Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
Yehuda Bauer was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The terms "self-hating Jew", "self-loathing Jew", and "auto-antisemite" are pejorative terms used to describe Jewish people whose viewpoints, especially favoring Jewish assimilation, Jewish secularism, limousine liberalism, or anti-Judaism are perceived as reflecting self-hatred.
Antisemitism at universities has been reported and supported since the medieval period and, more recently, resisted and studied. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation, or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish faculty and staff. In some instances, universities have been accused of condoning the development of antisemitic cultures on campus.
David Hirsh is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and co-founder of Engage, a campaign against the academic boycott of Israel.
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), until January 2013 known as the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research or ITF, is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1998 which unites governments and experts to strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance worldwide and to uphold the commitments of the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust. The IHRA has 34 member countries, one liaison country and seven observer countries.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, is a New York–based international non-governmental organization that was founded to combat antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination. ADL is also known for its pro-Israel advocacy. Its current CEO is Jonathan Greenblatt. ADL headquarters are located in Murray Hill, in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The ADL has 25 regional offices in the United States including a Government Relations Office in Washington, D.C., as well as an office in Israel and staff in Europe. In its 2019 annual information Form 990, ADL reported total revenues of $92 million, the vast majority from contributions and grants. Its total operating revenue is reported at $80.9 million.
Criticism of Israel is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. Israel has faced international criticism since its establishment in 1948 relating to a variety of issues, many of which are centered around human rights violations in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The "three Ds" or the "3D test" of antisemitism is a set of criteria formulated in 2003 by Israeli human rights advocate and politician Natan Sharansky in order to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from antisemitism. The three Ds stand for delegitimization, demonization, and double standards, each of which, according to the test, indicates antisemitism.
The working definition of antisemitism, also called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism or IHRA definition, is a non-legally binding statement on what antisemitism is, that 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." It was first published by European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) in 2005 and then by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. Accompanying the working definition, but of disputed status, are 11 illustrative examples whose purpose is described as guiding the IHRA in its work, seven of which relate to criticism of Israel.
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) is a document meant to outline the bounds of antisemitic speech and conduct, particularly with regard to Zionism, Israel and Palestine. Its creation was motivated by a desire to confront antisemitism and by objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, which critics have said stifles legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and curbs free speech. The drafting of the declaration was initiated in June 2020 under the auspices of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem by eight coordinators, most of whom were university professors. Upon its completion the declaration was signed by about 200 scholars in various fields and released in March 2021.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.
On May 25, 2023, the administration of US President Joe Biden unveiled The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. President Biden called his administration's plan the “most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history.”
Jonathan Jacoby is an American social activist, known for his contributions in the fields of advocacy for Israeli-Palestinian peace, combatting antisemitism, Jewish communal life, and rare disease research.
The exploitation of accusations of antisemitism, especially to counter anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel, may be described as weaponization of antisemitism, instrumentalization of antisemitism, or playing the antisemitism card. Bad-faith accusations against Israel's critics have been called a form of smear tactics. Some writers have compared them to playing the race card.
Jews have faced antisemitism and discrimination in universities and campuses in the United States, from the founding of universities in the Thirteen Colonies until the present day in varying intensities. From the early 20th century, and until the 1960s, indirect quotas were placed on Jewish admissions, quotas were first placed on Jews by elite universities such Columbia, Harvard and Yale and were prevalent as late as the 1960s in universities such as Stanford. These quotas disappeared in the 1970s.
Anti-antisemitism in Germany is the German state's institutionalised opposition to antisemitism, in acknowledgement of German history and the murder of some six million Jews by the Nazi regime in the Holocaust. Anti-antisemitism has been described as "a defining marker of post-war German identity" and a commitment to supporting Israel is considered a "Staatsräson", a fundamental principle guiding the German state's actions. Following the 2015 European migrant crisis, the German federal government and most of Germany's states set up commissioners for fighting antisemitism. Controversially, the German government officially classifies the following as antisemitic: the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, the accusation that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians, and the depiction of Israel as a colonial or settler-colonial entity. Many of those arrested and cancelled in Germany over allegations of antisemitism have been Jews critical of Israel's policies.
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