As a historian focused on Jewish history for more than four decades, I was aware when I applied to the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Public Scholars program for support for my new book that the odds were not great. After all, I had in the past reviewed applications to the NEH from scholars, curators and filmmakers seeking funding for their projects, and I knew how many worthy endeavors were vying for a limited pot of federal funding.

But I was lucky: I got a grant, and my book, “Antisemitism, an American Tradition” comes out this fall.

My grant ended last August, which means I was narrowly not among the scholars told this week that NEH grants they had received had been canceled — by a federal government that has made fighting antisemitism its signature issue.

Indeed, this administration is defunding universities’ cancer research expecting this will resolve antisemitism — a laughable prospect. But if it cares so much about antisemitism, it should not go after the National Endowment for the Humanities. The NEH not only subsidized my book on the long history of antisemitism in the United States, it has a significant record of backing books, documentaries, and museum exhibitions about Jewish history and culture that counter antisemitic lies.

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