Nearly 90 Jewish leaders in Missouri have signed an open letter to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) urging him to drop his support for Harrison Butker, after the Kansas City Chiefs kicker spread “one of the world’s oldest and most recognizable antisemitic lies” in his controversial commencement speech at Benedictine College.
Butker’s speech at the Catholic institution generated immediate controversy for promoting retrograde conservative views, such as suggesting women in the audience should embrace their roles as a wives and mothers.
Elsewhere in the speech, Butker claimed that “Congress just passed a bill where stating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.” This is false — and effectively repeats the classic antisemitic trope that Jews killed Jesus.
Butker was referencing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a bill passed by the Republican-led House of Representatives earlier this month in a 320-91 roll call vote. The bill — which threatens federal funding for universities, not jail time — was almost certainly intended to crack down on pro-Palestine speech at college campuses.
The legislation requires the U.S. Department of Education to use the definition of antisemitism set out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance when investigating allegations of antisemitic discrimination among higher education institutions. The IHRA’s definition of antisemitism includes “claims of Jews killing Jesus.”
The Catholic Church has long rejected this idea. In 2011, then-Pope Benedict XVI declared that holding Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus has no basis in scripture, and noted that early followers of Catholicism were Jewish themselves.
Nevertheless, right-wing provocateurs such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have propagated the false notion that the bill could be used against Christians “for believing the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by Jews.”
As controversy mounted over Butker’s speech, Hawley publicly expressed support for Butker, calling him a friend on X and promoting sales of Butker’s NFL jersey. In a radio appearance defending Butker, Hawley said, “I read his speech,” and called the Left “out of touch” for criticizing him.
In a letter spearheaded by Karen Aroesty, a former director of the Anti-Defamation League Heartland, dozens of local Jewish leaders — including five rabbis — wrote that they were “deeply disturbed” to see Hawley defend Butker’s speech.
“Senator Hawley plainly stated in interviews that he read Harrison Butker’s speech, but he’s given us worse than silence,” the letter reads. “Instead of condemning the dangerous anti-Jewish lie Butker’s speech promoted, Senator Hawley has been parading his support for the speech on social media and in the press.”
Neither Hawley nor Butker responded to Rolling Stone‘s requests for comment.
The letter also calls out Hawley’s hypocrisy on the subject of antisemitism. During the pro-Palestine campus protests, Hawley wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on the Justice Department to “investigate the third-party funding behind the violent, coordinated antisemitic protests” on college campuses, based on a Politico story debunked by Rolling Stone.
“Senator Hawley has made a habit of demanding others condemn antisemitism, no matter who or where it comes from,” the letter concludes. “Sadly for Jewish families in Missouri, Josh Hawley doesn’t apply that standard to himself.”
