Defending the JDA

This text presents the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA), from 2021, which is one of the current concise, practical definitions of antisemitism, and was explicitly developed as a response to the widely adopted “Working Definition of Antisemitism” issued by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This article outlines the circumstances and process of the JDA’s development, as well as its key features and specificities. Foremost among these is the clear distinction it draws between acts or statements related to Israel that are inherently antisemitic, and those which are not antisemitic per se — that is to say, those which are fundamentally antisemitic regardless of context, and those which have the potential to be antisemitic, but are not necessarily so. The article concludes with some critical reflections and recommendations for further reading.

Introduction: The Debate Around the Working Definition of Antisemitism

At present, one could quite easily get the impression that neither the public debate about antisemitism, nor the regulatory measures introduced against it, are particularly concerned with the actual analysis of the form or spread of animosity towards Jews, nor with addressing the question of how these are most effectively to be combatted. Instead, the argument over the correct definition of antisemitism seems to take centre stage. In my view, a historically unprecedented amount of attention is being paid, in the context of a complex political conflict, to the question of how exactly a concept is defined within the framework of a succinct definition. Lawmakers, the political mainstream, and academia are currently disputing — and in the case of the latter, notably via somewhat unhabitual channels such as open letters and public statements — over which understanding of antisemitism is adequate, and to what extent this should be anchored in law or become a recognized norm.

This highly specific situation hinges particularly on the institutional success of, and the resistance to, the “Working Definition of Antisemitism” issued by the IHRA — the “Working Definition” or “IHRA definition” for short. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which is introduced here, can be understood as a key response, both political and academic, to the IHRA definition. The IHRA definition itself was also strongly influenced by its contemporary context, and emerged not least in reaction to a wave of antisemitic incidents, including some that were extremely violent, that took place amid a climate of antisemitic opinion in early-2000s Western Europe. That the perpetrators of the (anti-Jewish) acts in question used the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as justification, declaring their acts as being somehow directed against Israel, highlighted a blind spot. Antisemitism research and monitoring, where these existed, and indeed the definitions upon which they were based, had thus far overwhelmingly focused on “classical” and secondary antisemitism and their native political milieu, the political right. Awareness of antisemitism in other ideological spheres was mostly limited to experts in the field. The attention, recurrent every now and then since the 1960s, to and scandalization of antisemitic anti-Zionism, the “new antisemitism”, or, in the contemporary German usage, Israelbezogener Antisemitismus (“Israel-related antisemitism”), i.e. antisemitism in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was still rather confined to the sidelines.

This situation would see a rapid and pronounced change from the early 2000s. Starting with the emergence, in this period, of critiques directed at “left-wing” and “structural” antisemitism in the context of opposition to globalization, and at the so-called “new antisemitism” of positions critical of or hostile towards Israel, by now the antisemitism debate has predominantly refocused onto an antisemitism that it situates in leftist circles and in communities of Muslim immigrants, while Christian and far-right antisemitism tends to disappear into the margins of academic research. The “Working Definition”, first published in 2004–2005 by the European Monitoring Centre On Racism and Xenophobia, is both informed by this tendency and a driver of it; it then makes a qualitative and quantitative leap with the IHRA’s adoption of the definition in 2016. The definition has since been taken up widely, especially within the member states of the IHRA, by government agencies, NGOs, and similar organizations, and even by corporations. So far, hundreds of different kinds of organizations worldwide have recognized the IHRA definition.

The IHRA definition’s approach to addressing the aforementioned blind spot nevertheless resulted in a marked shift in the priorities of that text. In large part — in seven of the eleven examples that the definition provides — it deals with Israel-related antisemitism. The choice and concrete form of these examples, which are often equivocal, prompted criticism that the document represents a one-sided approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, under the guise of presenting a definition of antisemitism, and that in particular it allows for sweeping allegations of antisemitism to delegitimize even valid criticism of Israel and its policies (including the occupation).[1] The main purpose of the JDA is to attempt to bring more clarity into the debate.

There is no getting around the fact that the IHRA definition has taken on a strong symbolic status,[2] going far beyond its concrete practical application. For its proponents, it stands as an emblem of the societal recognition of antisemitism as an urgent problem, particularly with regard to Israel-related antisemitism. The definition’s visibility and wide adoption is (at least in Germany) inextricably tied up with broader developments in the fight against antisemitism, such as the huge expansion, since the 2000s, of monitoring and intervention programmes intended to combat antisemitism. Critiques and competing definitions such as the JDA, which mirror the IHRA definition in various ways, then also take on and “inherit” this same symbolic weight. This creates a situation where not enough attention is paid to how these different definitions diverge in concrete terms. Rather, debates tend to revolve around positions taken within the discursive field of antisemitism/Jews/Israel/Palestine, and play out according to this field’s binary and antagonistic structure. One could say that the disputes only apparently concern definitions in the narrow sense of the word, but actually about what the definitions are presumed to stand for politically. This is probably also why theoretical or philosophical expertise, regarding the problem of definition itself, has hardly been called upon, even though this could significantly have changed the tenor of the public debate.

Nonetheless, I think it is a thoroughly good idea to dedicate some time to the actual content of these definitions — their backgrounds, structures, concrete determinations, the examples and explanations they provide — because doing so will also make it at least slightly easier to anchor the general and often highly emotionally charged debate.[3]

1. From the IHRA to the JDA

Writing at such length about the IHRA in a text about the JDA requires justification. The reason for this, however, as was already indicated, is quite simple: the JDA is not just one alternative among many attempts to succinctly formulate an understanding of antisemitism, but rather, at its core, a concrete response to the IHRA definition. It endeavours to correct the latter with an alternative conceptualization. This is already unequivocally expressed in the JDA preamble:

The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism responds to “the IHRA Definition”, the document that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. Because the IHRA Definition is unclear in key respects and widely open to different interpretations, it has caused confusion and generated controversy, hence weakening the fight against antisemitism. Noting that it calls itself “a working definition”, we have sought to improve on it by offering (a) a clearer core definition and (b) a coherent set of guidelines. 

The JDA does not primarily exist because the authors saw a need for a universally applicable definition of antisemitism, but rather because, with the IHRA definition, a politically overdetermined definition had effectively begun to establish itself, one that was not only becoming influential in a growing number of domains, but that was also, in the process of a broader securitization and juridification of the debate over the Middle East and antisemitism, coming to be used as a sanctioning tool with quasi-legal status[4] and that could be deployed to restrict fundamental rights, in particular to freedom of speech.[5]

The JDA was published in spring 2021, five years after the issuing of the IHRA definition. For almost a year, a group of experts had worked on the project, which had begun with a closed workshop. The first meeting of the working group, initiated by the historians Amos Goldberg and Alon Confino and others, took place in May 2020 as an exchange of ideas with the explicit goal of developing a better definition of antisemitism. Jerusalem’s Van Leer Institute, directed by Shai Lavi, a law professor and himself a participant in the initiative, was originally intended to be the venue, but the COVID-19 pandemic meant the meeting had to take place virtually. Through existing personal and academic networks, the organizers had invited a group of researchers specializing in anti-Semitism research, Jewish history, Holocaust studies, Middle East studies, as well as lawyers and individual representatives of civil society organizations to participate; others were added through recommendations. Out of the first larger meeting came a series of virtual gatherings, of a group of around 20 people. The publication of the JDA took place in late March 2021, coordinated by an organising and writing committee which had gradually formed out of these gatherings, and which consisted of Amos Goldberg, Alon Confino, Brian Klug, David Feldman, Aleida Assmann, and Seth Anziska. In the irregularly scheduled meetings of the larger group, fundamental questions, drafts of the text, and proposals for specific formulations had been discussed; specific questions were delegated to working groups. After the finalising of the text, in the lead-up to publication all participants called for further supporters through personal conversations in their academic networks. As a result, the JDA was initially signed by over 200 experts, most but not all of whom were Jewish, including numerous leaders of renowned institutes — an “absolutely unusual” approach for an academic definition, more in keeping with a petition or an open letter,[6] and reflecting its political function (this is further explored below). Many others subsequently decided to sign, due to the large public response post-publication.

It is notable that the composition of the working group changed several times during the process, also reflecting tensions over content. These tensions played out over, for example, the strategic direction of the project, especially the question of its main aim. Was the idea to provide an intellectually rigorous definition of antisemitism (with implications in terms of the politics of the Middle East), or to intervene in the Israel-Palestine debate by providing a better definition? The two aims are not mutually exclusive, yet each implies a distinct approach.

There were tough internal debates, including in relation to the topic of “Israel’s right to exist” and to what extent the JDA should label certain positions on this topic as antisemitic. Dynamics that would characterize public responses to the JDA already began to emerge in the working group. The final formulation, that it is antisemitic to deny “the right of Jews in the State of Israel to exist and flourish, collectively and individually, as Jews, in accordance with the principle of equality”, resulted from a compromise — one side viewed the formulation as too weak (lacking the explicit recognition of “Israel’s right to exist”), while the other saw it as going too far (as it seemed to implicitly show a preference for specific political solutions in terms of the two-state solution).

The perspectives of those who had taken part in formulating the JDA — as in the foregoing example regarding Zionism as such — certainly also varied in relation to the specific tenor of debate in their home countries and/or to broader political contexts. Middle East policy implications, for example, in the face of the rightward shift in Israel, had a somewhat greater urgency for the Israeli academics involved — who in their own context were in the minority in criticizing the shift to the right and the occupation — than it did for the German participants, most of whom were more closely interested in concept formation. Members of the working group mainly came from Israel (including both Jewish and Arabic academics), the USA, Germany, and the UK, but there were also a few from countries in Asia and Africa. Part of the process of publishing, translating, and publicly disseminating the JDA was coordinated in regional sub-groups (Israel, USA/North America, UK, Germany).

The publication of the JDA, accompanied by what was — for a definition — quite an unusual PR campaign, led to a strong response in the media, both from supporters and critics. However, in terms of being adopted by institutional bodies, the JDA has had barely any success.[7]

2. Content and Structure

The JDA shares extensive formal characteristics with the IHRA definition and the Nexus Document (an antisemitism definition put out by the Nexus Project in the US). As with all these practical definitions of antisemitism, in epistemological terms the JDA is a regulating definition, meaning that it takes an existing concept and makes a more specific proposal for the definition of its scope. This proposal is rather typological or criteriological, meaning that its basic logic follows a pragmatic approach to demarcating terms, rather than derived from a specific theoretical or disciplinary perspective. The reason for this is that the JDA is primarily geared towards practical application, and not intended as a guideline for academic research. Like its counterparts, it is composed of a core definition and texts which expand on this (preamble, explanations, examples). It makes its political and normative orientation explicit. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its connection with antisemitism loom large. If we put aside these commonalities, there are aspects of the JDA’s content that give it a specific tenor. This will be discussed in the following sub-chapters. 

First, we will briefly examine some specificities of the document’s structure. After the title “The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism” and the date (26 March 2021), there is the preamble. It is (depending on the version, with each identical in terms of content) about a page long, and establishes its normative framework as well as its relationship to the IHRA definition, and gives indications as to how the document should be read. 

Following this is the core definition, under the heading “Definition”:

“Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility, or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).”

This is followed by a set of “Guidelines”, which again are around one page long. Section A of the guidelines deals with general explanations of antisemitic phenomena and how they have been expressed historically and in the present (mostly concentrating on “classic antisemitism”), as well as the issue that antisemitic statements are frequently made in an indirect or coded manner; it also separately emphasizes the fact that it is antisemitic to minimize or deny the Holocaust. The subsequent sets of guidelines deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict in detail, according to the following division: “B. Israel and Palestine: examples that, on the face of it, are antisemitic” and “C. Israel and Palestine: examples that, on the face of it, are not antisemitic”. An FAQ takes up two further pages, expanding on some background information (for example the fact that the authors are predominantly academics, and the circumstances and structures of their meetings), providing a kind of self-explication of the text, and responding to anticipated objections.[8]

In the following, I will address five key characteristics that fundamentally characterize the JDA, and situate it within the broad field of definitions of antisemitism.

2.1. A Normative Universalism Based on Human Rights

Although the JDA concerns itself with a specific form of discrimination and hostility directed at a particular group, or a subtype of the ideologies of inequality, this concern is placed in a decidedly universalizing perspective. It defines a “thick concept”, i.e. one whose descriptive and normative components are inextricable. In this sense it refers to various kinds of human rights norms (which would not be necessary for a purely conceptual definition of antisemitism), both general (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and specific (anti-racist and opposed to antisemitism).

This normatively secures the JDA’s double political purpose, which is to both fight antisemitism and safeguard freedom of speech (specifically: “a space for an open debate about … Israel/Palestine”). The definition should therefore (expertly, academically) define its object, and at the same time (normatively) demarcate what ought to be able to be legitimately discussed without incurring overly-zealous and unfounded allegations of antisemitism. The JDA thus remains within the basic framework of thick concepts and of practically all (non-antisemitic) understandings of antisemitism, proceeding on the assumption that something classified as antisemitism deserves no legitimacy and can therefore hardly lay claim to freedom of speech. This conceptual approach can clearly be seen in the JDA’s position regarding the relationship between antisemitism and racism.

2.2. Antisemitism as a Specific Form of Racism

The relation between antisemitism and racism, a subject of much contentious debate, remains ambivalent in the JDA.[9] Anti-racism is explicitly part of the text’s normative self-positioning. The preamble does place emphasis on the specific peculiar features of antisemitism, but the fight against it is said to be connected to the broader fight against discrimination (including racism).

In the JDA guidelines, the reference to racism is even more explicit. These guidelines function in a similar way to the examples given in the IHRA definition. They begin by asserting that it is “racist to essentialize”, something that happens in “racism in general” and “antisemitism in particular”. Without coming to a definitive conclusion, the JDA does at least suggest that antisemitism and racism are very close. It thereby conceptualizes antisemitism as a semantic that, at a minimum, shares its basic operations (the essentializing of identity markers) with other forms of racism. Having said all this, the additional descriptions focus entirely on what is specific to antisemitism.

2.3. A Substantive Concept of Antisemitism

The JDA follows a substantive concept of antisemitism, which is to say that it contrasts with certain formalizations of the concept of antisemitism that extend the latter to encompass constellations of aversion that do not necessarily require a Jewish other or a notion of a Jewish enemy.[10] More in line with the traditional understanding of the term, antisemitism is defined in terms of its core rather than its margins: antisemitic phenomena are those that are directed against Jews and Judaism. This explicitly also includes “coded” or indirect forms, which camouflage or keep latent their actual anti-Jewish objective, for example by alluding to Jewish bankers or depicting Israel as the “ultimate evil”. Conversely, however, this means that in order to establish anti-Semitism in these contexts with the help of the JDA, evidence of such an objective is required.

2.4. The Relation Between Examples and the Core Definition

The IHRA definition of antisemitism, too, calls for its examples to be interpreted “taking into account the overall context”. In dealing with a definition, this means interpreting the illustrative examples with the core definition in mind, and not taking the examples as inherently being instances of antisemitism. Two tendencies run counter to this: firstly, the fact that the examples expand the conceptual intension (meaning) of what was formulated in the core definition; secondly, the widespread practice of using the examples as independent indicators of the presence of antisemitism (without taking into account the overall context, including the core definition). The JDA addresses this problem by specifying the overall context that is to be taken into account.

It emphasizes that the different guidelines “should be taken together”, and thus that the individual parts do not carry the same weight as the coordinated whole. And it clarifies that a variety of contexts could substantially affect the evaluation of an act or statement: the intention, for example, or where the statement is made. Thus, “hostility to Israel could be an expression of an antisemitic animus”, but could also be “a reaction to a human rights violation”. Coming to a decision regarding a specific utterance or act thus requires, firstly, specific contextual knowledge, enabling one to make an assessment about, secondly, whether the utterance or act corresponds to the core definition. This distinguishes the JDA from a definitional practice that, for example, abstractly classifies “denying Israel’s right to exist” as antisemitic, and thereby fails to differentiate between statements that are motivated by an actual anti-Jewish agenda and those that are not. Such an agenda is indeed often present. Klaus Holz and Thomas Haury have indicated that modern (and in its origins mainly European) antisemitism is inherently anti-Zionist, because it fundamentally does not consider Jews as capable of forming a productive body politic.[11] Being opposed to Zionism for such reasons is therefore, without doubt, anti-Israel and antisemitic. Yet quite different motives could also be at work, ones that are not totally opposed to a secure collective Jewish existence, but are rather opposed to the concrete form of the Zionist movement and statehood. Such motives include anarchist and communist anti-Zionism stemming from a universalist hope for liberation, or from within the context of specific, radical criticisms of one’s own state and its actions; there is also the rejection of Israel as secular state by some Orthodox Jews, for whom a new Israel can only be the outcome of divine action. It should also be mentioned that, for a significant part of its history, Zionism was a minority movement within the Jewish world as a whole. Whatever one’s view regarding these political and religious positions, they cannot be meaningfully understood as antisemitic according to the JDA and in light of its core definition, because they are not hostile to Jews or to their secure existence. By establishing a substantive distinction, the JDA offers a terminological resource for assessing concrete cases. More on this in the following section.

2.5. Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism

The JDA’s actual and most important gain is to establish a distinction that is not new as such, but which here finds its clearest and most explicit formulation.

One of the most important criticisms of the IHRA definition was that only some of the examples were given with sufficient specificity and exemplified antisemitism per se (for example, “holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel”), while other examples could claim no such conclusive significance.[12] In the IHRA definition, such a distinction is at best only hinted at (“taking into account the overall context”). The JDA, meanwhile, makes the aspect of complexity explicit. This allows it to achieve both of the document’s goals, which are only indirectly connected: clarifying what is and what is not antisemitism, and safeguarding space for legitimate exchanges of opinions. In particular, the JDA offers people the chance to make a highly important differentiation, which recognizes that phenomena of enmity in the actual Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be variously motivated, situated, and contextualized. Superficially similar statements can often carry very different meanings, and correspondingly, as with the previous examples of anti-Zionist positions, might or might not be antisemitic. The same applies for calls to boycott Israel. These phenomena are therefore possibly, but not necessarily, antisemitic. On the other hand, there are things that must always be classified as per se antisemitic, regardless of context, including applying classic antisemitic stereotypes to Israel or, as mentioned, holding Jews responsible for the actions of the state of Israel.

This conceptual tool for clearing up the grey areas in the discourse around Israel-related antisemitism cannot be valued highly enough.

3. Classifying and Critiquing the JDA

Compared to the IHRA definition, the JDA represents a far clearer, more practicable, and more coherent definition of antisemitism. True to the etymology of “define” (from the Latin for “set a limit, bound, end”), the JDA more narrowly draws the boundaries of both the conceptual intension and extension of antisemitism than its — at least in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — more expansive counterpart, the IHRA definition. It therefore delivers what one would normally expect of a definition. Nonetheless, this final section should mention some aspects which have come in for criticism.

Likely as a result of the JDA’s prevailing reference to the contemporary and thus to Israel, and its focus on “classical antisemitism”, the religious dimensions of antisemitism, for example as the ongoing presence of Christian anti-Jewishness, are only hinted at in the text. This is rather in line with a view that was long common in scholarship but is now largely discredited, according to which an unmistakeable separation exists between Christian anti-Judaism and modern/classical antisemitism.[13] This seems to me to be the most significant shortcoming of the JDA. In any case, probably there is no conscious agenda behind not explicitly recognizing historical or contemporary Christian antisemitism.

For many readers, it is surely also puzzling that in its “FAQ” the JDA clarifies that it has no “political agenda”. Certainly, this is true in the very narrow sense, that as an antisemitism definition it advocates no specific solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet the JDA is also a thoroughly and fundamentally political document, and can only be understood as an expression of the current climate of political conflict. 

Within this constellation, and given the JDA’s strongly normative universalistic stance, some antisemitism researchers see it as too narrowly focused on ideological forms of anti-Zionism, and too obliging towards these in its placing of overly high hurdles to classifying ideological anti-Zionism as being antisemitic.[14] In any case, that is a question of degree, as the JDA also clearly names Israel-related antisemitism in various manifestations — despite ludicrous claims to the contrary from some especially pointed “critiques”.[15] The JDA is nevertheless undoubtedly, and in contrast to the IHRA definition, put together by experienced academics with highly specialized expertise, which substantially shapes its key features.

This text was first published in the European History section of Clio-online, the specialist portal for historical studies. Translated by Rowan Coupland and Samuel Langer for Gegensatz Translation Collective.