Countering the surge of contemporary anti-Jewish hate

On May 24th, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism, held a virtual debrief session for the Jewish community. In it, she explained why antisemitism is a threat to democracy and national security in the US and abroad, and delineated ways to address this global problem.

Deborah Lipstadt

Here are some important points and strategies raised to counter contemporary antisemitism:

• Bad actors are located both abroad and domestically

• There is specificity in the attacks and hate crimes on Jewish individuals and institutions

• The alarming rise in these crimes has created a climate of fear reminiscent of the 1920’s and ‘30’s

• Social media spreads this hate in an instantaneous way, unlike a century ago

• Consider the sources of media or social media posts and whether they are reliable

• Governments should care about this hate and act vigorously to counter it

• Alliances with other diverse groups are vital to counter this hate

• The denial and silence of some human rights organizations about the events of October 7th is shocking, as is support of Hamas, a designated terror organization in the US and Canada

• This support is unacceptable and needs to be addressed and confronted

• Progressive Jewish women should not support Hamas and its crimes and oppression of women

• Government and other leaders need to call out anti-Jewish hate wherever, politically, it appears

• Antisemitism does not appear, like other forms of hate, on a spectrum, but rather in a horseshoe shape, where both left and right extremes converge, using similar tropes

• There are laws in place that need to be enforced when broken and when violence is happening

• There need to be consequences for breaking these laws

• Antisemitism is often utilitarian, used for ideological reasons and political gain

• Each country needs whole society and whole government approaches with strategies

• Governments need to issue plans to carry out these strategies to root out systemic hate

• Antisemitism threatens all people

• Education about antisemitism and the global threat it poses is essential in the fight against it

• It is important to emphasize the beauty, history and contributions of Jewish experience and culture so as not to allow others to determine Jewish identity

Above are some books by Ambassador Lipstadt about contemporary antisemitism. Holocaust denial and distortion, as well as Holocaust inversion - equating Nazis with their victims - are pernicious, common manifestations of antisemitism on both the right and left extremes of the political spectrum

Deborah Lyons, Canada’s Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism, has announced she is developing a Canadian handbook for education about, and the practical use of, the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, adopted by Canada in 2019, in all government institutions including educational ones, similar to the one below, used in the EU.