What is antisemitism?
And who gets to decide what it is?
Suleila Omar (left) and Mitchel Joffe Hunter (right) at the Interfaith Shabbat against Genocide at Claremont Main Road Mosque, October 2024. Photo: Tamara Nechama Thusi
Two private Johannesburg schools, Roedean and King David, have sparked controversy. In a nutshell, Roedean students boycotted a tennis match with King David. Roedean’s management, instead of explaining why their students didn’t play, gave a feeble excuse in writing. Their principal, Phuti Mogale, clumsily explained the boycott to King David principal Lorraine Srage. Their conversation was recorded, presumably by Srage and likely without Mogale’s knowledge, and leaked to the media, with King David accusing Roedean of antisemitism. Mogale then lost her job.
There are still many unanswered questions about this debacle. For one, we haven’t heard the views of the boycotting students. Was the boycott about a dislike for Jews, or, more likely, was it to do with King David’s unequivocal support for Israel during the Gaza genocide? It is thus an opportune time to ask: what is antisemitism?
The debate is global. In Germany, the antisemitism commissioner for Hesse, Uwe Becker, called for the banning of the group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East. Becker, a conservative Christian politician, accused the Jewish group of “antisemitic incitement”, explaining that “anyone who incites hatred against Israel almost daily and vilifies the country as a terrorist state … should be banned in Germany …”.
The University of Cape Town (UCT) is also in the midst of a battle over what antisemitism is, with a debate on two competing definitions: the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism and the Jerusalem Declaration. UCT’s council and senate have rejected the IHRA definition in favour of the Jerusalem one. And this is now the subject of a court case.
Hatred of Jews is a very real problem that has caused terrible suffering. The term antisemitism was popularised in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr, a Jew-hater who mobilised others to hate Jews. This was in an era when Jews, particularly in Europe, were subject to regular pogroms and constant discrimination, eventually resulting in the Holocaust in which Nazis murdered six million Jews. Preventing such atrocities is one reason why a definition of antisemitism is important, so that we can recognise it and address it when it occurs.
The IHRA definition
The drafting of the IHRA definition was led by two pro-Israel advocacy groups — the American Jewish Committee, under Kenneth Stern, and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, under Mark Weitzman. Antisemitism is defined as “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.”
The definition was adopted in 2016 and is supported by the United States State Department, and many other institutions.
But the definition is exceedingly vague. Experts have concluded that it is “not fit for any purpose that seeks to use it as an adjudicative standard”; is likely to have a “chilling impact on students, on academic and professional staff and on institutions dedicated to debate and robust discussion”; “fails even to meet the most elementary requirement of a definition, which is to define”; and “poses significant moral issues as it leaves the door ajar both for those who wish to mobilise the definition for unfounded accusations of antisemitism and for instances of antisemitism that are not covered by the definition to go unchallenged”.
The IHRA published 11 examples alongside the definition in an attempt to offer clarity, but these examples became a key point of contention among the IHRA’s member countries during the drafting and adoption process. As meticulously detailed by Jamie Stern-Weiner, consensus was only reached once it was agreed that the examples would be excluded from the definition.
But this did not stop supporters of the examples persistently misrepresenting their status in relation to the definition, culminating in the IHRA’s Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial unilaterally announcing in 2018 that the examples were indeed a part of the definition itself.
Why exactly are these examples so contentious? Well, because a full seven of them relate to Israel! For example:
- “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
- “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
It is extraordinary to define prejudice against a group of people spread across the world, Jews, to include criticism of the political arrangements in a specific country, Israel, that many of those same people have no substantial relationship with.
Many Jews, ourselves included, understand the right to self-determination as the right to be free from control or coercion by others. We do not understand it to mean that one ethno-religious group should have political control over a country that deprives people who are not in that group, of their own right to self-determination.
If the first example is applied literally, as it often is, then making the claim that the State of Israel is a racist state, or that Zionism is a racist ideology, could be labelled an act of antisemitism. This is regardless of the fact that Israel’s own Nation State Law explicitly states that “The realization of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish People”, despite the fact that Israel is home to millions of people who are not Jewish.
There is a database of over 100 more Israeli laws that “discriminate directly or indirectly against” Palestinian citizens in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. This takes place alongside Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and its violent ethnic cleansing campaign across the illegally occupied territories.
These atrocities, in our view, are not recent features of an aberrant form of Zionism or singularly right-wing government; oppression of the Palestinians is a characteristic of political Zionism since its inception in the 1890s. Opposing this ideology is borne out of the same commitment as opposing all other forms of racism, including antisemitism — a basic commitment to equality.
We accept that there are many who disagree with us, and we are happy to debate with them. But the IHRA definition goes further: it attempts to shut down views shared by millions of Palestinians, and many Jews, by characterising anti-Zionism as antisemitism. In doing so, it facilitates Israeli oppression.
It is argued that anti-Zionism is often antisemitism in disguise. But many more instances of genuine anti-Zionist activity are classified as antisemitic to shield Israel from severe but deserved criticism. The IHRA definition is often the means by which this is done.
In 2022, 128 academics specialising in antisemitism and Jewish history called on the United Nations to reject the IHRA definition, citing their “growing concern” about “politically motivated efforts to instrumentalize the fight against antisemitism at and against the [UN]”. They said the definition generates “confusion about what constitutes antisemitism”.
A year later, these sentiments were echoed in a joint letter by over 100 human rights and civil society organisations — including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — which warns of the frequent use of the definition “to wrongly label criticism of Israel as antisemitism, and thus chill and sometimes suppress, non-violent protest, activism and speech critical of Israel and/or Zionism”.
Kenneth Stern himself has, since 2017, repeatedly denounced its usage as a “blunt instrument to suppress pro-Palestinian speech”.
Jerusalem Declaration
The Jerusalem Declaration was released in 2021 specifically to counter the confusion caused by the IHRA. It was driven by the Van Leer institute based in Israel, and its originators included Jewish academics. It defines antisemitism as “discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)” and says that “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” is not antisemitic.
While the Jerusalem Declaration certainly does a better job of avoiding conflating Judaism and antisemitism with Zionism and anti-Zionism respectively, it has been met with strong criticisms and is not immune from conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
Political motives and definitions
Even the IHRA definition is framed cautiously as a “working definition” which is “non-binding” with examples which “may serve as illustrations of” antisemitism and “could, taking into account the overall context” constitute antisemitism.
However, in practice the IHRA definition has routinely been used, not to clarify how to navigate the relevant distinctions, but rather how to obscure them. Its examples are invoked as sufficient conditions to conclude antisemitism rather than considerations which are dependent on the context.
But while the usage of the Jerusalem Declaration would be preferable to the IHRA definition, it should not on its own be expected to protect against dishonest antisemitism accusations. The way these definitions are used often depends on the political motives of those using them.
Ultimately, Zionists tend to favour the IHRA definition and oppose the Jerusalem Declaration, as the former has proved more useful in shielding Israel from criticism.
UCT’s support for the Jerusalem Declaration over the IHRA definition has led to it losing donors. It is in the midst of an acrimonious case in the Western Cape High Court because of this choice. Whatever decision the court makes, or whatever the outcome of the Roedean and King David affair, we should not confuse the question of who has the power to call something antisemitic with what actually is antisemitic.
The persistent conflation of the IHRA definition of Jewishness with Zionism harms not only Palestinians but also Jewish people, by suggesting that the illegal and abusive actions of the State of Israel are inherently Jewish — an antisemitic notion in itself.
Views expressed are not necessarily GroundUp’s.
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