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A Better Definition of Antisemitism [1]
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Date: 2025-03-10
The Trump war on higher education, science, and progressive ideas is using protests at Columbia University against Israel’s destruction of Gaza last spring as an excuse to cancel $400 million in federal contracts primarily used for medical and scientific research. Trump and the federal Department of Education accuse Columbia of continuing to tolerate antisemitism despite very stringent revisions in its disciplinary code of conduct. There definitely were excesses during the protests last spring as student anger at events in Gaza escalated and there were university missteps, but the Columbia administration worked to balance the right to protest and the rights of other students and condemned, not condoned, antisemitism. Universities and other institutions are under pressure to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism that defines antisemitism so broadly that virtually any criticism of Israel is dismissed as antisemitic and silences discussion. The impact of the cancellation of the federal contracts is much broader than Columbia University. Trump is saying that his administration will not tolerate any disagreement on any topic and will use the threat of punitive cancellation of federal funding to enforce its will on cities, states, and private institutions, effectively ending academic freedom on college campuses and freedom of speech in the United States. This is a major blow to democracy in this country.
This winter I did not post about Israel and its actions in Gaza for over a month, hoping that the three-step ceasefire agreement would lead to a permanent peace in the region and create a path for formation of a Palestinian state. With the Trump administration’s proposals for a U.S. take-over of Gaza, its open-ended pledge of support for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and its assault on academic freedom and freedom of speech in the United State, I began posting about Israel and Gaza again. This is the fourth in a series of posts.
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) is a resource for strengthening the fight against antisemitism. It offers a clear and concise definition of antisemitism: “Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews or Jewish institutions as Jewish.”
The full declaration includes a preamble, the definition, and fifteen guidelines. It was developed by international scholars who study antisemitism and related fields at a series of workshops held in June 2020. It was called the Jerusalem Declaration because the original workshop was in Jerusalem. JDA was originally signed by 210 scholars; it now has almost 400 signatories, including me.
JDA was written and promulgated as a response to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism that has been used to silence critics of Isael actions in Gaza. The authors of JDA were concerned that the IHRA definition “blurs the difference between antisemitic speech and legitimate criticism of Israel and Zionism” and “delegitimizing the voices of Palestinians and others, including Jews, who hold views that are sharply critical of Israel and Zionism.” The JDA definition distinguishes between anti-Zionism and antisemitism and calls the two concepts “categorically different.”
From the Preamble:
We, the undersigned, present the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, the product of an initiative that originated in Jerusalem. We include in our number international scholars working in Antisemitism Studies and related fields, including Jewish, Holocaust, Israel, Palestine, and Middle East Studies. The text of the Declaration has benefited from consultation with legal scholars and members of civil society.
Inspired by the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the 1969 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, the 2000 Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, and the 2005 United Nations Resolution on Holocaust Remembrance, we hold that while antisemitism has certain distinctive features, the fight against it is inseparable from the overall fight against all forms of racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, and gender discrimination.
Conscious of the historical persecution of Jews throughout history and of the universal lessons of the Holocaust, and viewing with alarm the reassertion of antisemitism by groups that mobilize hatred and violence in politics, society, and on the internet, we seek to provide a usable, concise, and historically-informed core definition of antisemitism with a set of guidelines.”
From the Guidelines of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, these examples are considered antisemitic.
1. It is racist to essentialize (treat a character trait as inherent) or to make sweeping negative generalizations about a given population. What is true of racism in general is true of antisemitism in particular.
2. What is particular in classic antisemitism is the idea that Jews are linked to the forces of evil. This stands at the core of many anti-Jewish fantasies, such as the idea of a Jewish conspiracy in which “the Jews” possess hidden power that they use to promote their own collective agenda at the expense of other people. This linkage between Jews and evil continues in the present: in the fantasy that “the Jews” control governments with a “hidden hand,” that they own the banks, control the media, act as “a state within a state,” and are responsible for spreading disease (such as Covid-19). All these features can be instrumentalized by different (and even antagonistic) political causes.
3. Antisemitism can be manifested in words, visual images, and deeds. Examples of antisemitic words include utterances that all Jews are wealthy, inherently stingy, or unpatriotic. In antisemitic caricatures, Jews are often depicted as grotesque, with big noses and associated with wealth. Examples of antisemitic deeds are: assaulting someone because she or he is Jewish, attacking a synagogue, daubing swastikas on Jewish graves, or refusing to hire or promote people because they are Jewish.
4. Antisemitism can be direct or indirect, explicit or coded. For example, “The Rothschilds control the world” is a coded statement about the alleged power of “the Jews” over banks and international finance. Similarly, portraying Israel as the ultimate evil or grossly exaggerating its actual influence can be a coded way of racializing and stigmatizing Jews. In many cases, identifying coded speech is a matter of context and judgement, taking account of these guidelines.
5. Denying or minimizing the Holocaust by claiming that the deliberate Nazi genocide of the Jews did not take place, or that there were no extermination camps or gas chambers, or that the number of victims was a fraction of the actual total, is antisemitic.
6. Applying the symbols, images and negative stereotypes of classical antisemitism to the State of Israel.
7. Holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s conduct or treating Jews, simply because they are Jewish, as agents of Israel.
8. Requiring people, because they are Jewish, publicly to condemn Israel or Zionism.
9. Assuming that non-Israeli Jews, simply because they are Jews, are necessarily more loyal to Israel than to their own countries.
10. Denying the right of Jews in the State of Israel to exist and flourish, collectively and individually, as Jews, in accordance with the principle of equality.
From the Guidelines of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, these examples are NOT antisemitic.
1. Supporting the Palestinian demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights, as encapsulated in international law.
2. Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism, or arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for Jews and Palestinians in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. It is not antisemitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants “between the river and the sea,” whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.
3. Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state. This includes its institutions and founding principles. It also includes its policies and practices, domestic and abroad, such as the conduct of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, the role Israel plays in the region, or any other way in which, as a state, it influences events in the world. It is not antisemitic to point out systematic racial discrimination. In general, the same norms of debate that apply to other states and to other conflicts over national self-determination apply in the case of Israel and Palestine. Thus, even if contentious, it is not antisemitic, in and of itself, to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheid.
4. Boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic.
5. Political speech does not have to be measured, proportional, tempered, or reasonable to be protected under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and other human rights instruments. Criticism that some may see as excessive or contentious, or as reflecting a “double standard,” is not, in and of itself, antisemitic. In general, the line between antisemitic and non-antisemitic speech is different from the line between unreasonable and reasonable speech.
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