Louis Fine, secretary of the Minnesota Republican Party’s Platform Committee, told JNS that his recent efforts to successfully add the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism to the party platform should serve as an example of what individual activists can accomplish.
Fine, 32, who owns a commercial film and photography studio in Minneapolis, said he became involved in state politics after antisemitism surged in the wake of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Antisemitism went insane after the war started,” he said. “A lot of these people found a home in the Democratic Party. A lot of people who hate Jews. A lot of pro-Hamas activists in Minnesota. So I went to the Republican party state convention and said, ‘Hey, I want to help you guys win.’”
Fine, whose birthday is July 4, told JNS, “I’m a proud American Jew who reached a point where I felt I couldn’t sit by and do nothing.”
According to Fine, he drafted the resolution and worked to move it through multiple levels of the party’s platform process, serving as resolutions chair for both his state Senate district and congressional district before joining the nine-member 2026 Platform Committee.
“I’m very happy that the Republican Party of Minnesota adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism,” he said. “I’m aware that there have been other efforts in the past to pass resolutions condemning antisemitism or expressing support for Israel in the MNGOP platform. I don’t know a lot about them, but as far as I can tell, most of them died quietly somewhere in the process.”
Fine told JNS that the previous platform contained a foreign policy statement recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself, but that he felt it wasn’t enough to “address the domestic antisemitism American Jews are facing here at home.”
“I wanted language that was explicit about antisemitism, grounded in a recognized definition and placed in the civil‑rights section of the platform where it belongs,” he said.
Fine said he hopes Minnesota will eventually codify the IHRA definition into state law for use by law enforcement and schools.
“Codifying the IHRA definition into state law won’t solve antisemitism on its own, but it would make it much harder for institutions to ignore or minimize it when it appears, and much easier for them to act consistently,” he said. “If our political bodies adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, that will signal that we have succeeded in changing the culture.”
Fine said more Jews should become active in both major political parties.
“There are millions of Jews in the U.S. and nearly 70,000 in Minnesota,” Fine told JNS. “Very few of us are deeply engaged in the political process. But I’m an individual, and look what I was able to accomplish. If even a few dozen, or a hundred, more Jews were willing to organize and step up into party structures like I did, imagine what could be possible.”
“I don’t have any huge backing or secret society or anything behind me,” he said. “I just decided I wanted to see a change in what was happening, and I went about trying to make it happen, and it worked.”
“We need that same level of vigor and participation on both sides,” Fine said. “We need to show up with the Democrats, too. We just have to brave it. If people are going to be aggressive with us, deal with it. That’s how we get stuff done.”
