Jan­u­ary 19, 2021

Dr. Kathrin Mey­er, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, IHRA
Ms. Katha­ri­na von Schnurbein, EC Coor­di­na­tor on com­bat­ing anti­semitism and fos­ter­ing Jew­ish life

Dear Kathrin and Katha­ri­na,

As adop­tion of the IHRA Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion of Anti­semitism increas­es in both Europe and the Unit­ed States, oppo­nents of the def­i­n­i­tion have fre­quent­ly cit­ed the crit­i­cal views of one of the ear­ly drafters to claim that it is being mis­ap­plied or used in ways that were not orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed.

Since we were among that small group involved in the orig­i­nal devel­op­ment and draft­ing of the def­i­n­i­tion, we want to set the record straight.

The IHRA Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion (adopt­ed in May 2016) is based on an ear­li­er ver­sion devel­oped in 2004–2005 and issued by the Euro­pean Mon­i­tor­ing Cen­tre on Racism and Xeno­pho­bia (EUMC) in March 2005. (The EUMC was replaced by the EU Agency for Fun­da­men­tal Rights in 2009.) The draft­ing and devel­op­ment of the EUMC Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion of Anti­semitism was a months long col­lab­o­ra­tive process, involv­ing a score of indi­vid­u­als. We were among those who were part of this from the very begin­ning. This group includ­ed our col­league at the time, Ken­neth Stern, who has since iden­ti­fied him­self — or is described by oth­ers — as the “author” or “pri­ma­ry drafter” of the Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion. This is sim­ply not true. But most trou­bling is the fact that this myth­i­cal ele­vat­ed sta­tus is pri­mar­i­ly tout­ed because he is a vocal crit­ic of using the Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion and thus a help­ful (wit­ting or unwit­ting) ally for those who today seek to dis­cred­it the IHRA Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion. Vir­tu­al­ly all oth­ers who were involved in its devel­op­ment believed then and con­tin­ue to believe now that the adop­tion and use of the Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion is an essen­tial com­po­nent in the fight against anti­semitism.

Let us sum­ma­rize for the record how the Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion came to be.

In 2001–2002, we wit­nessed a resur­gence in anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents in Europe includ­ing vio­lent attacks on Jew­ish tar­gets. Most occurred in West­ern Europe, and many were iden­ti­fied as com­ing from parts of local Arab and Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties. This coin­cid­ed with the break­down of the Mid­dle East peace process and was reflect­ed in the anti-Israel and anti­se­mit­ic activ­i­ties that were an unfor­tu­nate con­se­quence of the UN World Con­fer­ence on Racism in Dur­ban in 2001. Euro­pean gov­ern­ments were slow to rec­og­nize these attacks or to iden­ti­fy them as anti­se­mit­ic in nature. As they con­tin­ued, there were calls for region­al secu­ri­ty and human rights orga­ni­za­tions to address them. This result­ed in the Orga­ni­za­tion for Secu­ri­ty and Coop­er­a­tion in Europe (OSCE) orga­niz­ing its first con­fer­ence on anti­semitism in 2003, and the EUMC com­mis­sion­ing its first study of anti­semitism in the EU that same year.

In 2004, the OSCE orga­nized a sec­ond, high lev­el con­fer­ence in Berlin, which result­ed in the Berlin Dec­la­ra­tion on Anti­semitism, sup­port­ed by all 55 OSCE par­tic­i­pat­ing States. It declared that anti­semitism had tak­en on “new forms and man­i­fes­ta­tions” and stat­ed that events in Israel and the Mid­dle East, “can nev­er jus­ti­fy anti­semitism.” Also, in 2004, the EUMC (hav­ing con­clud­ed that the report it com­mis­sioned the pre­vi­ous year was inad­e­quate) con­duct­ed its own study, rely­ing on data from its own mon­i­tors in EU Mem­ber States and in per­son inter­views with Jew­ish lead­ers in Europe.

The new EUMC report pre­sent­ed in the spring of 2004 revealed that Euro­pean Jews had a high lev­el of con­cern and anx­i­ety in reac­tion to their first­hand obser­va­tions of grow­ing anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents. The infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the EUMC’s mon­i­tors was lim­it­ed in some cas­es because there was scant data on anti­se­mit­ic hate crimes and lim­it­ed polling data on anti-Jew­ish atti­tudes. In its own inter­nal review, the EUMC acknowl­edged that it was ham­pered by the lack of a com­mon and com­pre­hen­sive def­i­n­i­tion of anti­semitism and chal­lenged by a lack of clar­i­ty in under­stand­ing those “new forms and man­i­fes­ta­tions” of anti­semitism as it relates to Israel. EUMC Direc­tor Beate Win­kler and AJC Direc­tor of Inter­na­tion­al Jew­ish Affairs Rab­bi Andrew Bak­er agreed that sum­mer to work togeth­er to devel­op such a def­i­n­i­tion.

Bak­er turned to his AJC col­leagues, includ­ing Dei­dre Berg­er in Berlin and Ken Stern in New York, and to oth­er long­time col­lab­o­ra­tors, includ­ing Michael Whine of the CST in Lon­don. Aca­d­e­m­ic experts, includ­ing Dina Porat and Yehu­da Bauer in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were brought in, along with lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sev­er­al major Jew­ish orga­ni­za­tions. Ken played the vital­ly impor­tant but lim­it­ed role of being the com­mu­ni­ca­tions hub as var­i­ous drafts and pro­posed lan­guage were cir­cu­lat­ed, slow­ly mov­ing toward a con­sen­sus agree­ment where his role end­ed.

All agreed the def­i­n­i­tion should include both a core para­graph defin­ing the basic nature of anti­semitism and clear exam­ples of its tra­di­tion­al and more con­tem­po­rary forms.

Mike Whine took over the final draft­ing job and, with this in hand, the focus turned to Vien­na. The three of us were joined by the lead­er­ship team of the recent­ly estab­lished Tol­er­ance and Non-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Unit at OSCE’s Office of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Insti­tu­tions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which had respon­si­bil­i­ty for imple­ment­ing the com­mit­ments spelled out in the OSCE Berlin Dec­la­ra­tion. Togeth­er we worked with the EUMC Direc­tor and her spe­cial­ists, as fur­ther changes and revi­sions were made. We were well-aware that with the inclu­sion of exam­ples relat­ing to Israel, there would be chal­lenges, and some would say that they could be used to label crit­ics of Israel as anti­se­mit­ic. But we also rec­og­nized how egre­gious some of these attacks had become and the impor­tance of includ­ing this sec­tion. This was to be a guide for bet­ter under­stand­ing anti­semitism, not a speech code etched in stone. To strike the nec­es­sary bal­ance, we added the impor­tant, con­di­tion­al phrase, “depend­ing on the con­text.” In a fur­ther mea­sure to allay these con­cerns, the EUMC con­sid­ered it impor­tant to state explic­it­ly that crit­i­cism of Israel is not anti­se­mit­ic.

In Jan­u­ary 2005, we con­clud­ed the final draft­ing of what became known as the EUMC Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion of Anti­semitism, and in March 2005 it was for­mal­ly released. In pro­mot­ing and cir­cu­lat­ing the Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion, its use was nei­ther defined nor cir­cum­scribed. We under­stood then—as we do today—that it is first and fore­most an edu­ca­tion­al tool for those who need to know what anti­semitism is. This includes gov­ern­ment, Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, and oth­er civ­il soci­ety mon­i­tors respon­si­ble for record­ing anti­se­mit­ic inci­dents. It includes those in author­i­ty who are respon­si­ble for iden­ti­fy­ing and respond­ing to anti­se­mit­ic hate crimes and oth­er anti­se­mit­ic events, such as police, pros­e­cu­tors, and judges, among oth­ers. And it includes the pub­lic, whose under­stand­ing of the prob­lem is essen­tial to mar­shal the full force nec­es­sary to com­bat it.

It was called a work­ing def­i­n­i­tion for a rea­son. This was not meant to be a tool for aca­d­e­m­ic researchers, but for those, briefly iden­ti­fied above, who would put it to use. They would be the ones to deter­mine its val­ue and its longevi­ty.

In 2007, the US Spe­cial Envoy to Mon­i­tor and Com­bat Anti­semitism, a new­ly appoint­ed Con­gres­sion­al­ly man­dat­ed posi­tion, applied the EUMC Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion to his work and post­ed it on the State Depart­ment web­site. It was endorsed by Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans at the 2009 Inter-par­lia­men­tary Coali­tion for Com­bat­ing Anti­semitism (ICCA) Lon­don Con­fer­ence, and at suc­ces­sive ICCA Con­fer­ences in Ottawa (2011) and in Berlin (2015). It was rec­om­mend­ed for use by the OSCE Chair­per­son-in-Office in 2014.

Over fif­teen years have passed since the EUMC issued its work­ing def­i­n­i­tion. It has been slight­ly mod­i­fied and fur­ther ampli­fied as the IHRA Work­ing Def­i­n­i­tion of Anti­semitism. It has been endorsed by lead­ers of the Euro­pean Union, the Unit­ed Nations, the OSCE, and oth­er inter­na­tion­al bod­ies. It has been for­mal­ly adopt­ed by over thir­ty coun­tries, includ­ing most EU Mem­ber States. It has become an essen­tial, edu­ca­tion­al tool for law enforce­ment.

We are heart­ened by the Work­ing Definition’s increased use and inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion as the author­i­ta­tive def­i­n­i­tion of anti­semitism. While the threat of anti­semitism in all its var­i­ous forms is, sad­ly, as great as it was fif­teen years ago, this prop­er and com­pre­hen­sive def­i­n­i­tion is now an essen­tial ele­ment in our com­mon fight against it.

Rab­bi Andrew Bak­er
Dei­dre Berg­er
Michael Whine, MBE

Rab­bi Andrew Bak­er is Direc­tor of Inter­na­tion­al Jew­ish Affairs at the Amer­i­can Jew­ish Com­mit­tee and since 2009 the Per­son­al Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the OSCE Chair­per­son-in-Office on Com­bat­ing Anti-Semi­tism.

Dei­dre Berg­er is a con­sul­tant and for­mer Direc­tor of the AJC Berlin Ramer Insti­tute for Ger­man-Jew­ish Rela­tions.

Michael Whine is the for­mer Gov­ern­ment and Inter­na­tion­al Affairs Direc­tor of the Com­mu­ni­ty Secu­ri­ty Trust, Senior Con­sul­tant World Jew­ish Con­gress, and UK Mem­ber of ECRI Coun­cil of Europe.