defining antisemitism

I. historical perspective

Dina Porat[*]

introduction

The term ‘antisemitism’ is difficult to define due to: a) its inherently emotional dimension; b) its complicated origins – religious, political and ideological – elements of which continued over the centuries but changed in form; c) the problem created by the fact that both Jews and other Semitic peoples, especially Arabs, came to be included in this label – coined in Germany in 1879 by Wilhelm Marr, the ‘patriarch of antisemitism’ – thus creating a problem from the onset. Marr, who did not actually relate to the Arab nations, apparently chose this term because of its ostensibly scientific ring,[1] and indeed it caught on and has been used worldwide ever since.

The forefathers of Zionism had hoped that the creation of a state would normalize relations between Israel and the Jewish communities abroad, which would cease being part of a Diaspora with all the associated difficulties, and between the Jewish and the non-Jewish world, which would treat the Jewish state much as any other country. Consequently, antisemitism would decline and be reformulated. However, nothing of the sort happened, and the search for a definition has not changed in essence.

Because of the political and other uses made of antisemitism for generations, the term was redefined in various periods and in different ways, depending on the time, the place and the circumstances. These definitions served not only the needs of those who made use of antisemitism, but also those of the society or the state which attempted to characterize or limit it. Many of the definitions can be found in lexicons and encyclopedias and it may well be through them that one can trace changes in its meaning over time. Moreover, these definitions, perhaps more than any others, reflect the spirit of the society as well as the consensus created within it since the encyclopedia and the lexicon are the results of joint efforts of the staffs of the institutes which produce them.

Based on these assumptions, an attempt will be made to examine some definitions created at the end of the 19th century; those published in Jewish and Anglo-American encyclopedias from the beginning of the 20th century, and some Israeli ones. Finally, we shall ask whether there exists an agreed definition for the term ‘the new antisemitism’, which entered the public discourse with the latest waves of antisemitism after October 2000.

the Nineteenth Century

The 1882 edition of the Great Brockhaus Lexicon provided a definition of an antisemite that changed very little in subsequent editions, including those which appeared after World War II: “Anyone who hates Jews or opposes Judaism in general, and struggles against the character traits and the intentions of the Semites.” This definition contains a number of components, among them an emotional one: hatred of Jews. The inclusion of an emotional element in a respected lexicon reflects the fact that a phenomenon of this kind had existed in society as a permanent, or at least visible, fixture, to an extent that it was necessary to acknowledge its existence. In addition, this definition refers to hatred of the Jew as a person, but not to hatred of Judaism as a concept, only opposition to it without characterizing it. In the second part of the definition (which was removed from the post-World War II editions), referring to the antisemite as a person who fights the character traits and intentions of Semites,[2] there is a link, and perhaps a fusion, between Semites and Jews, which is characteristic of the beginnings of racist theory in the second half of the 19th century. It was only later that the Jews were differentiated from other Semitic peoples, especially the Arabs; in the meantime Jews in the definition are not merely Semites but characterize Semitism, and especially the evil in it.

Typical of racist theory is the identification of character traits among groups of people: the Semites or the Slavs or the Latins have certain permanent features which cannot be changed by education or environment. Therefore, racist theory is essentially anti-Christian in nature, since it does not recognize equality among peoples and the right of the individual to the mercy of God. In regard to the Jews, however, it perpetuated the image created by the Church: negative characteristics which have been reaffirmed over the centuries and became firmly embedded in society’s consciousness.

Another concept, which appears in this definition, and which became firmly implanted is that Semites (later identified as Jews) have certain intentions that antisemites seek to foil. The essence of these intentions is the ostensible desire to harm Christian society. It should be stressed that the Brockhaus definition was published about a decade prior to the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which promoted the notion that the Jews were plotting to take over the world and were planning and organizing to realize their ambition.

In 1887, Theodor Fritsch, one of the ‘founding fathers’ of modern-political antisemitism, who served as a kind of bridge between modern antisemitism and the Nazi Party, wrote his treatise Antisemitic Catechism. This provides a set of ‘commandments’ for antisemitism − dos and don’ts− which appeared in dozens of editions throughout his long life.[3] His definition, too, was a clear one: “anti – to oppose, Semitism – the essence of the Jewish race; anti-Semitism is therefore the struggle against Semitism.” This is still a racist definition, because of the identification of a Jew as a Semite, and in essence it relates to the Jewish collective, defined as a race. The emphasis here is on the struggle against antisemitism originating in the years that have passed since Wilhelm Marr coined the term.

The period that extended almost to the end of the 19th century was marked by antisemitic activity, defined as political antisemitism and represented by the emergence of political parties with antisemitic platforms, or at least with an antisemitic plank. In most of the countries of western and central Europe manifestos and petitions, accompanied by street demonstrations in the cities, were presented to the parliaments demanding restriction of the Jews’ civil rights. Although the definition continued to be racist, the struggle was political, and was reflected in the terminology.

the Twentieth century

In World War II, the Nazi Party leadership had to deal with the use of the term ‘antisemitism’. On 17 May 1943, a German official sent a letter to his colleague referring to the meeting of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Hajj Amin al-Husayni) with Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Party’s chief ideologue, and to the latter’s promise to issue instructions to the press to refrain from using the expression ‘antisemitism’. Even in the letter, the word appeared inside quotation marks, the idea being not to insult the mufti who was “a friend of the Germans,” so that no one could say that the Germans were “throwing the Jews and the Arabs into the same pot.”[4] Indeed, in 1944, Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels ordered the radio and the press to stop using the term ‘antisemitism’ since it no longer suited the needs of the Third Reich, and to replace it with the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Judaism’, or ‘anti-Jewish’ and ‘anti-Judaism’. Rosenberg and Goebbels were not attempting to create another definition but to dismantle the existing one: they did away with the concept, created in the 19th century, of Semitism being identical with Judaism. This was due, first, to Nazi Germany’s categorical differentiation between Arabs and Jews and to its signing of agreements with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who made lengthy visits to Berlin and Rome. The Arabs, who were Semites and considered allies, could no longer be included in a hostile or negative definition. Second, the use of the terms Judaism and Jews created a clearer focus on what were perceived in 1944 – when the extermination was in full swing – to be the central and eternal enemies of Nazism. While this separation served the purposes of the Third Reich at the time, the term ‘antisemitism’ continues to be used in Germany today, 60 years after the defeat of the Nazis.

In 1901, the first edition of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia appeared in London and New York, the first time in Jewish history that such a work was published. It was compiled in the United States by more than 400 Jewish experts with the aim of educating the Jewish public, while at the same time presenting the Jewish people and its wealth of culture to the world, and especially the educated public in the country. It should be borne in mind that this period, the turn of the century, witnessed the mass immigration of Jews to the United States. Coming mainly from eastern Europe, these Jews had not yet been absorbed into the country and were still seeking their place in it. This reality dictated the character of the encyclopedia to a certain extent and is reflected in the definition of antisemitism and the presentation of its history. For example, in the entry on the Dreyfus trial, which had been held during the years when the encyclopedia was being prepared, emphasis was placed on the religious origins of antisemitism and not on its secular-political ones, as if to say that in a modern country like the United States antisemitism of this type could not develop. Indeed, after the Dreyfus affair, there were signs of a decline of the antisemitism in Europe that had existed there mainly since 1870.

Nevertheless, the definition of antisemitism written by Gotthard Deutsch, professor of Jewish history from Cincinnati, in the Jewish Encyclopedia, emphasizes the term’s racist, and not its religious, origins and characterizes ‘Jew’ according to the perceived racist notion: “greed, a special aptitude for money-making, aversion to hard work, clannishness and obtrusiveness, lack of social tact and especially of patriotism. Finally, the term is used to justify resentment for any crime or objectionable act committed by an individual Jew.”[5] It is implied that these traits were only those a narrow-minded bigot steeped in prejudice would accuse the Jews of having, and that Jews, collectively and individually, were not really like that. This inference was necessary at the time due to the masses of Jews who had arrived in America. Many lived in poverty in the slum neighborhoods of the large cities, where their customs and dress drew attention and aroused suspicion. This had nothing to do with characteristics, said the Jewish scholars, but rather with conditions and circumstances, which would change in the future. In other words – “Give us a chance.” Indeed, other entries in the encyclopedia discuss the origins of the supposed collective characteristics of the Jewish people and the question of whether Jews really had such traits and whether they could be attributed solely to their living conditions. The entry also discusses positive features of the Jewish people, such as their high level of culture, amazing adaptability and contribution to world civilization. The entry on Herzl follows Pinsker’s line, which considered the roots of antisemitism to lie in exile and Jewish nationalism to be its solution (‘autoemancipation’); both of them offered a political solution, but first and foremost a spiritual and moral one. The First Zionist Congress had been held only four years prior to publication of the encyclopedia, and its impact, especially Herzl’s meteoric rise in the firmament of Jewish history, was evident in the entries.

It is possible, although we have no proof of this, that in the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1911, criticism is leveled at the tendency manifested in certain entries in the Jewish Encyclopedia to stress the religious element: “The Jews,” writes the author of the entry Lucien Wolf, one of the most prominent members of the Anglo-Jewish community at the beginning of the 20th century, “contend that anti-Semitism is a mere atavistic revival of the Jew-hatred of the Middle Ages.” In other words, it had no place in the modern world of the new century, since atavism was a throwback to the emotions and phenomena of past generations. Wolf had little faith in the optimism of Jewish scholars, which derived from the decline of antisemitism in Europe from the last decade of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I, nor in the continued stability of Britain, where he wrote his entry during the long reign of Queen Victoria. Thus, his criticism was directed at Jews both in the United States and in Britain: religious prejudices, he believed, had indeed been reawakened by antisemitic incitement, but prejudice was not the cause of antisemitism; it was, rather, racism, which had always been a part of political struggles. Thus he urged the Jews living in the respectable refuge of Britain not to delude themselves, although they lived in an enlightened and democratic country. They should see, instead, the true nature of antisemitism and the role it could play in the political struggles and tensions between various groups, even during that period.[6]

Other Jewish encyclopedias published during the 20th century, including the Encyclopedia Judaica, with a lengthy entry written by historian Benjamin Eliav,[7] do not continue this line. They present similar definitions of antisemitism, citing the various sources – religious, economic, social and racist – and even the animosity and the hatred that the term embodied. The definition of antisemitism in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, written by Israel Gutman, adds a crucially important dimension: “Throughout the generations, concepts, fantasies and accusations have stuck to the term that portrayed a negative cognitive and emotional web, at times independent of Jewish society as it was fashioned and existed in realty.”[8] The subject of the gulf between the real and the imagined, and the political use made of it, which is the essence of antisemitism, will be discussed below.

Following World War II, the non-Jewish encyclopedias in the English-speaking world took up the question of defining antisemitism. The Everyman’s Encyclopedia published in Britain in 1949 and again in 1951 in New York, defines antisemitism thus: “those who were opposed to the Jews in the second half of the 19th century. This hatred of the Jews, or antisemitism as it was called, was not the outcome of antipathy to their religion, but arose on account of their wealth and power which they were accumulating.”[9] On the one hand, reference is made to an emotional dimension, hatred, but the description is written entirely in the past tense. This edition was published in the years immediately following World War II, after the overthrow of the Nazi regime, and contains the hope that antisemitism was indeed a thing of the past, that it too had been destroyed now that the entire world had realized just how heavy a price Jews and non-Jews had paid for the hatred and persecution of minorities. On the other hand, the entry makes absolutely no mention of the Nazi regime, its antisemitism or its consequences, as if the events had never happened. The reason, seemingly, was that these were the early years of the Cold War, and the previous enemy, Germany, had left the scene and been replaced by the Soviet Union.

Another example also provides proof of that frame of mind: About a year later, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a foreword to the first edition of Anne Frank’s diary in English. She, too, makes no mention of the Jews, the Holocaust or the Germans, or even that Anne had been Jewish; moreover, in the play, a muted and adapted version of the diary, which opened on Broadway in 1955, the Germans were not shown at all, even at the end.[10]

A no less striking aspect of the definition in Everyman’s Encyclopedia is its reference to the rise of antisemitism as the result of the accumulation of wealth and power by the Jews, a fact with which the writer does not disagree; on the contrary, it is clear to him that the Jews had become so rich and powerful in the second half of the 19th century that they aroused resentment. Does this infer that the Jews actually brought antisemitism, and its consequences, upon themselves? Since property and power interest English-speaking countries more than religious or race, is there not a warning to non-Jewish readers implied in this definition? It should be borne in mind that the description appears in Everyman’s Encyclopedia, which is intended for a mass readership. The Hebrew Encyclopedia (see below) states that, “almost every hatred of a minority has inherent in it a certain expression of strong powerful urges of possession and rule.”

In the mid-1960s, there was a surprising turn of events. In 1966, the Britannica Merriam Webster Dictionary of the English Language, one of the leading English language dictionaries, published a new edition with the following definition of antisemitism: “1) hostility toward Jews as a religious or racial minority group, often accompanied by social, economic and political discrimination.” Thus far there is nothing new, but it continues: “2) opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the state of Israel.”[11] The time was just prior to the Six Day War, a period when the State of Israel was under threat, first, in the United Nations from the Soviet bloc, which unequivocally supported the Arab states in their efforts to get rid of the Jewish state (and was also trying to gain support from the Third World). This coalition changed tactics following the Six-Day War and tried to expel Israel from the United Nations, boycott it and denounce it; it succeeded in doing the latter in 1975 when the resolution equating Zionism with racism was passed. However, when the Webster published its unambiguous statement that antisemitism was also opposition to Zionism and sympathy for those who opposed the State of Israel, it took a stand regarding the constant threat to Israel and its existence. Namely, it was saying that as in the past when the abrogation of the rights of the individual Jew to equality and even to life was defined as discrimination, the abrogation of the right of Israel to be equal to any other country in the manner in which others related to it was also discrimination. Prior to Israel’s stunning victory in 1967 on the one hand, and before the sharpening of the Israel-Arab dispute, on the other, Israel had been perceived in the western world as a small democratic country, the realization of the yearning of a people for its homeland, a people which had not enjoyed fair treatment in the international arena and needed to be protected from its attackers and adversaries. Therefore antisemitism equaled anti-Zionism and both were discrimination.

israeli attempts to define antisemitism

About a decade after the establishment of the State of Israel, the fourth volume of the Hebrew Encyclopedia was published. It contained a comprehensive entry on antisemitism, the first part of which was written by historian Ben-Zion Netanyahu. After the requisite discussion on the essence of the term, its meaning and its history, Netanyahu added a new tier to the subject which was, “hatred of the other, hatred of the alien and hatred of the weak,” and he defined antisemitism as a kind of hatred of minorities which included all three of these hatreds, “in a more forceful and consistent form than in any other form of hatred of minorities.”[12] This, in essence, is a Zionist definition, and, like Zionism, is an optimistic one: a state of being different, alien and weak can be changed, and this can be done through the abolition of the Diaspora and the establishment of the State of Israel. Once the Jews had a state of their own, they would be like all other nations; even those who did not live in the homeland such as an Irishman or Italian living outside his home country. They would no longer be foreigners whose status was different from that of other foreigners. As soon as this state became strong –those living outside it would also gain in strength and the state would be their support wherever they were. This was the prophecy of the founding fathers of Zionism, and it was the hope of the state’s founders and citizens, at least for the first twenty years after its establishment. Its existence would eliminate the elements that had given rise to antisemitism, regardless of time and place.

About a decade later, in 1969, the historian Shmuel Ettinger attempted to revolutionize this concept. In his analysis of “The Roots of Antisemitism in Modern Times,” he described antisemitism as a reflection of the stereotype of the Jew created over hundreds of years, and which had become part of various representations of culture. Because the image had become an intrinsic part of the culture – in sculpture, painting, sacred music, popular sayings and in various linguistic expressions – it would never be uprooted and would continue feeding antisemitic sentiments in the future.[13] Moreover, trying to erase these expressions would be an effrontery to this cultural legacy. Even the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra plays passions and oratorios as part of this view.

In saying this, Ettinger in essence determined that Zionism would not solve the problem of antisemitism and would not destroy it, because there was no connection between them: the image of the Jew and that of the State of Israel and its citizens existed separately. Hence, we have today the phenomenon of antisemitism without Jews, such as that, for example, found in Japan and Poland, with the extant representation of the Jew sufficient to feed it. This change also reflects the state of mind in post-1967 Israel. A society which considers itself stronger than in the past can allow itself greater openness, including self-criticism, and can admit to hopes that had proved false. Zionism will not solve the problem of antisemitism, and the existence of the State of Israel might even complicate matters for the Jewish communities, which have to adopt a position on current affairs in their own countries. Nevertheless, it is clear that the State of Israel has placed Jewish and Israeli reactions to antisemitism on an entirely different plane.

Two years later, Professor Ya’akov Tury and his students at Tel Aviv University analyzed Ettinger’s article and arrived at the following definition: “Modern day political antisemitism is the manipulation for political reasons of emotions that have existed for a long time against an unrealistic image [about which Ettinger and later Gutman had written]. Antisemitism is not an ideology, as it is sometimes presented, but rather ‘a multi-faceted substitute’, and therefore it can serve the ideas of sundry circles.” Tury recognizes the central place of the unrealistic image, but emphasizes a differentiation that had not been made previously. On the one hand, there is the active antisemite who writes, publishes and signs petitions, desecrates cemeteries and torches synagogues, and strives to realize the political alliances and targets he has set for himself; on the other, there are large circles of people that hear of his acts or read what he writes and support him or vote for him. The activist is the one who manipulates public feeling in order to garner support for what he does. Antisemitism, here, is not an ideology but a tool employed by factions, groups and political parties, even those diametrically opposed to each other, which can unite for this purpose despite their differences.[14] Tury’s ideas also provide another explanation for The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: if the Jews are multi-faceted, including cosmopolitans and socialists, nationalist Zionists and converts to Christianity, secular scientists and the ultra-Orthodox, but nevertheless comprise one community, this would mean that they have some kind of sophisticated plan which determines how tasks are to be divided up among each part of the community so that the Jews are consolidated as a public. This danger must therefore be exposed and the non-Jews unite against it despite their differences.

In the summer of 1979 the so-called Ma’ariv trial, in which the newspaper was sued by two members of the British Parliament, was held in the Jerusalem District Court. Their work Tell It Not in Gath, which dealt with Israel’s control over the world press through its connections with the Jewish communities, was defined by the paper as “an antisemitic book written in the style of Nazi propaganda.” Naturally, this called for a definition of antisemitism and an antisemite, and I was called upon as an expert witness. I followed Tury’s line, adding the following points:

• The essence of antisemitism is the gulf between the image of the Jew as it was and still is constructed by the antisemite, and the Jew’s actual status and power. This is also true of the State of Israel, regarding its image and its true power and status. The wider the abyss, the stronger the antisemitism, and there is no greater proof of this than the pitiful state of the Jewish people on the eve of World War II, as opposed to the fanatical belief of the Nazi leadership in the Jews’ omnipotent power.
• Legitimate criticism of individuals and countries is transformed into prejudice once it denounces their behavior as arising out of fixed, age-old characteristics and does not relate to the event itself, seeing it rather as a link in a chain of identical deeds.
• One does not have to read the writings of antisemites who preceded them in order to reach the same views they expressed.

The worldview, filtered through the prism of The Protocols and centering on the belief of Jewish, and now Jewish-Israeli, power and intentions, is sufficient to create a state of mind, with accompanying expressions and conclusions, in those from completely different backgrounds and even among the highest levels of society.[15]

After October 2000, with the outbreak of the second intifada and the actions that followed, a new term began to be used: ‘the new antisemitism’. A first wave of violent antisemitism that lasted for several weeks was followed by the events of September 2001, namely, the Durban Conference and the September 11 attacks in the United States. The third wave, which began with the Passover massacre in 2002 followed by the ‘Defensive Shield’ Operation, only abated after the elections in France in the summer of that year. The new term grew out of all these events. It still lacks an agreed-upon definition; certainly, the encyclopedias have yet to come up with one.

In the meantime, the situation is still on the boil: waves of violence are carried out against the background of intensifying antisemitic and anti-Zionist propaganda reaching the world public through the various communications media. For the present, one can say that the image of the Jew and his supposed intentions are no different from those in the past; however the arena is now that of radical Islam, which utilizes antisemitic motifs that originated in Christian Europe in order to achieve their religious and political objectives. Their materials purposely blur the difference between Israel and the Jewish communities in the world; thus the differentiation between antisemitism and anti-Zionism which had existed in the past despite the entry in the Webster’s, is becoming increasingly less clear. At this stage, attacks that were once directed against the individual Jew are now directed against both him and the Jewish state.

In 1986, Bernard Lewis defined antisemitism in his book Semites and Antisemites.[16] The components of his definition have already been discussed here, but the question regarding the connection between Jews and Arabs in the term antisemitism, as in late 19th century Germany and Nazi Germany, has re-risen, aided and abetted today by radical Islam.

Following the United Nations Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993, a historic resolution was passed according to which antisemitism was defined as a form of racism. The wording of the resolution was accompanied by a denunciation of discrimination against Arabs, Muslims and blacks arising out of xenophobia and negrophobia. At the Durban Conference the Arabs went one step further, claiming that antisemitism 2000-style was hatred of Arabs by Jews and those who agreed with them, thus adding islamophobia to the list. This argument gained force after the 9/11 events which occurred two days after the end of the conference.

The anti-globalization movement places Arab countries in the poor, colored south and Israel and the Jews in the rich, white north. This dichotomy raises the question of whether the Arabs and the Jews belong to the same family of nations and should be included in the same term. The problem of defining these various phenomena at the beginning of the present millennium remains unresolved, although there have been renewed attempts to tackle it (see below).

It seems fitting to conclude with the words of two intellectual giants: Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell, who wrote during World War II and immediately after it, respectively, and defined antisemitism and antisemites with disgust. Sartre described antisemitism as “blaming the presence of the Jews for all the disasters befalling the individual and the public, and making suggestions on what steps to take to improve the situation, from limiting their rights up to their deportation and annihilation.” He categorically refused to view antisemitism as an opinion, since the antisemite is “a person who fears, it is not the Jews that he fears, but rather himself, his consciousness, his liberty, his instincts, the need to admit responsibility for what he had done, his solitude, the changes that might affect him, society and the world… in short, antisemitism is the fear for the condition of man.”[17] Bertrand Russell put it more succinctly: “Had Hitler been a brave man, he would not have been an antisemite.”[18]

II. PROPOSAL FOR A REDEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM

Kenneth S. Stern[†]

The European Union Monitoring Center (EUMC) was roundly criticized in 2003 for suppressing a report written for it by the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at Berlin's Technical University. The report (later leaked, then released by the EUMC) stated that a significant share of the hate crimes committed against European Jews since the collapse of the Middle East peace process in the fall of 2000[19] had been committed by young Muslims. Thus, it was no surprise that when the EUMC released its own report, entitled “Manifestations of Antisemitism in the EU 2002–2003,” in March 2004, the controversy continued, largely because the press release stated that while “it is not easy to generalise, the largest group of the perpetrators of antisemitic activities appears to be young, disaffected white Europeans.”[20]

            The irony was that while the press release distorted reality, the March EUMC report was more nuanced than the press release suggested, and in some ways superior to the earlier, suppressed report. Recognizing that antisemitism came from a variety of sources, it neither downplayed nor diminished the role of young Muslims in the rash of arson attacks, vandalism, intimidation, and assaults on individuals.

            A much more fundamental problem, however, went largely unnoticed in the report: EUMC’s troubling definition of antisemitism. While noting, correctly, that there was no universally agreed upon definition, the report – after many pages of intellectual throat-clearing – concluded that antisemitism comprised a series of stereotypes, including the Jew as “‘deceitful’, ‘crooked’ [and] ‘artful’ [in] nature; [his] ‘foreign’ and ‘different essence’; [his]‘irreconcilability’, ‘hostility’, [and] ‘agitation’; [his] ‘commercial talent’ and ‘relation to money’; [his] ‘corrupt’ nature”; and notions relating to “Jewish ‘power and influence’,” and of a “Jewish ‘world conspiracy’.”[21]

            The “core of antisemitism,” EUMC therefore concluded, was “any acts or attitudes that are based on the perception of a social subject (individual, group, institution or state) as “the (‘deceitful’, ‘corrupt’, ‘conspiratorial’, etc.) Jew.”

One of the main problems with this approach is that cause and effect are reversed. Stereotypes are derived from what antisemitism is; they are not its defining characteristic. However, the real reason for this line was apparent in the last part of the definitional section, under the heading “Antisemitism and Antizionism,” as follows:

According to our definition, anti-Israel or antizionist attitudes and expression [sic] are in those cases antisemitic, where Israel is seen as being representative of ‘the Jew’, i.e., as a representative of the traits attributed to the antisemitic construction of ‘the Jew’… But what if the opposite is the case and Jews are perceived as representatives of Israel?... [W]e would have to qualify hostility towards Jews as ‘Israelis’ only then as antisemitic, if it is based on the underlying perception of Israel as ‘the Jew’. If this is not the case, then we would have to consider hostility toward Jews as ‘Israelis’ as not [emphasis in original] genuinely antisemitic, because this hostility is not based on the antisemitic stereotyping of Jews.

In other words, if a Jew was attacked on the streets of Paris because the perpetrator viewed Israelis as conspiratorial, money grubbing, greasy or slimy, and then saw the Jew before him as a substitute for that Israeli – this was antisemitism. However, if someone was upset with Israeli policy and then attacked that same Jew in Paris as a surrogate for Israel or Israelis − this was not antisemitism. While it did not consider such attacks antisemitic, the EUMC nevertheless said they should still be monitored, although it did not say how this would be done.

Five days after the report was released, a Montreal Jewish elementary school was firebombed. A note left behind indicated that the attack was in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of a Hamas leader – presumably, not antisemitism according to the EUMC definition. The functional equivalent would be declaring the lynching of a young African American man in the 1960s racist if the motivating factor was a belief that blacks were shiftless or lazy or were destroying the white gene pool, but not if the same victim was swinging from the same magnolia tree and the murderer was motivated by dislike of the Voting Rights Act of 1964.

The problem with the EUMC definition was twofold: first, it bent logic in order to disqualify almost any act motivated by dislike or even hatred of Israel from the label ‘antisemitic’; second, it focused too much on the mind and heart of the actor rather than on the character of the act.

Neither the EUMC nor the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) assumes to brand any particular individual an antisemite. Neither, for that matter, do Jewish NGOs dedicated to communal defense, which reserve the label for only the most clear-cut and outrageous perpetrators – a David Duke or a Louis Farrakhan – so as not to cheapen the word. (Note that even after his very vocal criticism of Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League said the movie was not antisemitic.[22])

It is neither necessary nor helpful for groups that monitor or combat antisemitism to examine the head of perpetrators – asking, do they really hate Jews? Instead they should look at the act and see whether the Jew (or person or property mistaken as Jewish) was selected as a victim simply because he was a Jew. If a Jew on the streets of Paris is beaten up because he is the victim of a random mugging, this is not antisemitism. But if he is beaten up because he is a Jew, it need not matter whether the attacker thinks that his victim is one of the Elders of Zion, or picks on him because he is angry at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. If a Jew is selected for attack because he is a Jew, this is antisemitism, just as beating up a gay person because he is gay is homophobia.

Definitions become trickier, however, when looking beyond criminal acts to matters of expression – hate speech, for example. When is such a manifestation antisemitic, to be counted in a list of antisemitic events, and when is it not?

There are no ironclad rules but some good indicators. What makes the matter complex is that antisemitism has three overlapping strains: religious antisemitism, which is the oldest form, and which comes in both Christian and Muslim varieties; race-based antisemitism, which sees Jews not as a religion (from which one could conceivably convert) but as a race (from which one cannot); and politically-based antisemitism, otherwise known in recent years as anti-Zionism, which treats Israel as the classic Jew. Whereas the Jew is disqualified by antisemitism from equal membership in the social compact, antisemites seek to disqualify Israel from equal membership in the community of nations. The EUMC’s definition fails to recognize this aspect of antisemitism. All types employ similar tropes and, at heart, see Jews as acting collectively to harm non-Jews. Antisemitism also comes into play when there is a need to ‘explain’ why things go wrong.

There is less difficulty in classifying an act or expression as antisemitic when it is motivated by religious or race-based hatred. Matters get somewhat more problematic, or at least controversial, when dealing with anti-Zionism. Clearly, criticism of Israel is not antisemitism if a specific program, policy, political leader or party is attacked as it might be in respect to any other country. But when the perceived deficiencies of the society are used to undermine its basic legitimacy, or to tarnish Jews collectively, this is, in effect, antisemitism, whether by design or not.

Some charge that when Israel is censured for acts that worse offenders are not, this is antisemitism too. It may or may not be, depending on whether the accuser’s mandate is broad or narrow. If a group is supposed to look at human rights abuses globally, but spends most of its energies creating the impression that Israel is the world’s worst human rights offender – this is a problem. But if its mandate is to look specifically at Israeli treatment of Palestinians, then other factors, such as fairness and the language it uses to describe its findings, have to be taken into account as well before reaching that conclusion.

Trickier still, is anti-Zionism antisemitism? Back in 1947, few would have claimed so. But today no one, for example, is clamoring for the delegitimation of Pakistan, the People’s Republic of China, Samoa, Bangladesh or Qatar, or scores of other countries that became nations after the end of World War II. There are two rare exceptions to contemporary anti-Zionism being antisemitism. This is because they do not discriminate against the Jew and deny him the right of self-determination. Some ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that Israel should not exist until the Messiah comes; and some people believe that there should be no nation-states, or that there should be no nation-states with links to a religion. These are not significant groups, and the latter ones (anarchists and those who oppose religion-linked states) become problematic if they inordinately harp on Israel rather than, say, Spain or Russia.

There is a strong argument to be made that antisemitism is involved when the belief is articulated that of all the peoples on the globe (including the Palestinians), only the Jews should not have the right to self-determination in a land of their own. Or, to quote noted human rights lawyer David Matas:

One form of antisemitism denies access of Jews to goods and services because they are Jewish. Another form of antisemitism denies the right of the Jewish people to exist as a people because they are Jewish. Antizionists distinguish between the two, claiming the first is antisemitism, but the second is not. To the antizionist, the Jew can exist as an individual as long as Jews do not exist as a people.[23]

Matas correctly terms this distinction “nonsense.”

The problem here is also one of practical concerns versus intellectual honesty. If some people are reluctant to define acts of antisemitism as including assaults on Jews because the attacker does not like Israel’s actions, they are hardly likely to agree to include any but the most outrageous expressions of anti-Zionism in a definition of antisemitism.

Yet, without overly pushing the matter of anti-Zionism as antisemitism, a good working definition of antisemitism for monitors and incident counters might be the following, developed by this author along with other experts during the second half of 2004:

Antisemitism is hatred toward Jews because they are Jews and is directed toward the Jewish religion and Jews individually or collectively. More recently, antisemitism has been manifested in the demonization of the State of Israel.

Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for ‘why things go wrong’. It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace and in the religious sphere include, but are not limited to:

·         Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

·         Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews − such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

·         Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

·         Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

·         Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

·         Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel include:

·         Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor.  

·         Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

·         Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

·         Drawing comparisons between contemporary Israeli policy and that of the Nazis.

·         Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.

However, criticism of the policies of any Israeli government similar to that leveled against any other democratically elected government should not be regarded as antisemitic.

Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of antisemitic materials in some countries). Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks, whether they are people or property – such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries – are selected because they are, or are perceived to be, Jewish or linked to Jews. Antisemitic discrimination is denying Jews opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries.

Whereas this definition provides a useful framework and concrete examples to help governmental organs and NGOs monitoring antisemitism decide what to include or exclude, Jewish NGOs concerned with communal defense should be less reticent regarding anti-Zionism. They need not brand those who utter anti-Zionist expressions antisemitic in order to so label them. Again, we are not concerned about whether the person is motivated by hatred, ignorance or any other factor, but rather with monitoring, cataloging, and hopefully educating about antisemitic acts.

In my view, the comparison between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa, while perhaps less serious than that made between Israel and the Nazis, should still be considered an expression of antisemitism, just as I do not see much distinction between denial of the Holocaust and the similar anti-historical canard that rejects any significant historic Jewish link to the land of Israel, whether it be the claim that the Temple did not exist or that it was entirely an Arab land (let alone a Muslim or Palestinian one) from ancient times until European Jews began to appear a little over a century ago.

While it is not reasonable to expect a youngster born in Gaza to share the Zionist narrative, and, of course, everyone is entitled to their own point of view, people are not entitled to twist the facts. The distortion or erasure of Jewish history in the Middle East (as opposed to differing, reasonable interpretations of that history) is no less antisemitic than the distortion or wiping out of Jewish history regarding World War II in Europe.

            Ultimately, there is probably no textbook definition of antisemitism. It might be recalled that US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, when faced with a similar quandary regarding the definition of obscenity, wrote, “I know it when I see it.” To monitor antisemitism effectively – which is a precondition for developing strategies and allocating resources to fight it intelligently – we need to rely on better guideposts than the subjective standard Stewart articulated. However, we also need to understand why we are looking at it, and the reasons why some may want to view antisemitism with blinders when it comes to some types of perpetrators.

            In the end, all types and expressions of antisemitism harm not only Jews, but also – history shows – endanger freedom and democracy. Therefore, those who monitor or combat antisemitism need to make sure that while they do nothing to cheapen the word, they also include all appropriate acts and events, because the cataloging of these manifestations is a precondition to forming effective counter-strategies and an intelligent allocation of resources.

III. A WORKING DEFINITION OF ANTISEMITISM

On 28 January 2005, the EUMC adopted an altered version of the above definition as a ‘working definition’; it will be evaluated in fall 2005. Additionally, OSCE used the EUMC’s ‘working definition’ in its report “Education on the Holocaust and on Anti-Semitism: An Overview and Analysis of Educational Approaches,”[24] and in OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights’ (ODIHR) law enforcement officer training program on combating hate crimes.

            The document reads as follows:

The purpose of this document is to provide a practical guide for identifying incidents, collecting data, and supporting the implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with antisemitism.

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.

In addition, such manifestations could also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.

Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

·         Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

·         Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

·         Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

·         Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

·         Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

·         Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:

·         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.   

·         Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

·         Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

·         Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

·         Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel.

However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.

Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of antisemitic materials in some countries). Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks, whether they are people or property—such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries—are selected because they are, or are perceived to be, Jewish or linked to Jews. Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries. [Note: ECRI in its General Policy Recommendation No. 9, 25 June 2004, has offered specific recommendations regarding the criminalization of antisemitic acts.]

epilogue

Six months after the adoption of the ‘working definition’, on 7 July 2005, a Lithuanian court found that the editor-in-chief of the Vilnius daily Respublika had published material “propagating national, racial and religious enmity,” when he alleged there was a “global plot” of Jews to rule “the world, money, mass media and politics.” The court's decision specifically cited the EUMC's working definition and found that the newspaper's text “correspond[ed] to the… hallmarks of antisemitism” enumerated by the EUMC.[25]