of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and a commission member, said he believes Velis has approached the commission’s work with “complexity and nuance.” He also accused those now criticizing Velis and the commission’s work of using “antisemitic tropes about backroom Israel agendas.”
Auerbach, leaders of Massachusetts Peace Action, and others had unsuccessfully urged Governor Maura Healey to veto the language creating the commission, arguing it did not go through the legislative hearing process and leans on a definition of antisemitism that they dispute.
“They have, from the very beginning, sought to delegitimize not only the commission but the conversation the commission is trying to have,” Burton said. “I take this criticism of the senator . . . as part of a larger effort.”
The Anti-Defamation League New England, which has been a fierce advocate for the commission, commended Velis. The group’s regional director, Samantha Joseph, said the ADL believes Velis’s trip to Israel “is immaterial” to the work he has done on the commission.
Velis traveled to Israel twice before: in December 2016 on a trip sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council and in July 2020 with the American Israel Education Foundation, the charitable organization affiliated with pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC.
For the January trip, the Israeli government itself covered the costs for his transportation, meals, and hotel stays as he traveled with a contingent of New England-area lawmakers, according to a pair of disclosures Velis filed.
Velis visited the Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, and later that week went to the area of southern Israel that Hamas attacked on Oct. 7. Velis, a National Guard member and veteran of the US Army Reserves, also visited a disabled veterans organization in Tel Aviv.
Officials with Israel’s Consulate General in Boston, which is featured on the itinerary Velis filed with state regulators, did not respond to a request for a full roster of legislators who attended the trip.
Massachusetts legislators can legally accept free or subsidized travel, including from foreign governments, as long as they disclose the details and value of the travel. They must also sign a document affirming it serves a legitimate public purpose that “outweighs any special non-work related benefit,” either to them or the entity paying for the trip.
Many Massachusetts leaders have traveled to Israel over the years. In 2011 and then again in 2014, then-governor Deval Patrick visited the country, and in 2016, former governor Charlie Baker and Massachusetts lawmakers took separate trips to Israel, financed by groups opposed to the anti-Israel boycott movement. Baker took a six-day tour paid for by Combined Jewish Philanthropies and Massachusetts House members took a 10-day trip paid for by the Jewish Community Relations Council.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout. Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.