What Antisemitism Is, What It Is Not, and Why

Antisemitism is having a moment. It would be helpful if those using the term clarify what they mean by it.

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Judging by the news of late, humanity is divided into two categories: Those accusing others of antisemitism, and those denying that the people so accused are antisemitic.

In some cases, the claims of antisemitism are warranted. Other times, I think, the word is being misapplied. Some of the people misusing it are doing so in good faith. Others are not.

Compounding the problem is that hardly anyone bothers to define what it means. “I know it when I see it” might work as an operating principle for pornography. But when it comes to antisemitism, it is a train wreck.

There are definitions out there, of course; only most people are unaware of what they are. As a result, we are drifting about without a rudder.

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If antisemitism does not mean anything, it can apply to everything. In fact, the ambiguity might have been the point. For it allows the speaker to hurl the charge of antisemitism at whomever and whatever they want without any obligation to explain themselves.

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When a definition is referenced at all, the one that is most frequently cited also happens to be terrible. When I say “terrible,” I do not mean in comparison to other definitions of antisemitism; I mean terrible on a world-historical level. In fact, it is high in the running for the worst definition ever conceived for any word, ever.

I am referring here to the “Working Definition of Antisemitism” released by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. Go take a swig of whiskey and behold this hideous monstrosity of incertitude and bad English:

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.

Let’s try and break this down.

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews…

Thanks, but I am not sure that needed clarifying.

…which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.

May be expressed as hatred? Might it also be expressed as something besides hatred? This, one would think, is a rather important matter. But the IHRA has evidently deemed it too frivolous to ponder.

Moving on:

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.

Here, the IHRA explains that antisemitism is directed, at least in part, towards Jewish people and Jewish things. One cannot argue with that. But we are also told it can be directed toward non-Jewish people and non-Jewish things, thus raising a host of additional questions which, again, go unanswered.

If, at this point, you are rubbing your hands in anticipation of finally getting to the heart of what antisemitism is, I regret to inform you that the definition is finished. It does not go on from here.

According to the IHRA, then, antisemitism refers to expressions of hatred as well as other unspecified sentiments toward Jewish people and Jewish things—and also toward non-Jewish people and non-Jewish things.

All the hours of workshopping that went into this and the best they could come up with was a definition so vague it boils down to another variant of “I know it when I see it.”

If antisemitism does not mean anything, it can apply to everything. In fact, the ambiguity might have been the point. For it allows the speaker to hurl the charge of antisemitism at whomever and whatever they want without any obligation to explain themselves.

This becomes evident when one considers the examples of antisemitism provided by the IHRA in the latter part of the document. While most of them are unobjectionable, a couple have prompted scrutiny, including the following:

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.

Now, the right to national self-determination is a long-established principle of international law. All nations, including the Jews, must be able to ”freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development,” according to the United Nations agreement which formalized it.

That it is antisemitic to deny the Jews the right to self-determination would appear unobjectionable on its face. Still, one wonders what happens in the event the Jewish people’s conception of self-determination happens to conflict with that of another community. More on that in a moment.

The real problem lies in what follows—that among the examples of denying Jews the right to self-determination is referring to “the existence of a State of Israel [as] a racist endeavor.”

The ultimate expression of national self-determination is statehood. Most peoples who consider themselves nations demand their own state. But Israel and its supporters encounter a problem when they label others as antisemitic for opposing an Israeli state. That is because, with the exception of the two years from 2003-05, the State of Israel has never officially endorsed a Palestinian state. Informal offers were made during the peace process, to be sure. But aside from that single two-year period, it has never been official policy. For nearly the entirety of its existence, then, the State of Israel has denied the Palestinians’ right to national self-determination.

“A state for me but not for thee” is not a morally tenable stance, especially when you regard others as antisemitic for adopting the same view about you that you hold about them.

It is doubly problematic for the IHRA. For if denying Jews the right to statehood is antisemitic, then what would that make Israel? Racist? Going by the IHRA’s own standard, that would seem to be the case. Only, according to the IHRA itself, one is not allowed to call Israel racist because doing so would be antisemitic. In this way, the IHRA’s conception of antisemitism collapses on itself. It is unworkable, at least if we are operating on the presumption that different national communities matter equally. It is a principle with which many people seem to be having a hard time these days.

A Better Definition

Largely in response to the flaws in the IHRA statement, a number of other organizations, including T’ruah and the Nexus Project, have offered some alternatives. These other definitions are mostly similar to one another. The best, to my mind, is the Jerusalem Declaration. Compared to the maddening imprecision of the IHRA version, The Jerusalem Declaration arrives as a breath of fresh air. Here it is:

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

As you can see, the definition establishes three criteria which must be fulfilled if one is to describe any act or statement as antisemitic. It must (1) express some sort of animus (2) towards Jews (3) because they are Jews.

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The key question is this: Do the words or actions convey antipathy towards Jews because they are Jews? Or can a reasonable argument be made that the subject’s Jewishness is not the issue?

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By way of illustration, consider some examples. The statement, “Jews are so good-looking,” may be a crass generalization about Jews. But it would not qualify as antisemitic since it does not express any animus. Of course, if the speaker in question has a reputation for regarding physical beauty as the root of all evil, then a comment about Jews being good-looking might indeed be antisemitic. Otherwise, it would not.

Moving on, if I happen to see a bunch of people walking down the street who happen to be Jewish and say, “I hate those guys,” it would not be antisemitic. Sure, I am expressing animus toward Jews. But there is nothing in my remark which suggests I am alluding to their being Jewish.

This is what the Jerusalem Declaration means when it refers to “Jews as Jews.” In the example above, I am expressing hostility towards Jews, but their Jewishness is beside the point. If, instead, I were to say, “I hate those stupid Jews,” that would indeed be antisemitic—the reason being that I am voicing enmity towards them because they are Jews.

So, according to the Jerusalem Declaration, the key question is this: Do the words or actions convey antipathy towards Jews because they are Jews? Or can a reasonable argument be made that the subject’s Jewishness is not the issue?

Anti-Zionism Does Not Necessarily Imply Antisemitism

The Jerusalem Declaration has a number of advantages over the IHRA definition, not least of which is that it is an actual definition as opposed to a cryptic assemblage of words.

More than that, it offers a corrective to what is perhaps the most common objection to the IHRA document: That it equates antisemitism with anti-Zionism, or the belief that there should exist a Jewish state between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea.

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If the anti-Zionist anticipates the deportation or mass murder of the Jewish population, then, yes, it is antisemitic—potentially genocidal, even. If, instead, one aims to replace Israel with a democratic state which affords equal rights to Jews and Palestinians alike, it is not antisemitic.

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Zionism is enshrined in Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence and has served as the country’s official ideology ever since. In 2018, Binyamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud coalition went even further, enacting a law which declares “the right to exercise national self-determination in the Land of Israel” as being “unique to the Jewish people.”

For the Palestinians who comprise around 20 percent of Israel’s citizens, the law was an explicit declaration that the state belongs exclusively to the Jews and not to them. It sent an equally categorical message to the millions of stateless Palestinians who live in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank: “Only we have the right to our own state; you do not.” (For the Likud Party, the “Land of Israel” encompasses not just Israel proper but Gaza and the West Bank as well.)

Anti-Zionism rejects the notion of a Jewish state in Palestine. It currently holds a prominent place in the student demonstrations sweeping America’s college campuses. Critics charge that the protests are antisemitic at their core—in large part because of the anti-Zionist stance espoused by many of the participants. But is the allegation warranted? Is anti-Zionism antisemitic?

According to the Jerusalem Declaration, it depends on what the anti-Zionist envisions in the event that a Jewish state no longer exists. If one anticipates the deportation or mass murder of the Jewish population, then, yes, it is antisemitic—potentially genocidal, even.

If, instead, one aims to replace Israel with a democratic state which affords equal rights to Jews and Palestinians alike, it is not antisemitic. Unrealistic? Perhaps. But one cannot argue that the goal itself is motivated by anti-Jewish enmity.

The drafters of the Jerusalem Declaration explain this distinction at length. “It is not antisemitic,” they maintain, “to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants ‘between the river and the sea,’ whether in two states, a binational state, unitary democratic state, federal state, or in whatever form.”

In sum, while anti-Zionism can be antisemitic, it is not inherently so.

“From the River To the Sea” Will Be What, Exactly?

There is perhaps no slogan more ubiquitous among the protesters than “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Clearly, many of those chanting the phrase are calling not for mass violence against Israeli Jews but rather a democratic state with equal rights for all.

Take Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization at the center of the movement. On its website, it describes its vision as one of “Jewish Israelis joining Palestinians to build a just society, rooted in equality rather than supremacy, dignity rather than domination, democracy rather than dispossession—a society where every life is precious.” To the extent that such an arrangement would dispense with a Jewish state, it is clearly anti-Zionist. But antisemitic it is not.

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Many, if not most, of the protesters have probably never put much thought into exactly what a free Palestine “from the river to the sea” would mean in practice. Still, if forced to clarify their views, it strains credulity to expect anything more than a deranged minority to respond, “yeah, it means death marches and mass-executions.”

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One cannot dismiss the possibility that a certain subset of the demonstrators do interpret “from the river to the sea” as a call to harm Jewish civilians. The statements of some of the other organizations leading the protests would certainly suggest as much. “National liberation requires confrontation by any means necessary,” proclaims the Day of Resistance Toolkit issued by National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) in October 2023. Within Our Lifetime, another group with a prominent role in the protests, uses similar language.

Might “any means necessary” involve collective violence against Jews? A model template for a flyer included in the NSJP toolkit appears to offer an answer. It features an image of a paraglider descending on a crowd, an obvious reference to the Hamas paragliders who massacred Jewish civilians on October 7th—civilians whose Jewishness was the only thing about them that made them targets.

So, a number of organizations involved in the demonstrations plainly espouse an antisemitic agenda. Whether the same can be said of most of the students taking part is another matter, however. I have a hard time believing that a majority, or even a substantial minority (say, 20 percent or more), of ordinary protesters hold such views.

As a longtime specialist in Eastern Europe, I have researched some of the most brutal wars of the past fifty years, including Russia’s genocidal assault on Ukraine and the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Even under the worst conditions of violence and state collapse, the impetus for atrocities comes mostly from armed combatants and a limited number of compromised civilians. Most people, by and large, are not baying for blood.

The students protesting today on America’s college campuses live in conditions notably more congenial than the ones which prevailed in the war-torn regions I study. The notion that tens of thousands of them harbor genocidal impulses against Jews strikes me as counterintuitive in the extreme. To believe otherwise implies a strikingly grim view of human nature that runs counter to experience and common sense.

I get that these are college students. Many, if not most, of them have probably never put much thought into exactly what a free Palestine “from the river to the sea” would mean in practice. Still, if forced to clarify their views, it strains credulity to expect anything more than a deranged minority to respond, “yeah, it means death marches and mass-executions.”

In a speech at Brown University in February, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), declared that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” The reason, he explained, is that “the anti-Zionist is committed to denying rights to Jews that they afford to everyone else.” The reality, for many if not most anti-Zionists, is precisely the opposite: Far from rejecting rights for Jews that they support for others, they want Palestinians to enjoy the same rights Israeli Jews have.

Of all the issues the head of the ADL should arguably have a handle on, it is the basic demands of anti-Zionists. Yet Greenblatt either has no idea what they are or is being deliberately deceptive.

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions

At the center of the protests is a movement known as Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS). This initiative aims to cut Israel off from international support as a means of pressuring it to cease its occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Is it antisemitic to campaign for the isolation of the world’s only Jewish state—not just its government but its private companies and civil society as well? Critics say it is. But under the terms of the Jerusalem Declaration, it is not—so long as it refrains from targeting Jews as Jews.

“Boycott, divestment, and sanctions,” the Jerusalem Declaration explains, “are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic.” T’ruah, one of the other organizations to offer a definition of antisemitism, agrees. (The Nexus Project has seemingly refrained from taking an explicit position on the subject).

The U.S. adopted a similar set of measures toward South Africa during the 1980s, which helped to hasten the aid of apartheid. Just as no reasonable person¹ would describe that policy as “anti-white,” nobody can claim that its application to Israel, whose repression of Palestinians bears more than a passing resemblance to South African apartheid, is “anti-Jewish.”

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Equally indefensible is the belief by Israel and many of its defenders that opposing Israel’s existence is antisemitic but opposing a Palestinian state is fine. It is another example of the very double standards that are decried by Zionists when leveled against Israel.

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To call for boycotts against Israel because it is Jewish would indeed be antisemitic. So would arguing that such policies be imposed upon all Jewish institutions worldwide. But in the case of BDS itself, one would be hard-pressed to find evidence that such motivations are central to the movement. The official BDS website, for instance, is quite explicit that the campaign is driven not by any antipathy toward Jews but rather by the belief that Israel “has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights and has refused to comply with international law.”

Whether BDS is effective or its tactics ethical is a separate matter. But there is nothing inherently antisemitic in its official aims or the means it employs.

“Ah,” you might retort, “but this ostensible concern for Palestinians is just a ruse to conceal their hatred of the Jewish community.” To be sure, a fair number of protesters do appear to be driven by antipathy toward Jews. But if you think the bulk of them are motivated by that, as opposed to outrage at the humanitarian catastrophe Israel is unleashing on Gaza, the burden falls on you to prove it. Doing so will take more than a hunch and a collection of anecdotes from media outlets with an incentive to sensationalize.

Many of Israel’s supporters, including opponents of BDS, condemn what they see as the use of double-standards against the country. The IHRA itself describes such double-standards as antisemitic.

Nevertheless, many of these same people see little problem in applying double-standards to others. “Boycotting countries is fine in South Africa’s case but antisemitic if employed against Israel” is not a defensible statement. At the very least, one would have to make a convincing case that Israel’s policies are qualitatively distinct from South African apartheid—which, again, is a tall order.

Equally indefensible is the belief by Israel and many of its defenders that opposing Israel’s existence is antisemitic but opposing a Palestinian state is fine. It is another example of the very double standards that are decried by Zionists when leveled against Israel.

While the protests as a whole are not antisemitic, that is not to say they are free of antisemitism. Instances of antisemitism have been commonplace on America’s college campuses over the past few months—enough, in fact, to deem it a real problem. Next time, we will examine this issue and consider what, if anything, can be done about it.

1. For the record, Elon Musk is not a reasonable person.