IHRA definition of antisemitism
The IHRA definition of antisemitism is the "non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism" that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016. It is also known as the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. It was first published in 2005 by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, a European Union agency. Accompanying the working definition are 11 illustrative examples, seven of which relate to criticism of Israel, that the IHRA describes as guiding its work on antisemitism.
The working definition was developed during 2003–2004, and was published without formal review by the EUMC on 28 January 2005. The EUMC's successor agency, the Fundamental Rights Agency, removed the working definition from its website in "a clear-out of non-official documents" in November 2013. On 26 May 2016, the working definition was adopted by the IHRA Plenary in Bucharest, Romania, and was republished on the IHRA website. It was subsequently adopted by the European Parliament and other national and international bodies, although not all have explicitly included the illustrative examples. Pro-Israel organizations have been advocates for the worldwide legal adoption of the IHRA working definition.
It has been described as an example of a persuasive definition, and as a "prime example of language being both the site of, and stake in, struggles for power". The examples relating to Israel have been criticised by academics, including legal scholars, for being open to weaponization of antisemitism used to stifle free speech relating to criticism of Israeli actions and policies. High-profile controversies took place in the United Kingdom in 2011 within the University and College Union, and within the Labour Party in 2018. Critics say weaknesses in the working definition may lend themselves to abuse, that it may obstruct campaigning for the rights of Palestinians, and that it is too vague. Kenneth S. Stern, who contributed to the original draft, has opposed the weaponization of the definition on college campuses in ways that might undermine free speech. The controversy over the definition led to the creation of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and the Nexus Document, both of which expressly draw distinctions between antisemitism and criticism of Israel.
Text
The working definition reads:Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
Background
European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia
The Commission on Racism and Xenophobia was established in 1994 to monitor different forms of racism and xenophobia. In 1998, it became the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, following Council Regulation No 1035/97 of 2 June 1997. In 2002, it published a large-scale monitoring report on Islamophobia since 9/11, including a total of 75 reports, 15 from each member state, and a synthesis report. In May 2004, this was followed by a report on antisemitism, entitled Manifestations of antisemitism in the EU 2002–2003, along with a second report on perceptions of antisemitism based on interviews with European Jews. The antisemitism report was based on data collected by the 15 contact points of EUMC's monitoring network, RAXEN, and evaluated by Alexander Pollak, an independent researcher. The report included a section on definitions, which concluded by proposing this definition:The report also explored the question of when anti-Zionist or anti-Israel expression might be antisemitic, and highlighted the need to develop a common EU definition in order to collect and compare incidents across countries.
In December 2003, the Centre for Research on Antisemitism analyzed a pre-release version of the EUMC report. The ZfA report was leaked to the press and poorly received. According to civil rights lawyer Kenneth L. Marcus, the report initially said the primary cause of rising antisemitism in Europe was young Muslim males, while in a press release for the subsequent final publication the EUMC attributed the rise to "young, disaffected white Europeans". Marcus writes that the larger issue was missed that the definition of antisemitism used by the EUMC was based on "seven stereotypical traits: deceptiveness, strange-ness, hostility, greed, corruption, conspiratorial power, and deicidal murderousness". The EUMC report concluded that anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist expression could only be considered antisemitic if it was based on the stereotype of Israel as the collective Jew.
Following the EUMC report, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe 's Berlin Declaration recognised that post-World War II antisemitism had changed and was now at times directed against Jews as a collective and Israel as an embodiment of the Jew. The Berlin Declaration also tasked the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to work with the EUMC to develop better ways to monitor antisemitic incidents in OSCE countries. According to Marcus, the EUMC scrapped this failed definition of antisemitism, largely due to pressure from American Jewish organizations.
2004 Stern, Porat and Bauer version
Israeli scholar Dina Porat, then head of the Stephen Roth Institute at Tel Aviv University, proposed the idea for a common definition of antisemitism during an NGO conference organized by the American Jewish Committee. Kenneth S. Stern of the AJC, a human rights lawyer, was critical of the EUMC's original definition, as it was confusing about when attacks on Jews related to the Israel–Palestine conflict could be considered antisemitic, and required investigators to know the intentions of attackers. Meanwhile, the EUMC asked Jewish NGOs and academics to provide "a simple working definition that would encompass antisemitic demonization of Israel, and which could also be used by their own RAXEN network of national focal points and by law enforcement agencies".During 2003–04, a large group of experts and organisations coordinated by Stern—together with Dina Porat; Holocaust scholars Yehuda Bauer, Michael Berenbaum and Roni Stauber; the Community Security Trust's Michael Whine; human rights expert Felice D. Gaer; and others—drafted a proposed definition and set of examples. The draft working definition said:
This was then followed by a list of illustrative examples, including five examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to Israel. According to both Marcus and Antony Lerman, the novel element in this draft definition was identifying certain criticism of Israel and Zionism as antisemitic. Marcus also highlights the "praxeological" nature of the definition and its examples—i.e. its focus on pragmatic identification rather than scholarly understanding.
EUMC publication
Initial publication
At the suggestion of the AJC, the EUMC director organized a meeting of Jewish representatives to discuss the new definition of antisemitism which had been drafted. The consultation involved representatives of the AJC and European Jewish Congress, the EUMC director and head of research, and the ODIHR Tolerance and Non-Discrimination program director and antisemitism expert. The outcome was negotiated between Andrew Baker, Stern's colleague at the AJC, and Beate Winkler, director of the EUMC. According to Michael Whine of the Community Security Trust, the Director of the ODIHR Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Division and the Advisor on Antisemitism "played an active role in formulating the Working Definition".On 28 January 2005, the EUMC published a working definition of antisemitism on its website that shared many features of Stern's earlier draft. Winkler published the definition "without formal review by her political overseers". Marcus writes that it was a "working definition" in two senses: a working guide to identifying antisemitism in practice, and a work-in-progress as opposed to a final statement to be approved by the EU's political leadership, and "for this reason, formal endorsement was neither sought nor obtained".
The stated purpose of the working definition was to "provide a guide for identifying incidents, collecting data and supporting the implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with antisemitism". It said:
The definition included the concept of collective antisemitism. Several examples relate to animus towards Israel, including both Holocaust inversion and the application of double standards to Israel, although the definition also says that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic". The EUMC separated the working definition with eleven examples. This was presented as two separate groups: the first six examples were antisemitic tropes and the remaining five examples were introduced as "Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context".
The EUMC working definition was prominently referenced by the OSCE Cordoba conference in June that year. According to Lerman, the definition was promoted by the AJC, other American Jewish organizations, national Jewish representative bodies, Jewish defence organizations, the Israeli government, and pro-Israel advocacy groups. It was approved by the OSCE and other pan-European organizations. According to Lerman, the EUMC working definition was widely criticized and the organization was put under pressure by supporters and critics of the definition.
Use of the EUMC definition
In 2008, the European Forum on Antisemitism commissioned translations of the Working Definition into each of the 33 languages used by the OSCE states.In 2010, Stern wrote: "In the last five years, the definition has been increasingly used, because it provides a workable, non-ideological approach to task of identifying antisemitism." The definition was used by monitoring agencies and law enforcement officials in some European countries. According to Stern:
For example, in Lithuania, it was referred to in a successful criminal case against an editor of a right-wing newspaper in 2005. The definition was also used to some extent by certain intergovernmental and EU agencies. For example, the OSCE used the definition in a 2005 report Education on the Holocaust and Antisemitism: An Overview and Analysis of Educational Approaches. By 2010, it was also recommended in the course leaders' Facilitators Guide in the OSCE OHDIR programme to assist law enforcement officials to understand and investigate hate crime, and the 2010 OSCE High Level Conference on Tolerance and Non-Discrimination in Astana urged participating states to use and promote the Working Definition. In February 2009, the first conference of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism, issued the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism, calling to governments to expand the use of the Working Definition. The second annual conference, held in Ottawa, Canada, in association with the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism and the Canadian Government on 7–9 November 2010, issued the Ottawa Protocol, including a commitment to "reaffirm the EUMC – now Fundamental Rights Agency – working definition".
Canadian Members of Parliament adopted a resolution to combat antisemitism in 2007 that cited the EUMC definition, and the Australian Online Hate Prevention Institute. According to Andrew Baker of the AJC, the definition is used by the Justice Ministers of Austria and Germany in training prosecutors and judges.