Organization or Publication
#antisemitism: Coming of Age During the Resurgence of Hate
Antisemitism is confusing in its complexity. In one of the most apt analogies I’ve heard used, this ever-evolving and constantly morphing hatred of the Jewish people was compared to the boggart in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book series. The boggart, a magical creature, is a shape-shifter that will assume the form of whatever the person who encounters it is the most frightened of. So, too, is the nature of antisemitism. It defies logic, reason, and rationality. Instead, in every place, and seemingly in every generation, antisemitism emerges in a way that feeds into the fears of the populace. In medieval Europe, antisemitism stemmed from religion, with the Jews being accused of deicide, having collective responsibility for the death of Jesus as described in the Gospels. In Germany in the years leading up to World War II, Jews became the scapegoat for the financial distress that the country was in during the interwar years. And in the United States of 2020, an increasingly polarized society found multiple ways to explain the vocalization of once latent antisemitism. Dual loyalty, Jews as financial puppet masters secretly controlling the economy and the government, Israel as an abuser of human rights, and countless other accusations have been vocalized by members of the political Left, the Right, and the armchair activists of the internet. During the COVID-19 pandemic, antisemitism in the United States saw a new twist, with accusations coming from both the far Left and the Right….
The changing and volatile nature of antisemitism and its varying manifestations, both over time and simultaneously at this juncture in history, can be confusing and frightening, particularly for adolescents and emerging adults. To be at a life stage of trying to figure out where you stand in relation to your faith and cultural identity in the first place, and then to have a sense of attack, can fundamentally shape the lifelong relationship that this generation will have with Judaism. Whether they will lean further into it, pull away, or find new ways to relate to their Jewish identities, the growing shape-shifting specter of antisemitism is an undeniable factor in the Jewish experience of American Jewish life. (pp. xii-xiii)
Individual Author(s): Vinokor-Meinrath, Samantha A.
DOI / ISBN / Link: 978-1440879005
Source Type: eBook
Country: USA
Year: 2022
Tags: Educational
Find it at UCLA: https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/17p22dp/alma9996847308206533
Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
Antisemitism is a belief or behavior that is hostile towards Jews just because they are Jewish. For instance, antisemitism may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews.
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://extremismterms.adl.org/glossary/antisemitism
Source Type: Web article
Tags: Educational | Advocacy | Nonprofit
Country: USA
Year: 2025
City of Toronto
Antisemitism is latent or overt hostility or hatred directed towards, or discrimination against individual Jewish people or Jewish people collectively for reasons connected to their religion, ethnicity, and their cultural, historical, intellectual and religious heritage. Jewish people have been persecuted for their identities regardless of their religious beliefs.
Antisemitism can take many forms, ranging from individual acts of discrimination, name-calling and bullying, online expressions of bias and hate, physical violence, vandalism in synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, assault and murder, to more organized and systematic efforts, including social, political and economic exclusion, and genocide, to destroy entire communities. This longstanding form of prejudice and discrimination continues in Ontario today.
Discriminatory harassment and bias against Jewish people, or those perceived to be Jewish, is often based on perceived attitudes about wealth and money, faith and religious practice, politics, or the way a person looks, dresses, speaks or behaves, and can include antisemitic jokes and micro-aggressions. Antisemitism is also expressed as scapegoating. For example, Jews have been blamed for large scale problems and societal challenges such as COVID-19 and economic crises.
Jewish people are diverse and represent every race, gender, political belief and economic status. For example, this includes racially and ethnically diverse communities, including Eastern and Western European and Russian (Ashkenazi), Middle Eastern, North African, Central Asian, and Balkan regions (Mizrahi), Ethiopian and Ugandan (African), and Spanish and Portuguese (Sephardi). As such, Jewish people can experience multiple forms of discrimination, harassment and bias.
Source Title: “Confronting Antisemitism”
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/get-involved/community/toronto-for-all/confronting-antisemitism/
Source Type: Web article
Tags: Educational | Governmental
Country: Canada
Year: 2022
Encyclopedia of Social Problems
Anti-Semitism is the active or passive, individual or collective, hatred of either empirically existing or purely mythological Jews, such that the signifier “Jew” functions as a representational substitute for social conduct or institutions deemed by the anti-Semite to be abnormal and pathological. Especially important is the manner in which “the Jew” stands in for excesses and deficiencies in social relations such that “Jews” embody a simultaneous “too much” and “not enough” logic. For example, Jews have been criticized for being simultaneously too egoistic and too altruistic or agents of both anomie (deregulation or normlessness) and fatalism (excessive regulation); in other words, “Jews” personify social imbalances.
Anti-Semitism may manifest itself in religious, political-economic, ethnoracial, and cultural terms and is typically correlated positively with psychological authoritarianism and political models such as fascism, Nazism, right-wing populism, nativism, and other movements that scapegoat a pernicious “other.” It can find expression in reactions ranging from stereotypical insults at one end of the spectrum to all-out genocide at the other. More than routine bias or simple prejudice, anti-Semitism is a demonizing ideology that attempts to explain events, crises, inequalities, exploitation, and villainy by exposing the malevolent intentions of Jews as the primary, visible or invisible, causal factor. The Jew, in other words, becomes the master key to unlock the mysteries of all social problems and can therefore shade off into a freestanding worldview. In Western political culture, references to “the Jew” are frequently veiled in populist and fundamentalist currents with codes such as “European bankers” or anti-Christian, international “money barons” in order to preserve a veneer of respectability.
As a social problem, anti-Semitism fluctuates in intensity, depending on changes in social organization and social dynamics. After the Holocaust, for example, anti-Semitism was inextricably associated with Nazism and, as such, was relegated to the fringes of society in the industrialized West, and, by the 1960s, anti-Semitism was believed to be, if not nearly extinct, then definitely on the list of endangered ideological species in the United States. Since the mid-1990s, however, anti-Semitism appears to be making a comeback in the United States, especially among minority groups that, in previous generations, were relatively immune to the abstract demonization of Jews. Also, through the Internet, many hate groups have found a way to maximize their anti-Semitic diatribes. Globally, levels of anti-Semitism may be at an all-time high, especially in the Middle East, where demonological anti-Semitism has reached hysterical proportions and Jews are fully identified with Israeli state policies. Any attempt to further explain anti-Semitism must, first, distinguish between concrete anti-Jewish bias and abstract demonization and, second, between premodern and modern forms of anti-Semitism. (p. 50)
Individual Author(s): Worrell, Mark
DOI / ISBN / Link: 978-1-4129-4165-5
Source Type: Reference
Country: USA
Year: 2008
Tags: Educational | Scholarly
Find it at UCLA: https://search.library.ucla.edu/permalink/01UCS_LAL/17p22dp/alma9960920573606533
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)
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.
To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve as illustrations:
Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. 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.
- 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.
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.
Source Title: “Working definition of antisemitism”
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism
Source Type: Resolution
Tags: Scholarly | Governmental
Country: Global
Year: 2016
Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA)
Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish).
Guidelines
A. General
- It is racist to essentialize (treat a character trait as inherent) or to make sweeping negative generalizations about a given population. What is true of racism in general is true of antisemitism in particular.
- What is particular in classic antisemitism is the idea that Jews are linked to the forces of evil. This stands at the core of many anti-Jewish fantasies, such as the idea of a Jewish conspiracy in which “the Jews” possess hidden power that they use to promote their own collective agenda at the expense of other people. This linkage between Jews and evil continues in the present: in the fantasy that “the Jews” control governments with a “hidden hand,” that they own the banks, control the media, act as “a state within a state,” and are responsible for spreading disease (such as Covid-19). All these features can be instrumentalized by different (and even antagonistic) political causes.
- Antisemitism can be manifested in words, visual images, and deeds. Examples of antisemitic words include utterances that all Jews are wealthy, inherently stingy, or unpatriotic. In antisemitic caricatures, Jews are often depicted as grotesque, with big noses and associated with wealth. Examples of antisemitic deeds are: assaulting someone because she or he is Jewish, attacking a synagogue, daubing swastikas on Jewish graves, or refusing to hire or promote people because they are Jewish.
- Antisemitism can be direct or indirect, explicit or coded. For example, “The Rothschilds control the world” is a coded statement about the alleged power of “the Jews” over banks and international finance. Similarly, portraying Israel as the ultimate evil or grossly exaggerating its actual influence can be a coded way of racializing and stigmatizing Jews. In many cases, identifying coded speech is a matter of context and judgement, taking account of these guidelines.
- Denying or minimizing the Holocaust by claiming that the deliberate Nazi genocide of the Jews did not take place, or that there were no extermination camps or gas chambers, or that the number of victims was a fraction of the actual total, is antisemitic.
B. Israel and Palestine: examples that, on the face of it, are antisemitic
- Applying the symbols, images and negative stereotypes of classical antisemitism (see guidelines 2 and 3) to the State of Israel.
- Holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s conduct or treating Jews, simply because they are Jewish, as agents of Israel.
- Requiring people, because they are Jewish, publicly to condemn Israel or Zionism (for example, at a political meeting).
- Assuming that non-Israeli Jews, simply because they are Jews, are necessarily more loyal to Israel than to their own countries.
- Denying 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.
C. Israel and Palestine: examples that, on the face of it, are not antisemitic (whether or not one approves of the view or action)
- Supporting the Palestinian demand for justice and the full grant of their political, national, civil and human rights, as encapsulated in international law.
- Criticizing or opposing Zionism as a form of nationalism, or arguing for a variety of constitutional arrangements for Jews and Palestinians in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. It is not antisemitic 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.
- Evidence-based criticism of Israel as a state. This includes its institutions and founding principles. It also includes its policies and practices, domestic and abroad, such as the conduct of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, the role Israel plays in the region, or any other way in which, as a state, it influences events in the world. It is not antisemitic to point out systematic racial discrimination. In general, the same norms of debate that apply to other states and to other conflicts over national self-determination apply in the case of Israel and Palestine. Thus, even if contentious, it is not antisemitic, in and of itself, to compare Israel with other historical cases, including settler-colonialism or apartheid.
- Boycott, divestment and sanctions are commonplace, non-violent forms of political protest against states. In the Israeli case they are not, in and of themselves, antisemitic.
- Political speech does not have to be measured, proportional, tempered, or reasonable to be protected under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and other human rights instruments. Criticism that some may see as excessive or contentious, or as reflecting a “double standard,” is not, in and of itself, antisemitic. In general, the line between antisemitic and non-antisemitic speech is different from the line between unreasonable and reasonable speech.
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/#jda
Source Type: Resolution
Tags: Scholarly | Advocacy
Country: Global
Year: 2021
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
Antisemitism is grave, serious, and totally incompatible with movements for collective liberation, and we stand against it in any form.
Antisemitism is discrimination, targeting, violence, and dehumanizing stereotypes directed at Jews because they are Jewish. In the past decade alone, some examples of the horrifying white nationalist antisemitic violence we have witnessed include the murder of 11 congregants at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, synagogue shootings at a Chabad synagogue in Poway, California in 2019, Nazi symbols at the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection, antisemitic hate groups and rallies, and the desecration of cemeteries. We have also seen the use of Jewish stereotypes and conspiracy theories as part of racist ideologies. Visibly observant Jews have been especially harassed and harmed.
We understand antisemitism as historically contextual, situated amidst interrelated conditions and struggles. That’s why we fight antisemitism within, and as part of, broader struggles against oppression and for collective liberation. For instance, white nationalist violence has been on the rise in the U.S., fueled by anti-immigrant and racist manifestos, sentiments, and conspiracy theories, such as the “great replacement” theory. Jews are among the targets of white nationalist violence, along with Black people, immigrants, Muslims, and trans and queer people, among others. Our safety is bound together with the safety of all people, and none of us is free if we aren’t all free.
Attacking Jewish individuals or communal spaces for being Jewish, or blaming the Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government, is antisemitic and unacceptable and flatly contrary to the values of our movement. Our movement for justice in Palestine stands firm as an anti-racist movement, which of course includes opposing all acts of antisemitism.
Source Title: “On Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism and Dangerous Conflations”
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/09/antisemitism-dangerous/
Document Type: Statement
Tags:Educational | Advocacy | Nonprofit
Country: USA
Year: 2023
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
Antisemitic hate groups hold Jewish people collectively responsible for society’s ills, believing they possess outsized, worldwide societal influence that they use to create social, economic and political instability for their own benefit. Antisemitism undergirds much of the far right, unifying adherents in their belief that Jewish people pose the primary threat to white social dominance. Antisemitic groups and actors also distort and deny the reality of the Holocaust to cast Jews as conniving opportunists.
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/antisemitism/
Source Type: Web article
Tags: Educational | Advocacy | Nonprofit
Country: USA
Year: 2025
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM)
Antisemitism is the prejudice against or hatred of Jewish people. This hatred was at the foundation of the Holocaust. But, antisemitism did not begin or end with the Holocaust. Antisemitism has existed for thousands of years. It has often taken the form of systemic discrimination against and persecution of Jews. Antisemitism has repeatedly led to serious and deadly violence against Jewish people.
Antisemitism is a set of hateful beliefs and ideas with deep historical, social, and cultural roots. Over many centuries, Christianity played a central role in the development and spread of antisemitism in Europe, where Jews have always been a minority.
Today, antisemitic ideas and stereotypes are held by people of all different backgrounds and religions, as well as from across the political spectrum.
Antisemitism often takes the forms of scapegoating and conspiracy theories based on stereotypes and tropes. These theories falsely portray Jewish people as dangerous to society or even the world.
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism
Source Type: Website
Tags: Educational | Governmental
Country: USA
Year: 2025
Universities Australia (UA)
Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, harassment, exclusion, vilification, intimidation or violence that impedes Jews’ ability to participate as equals in educational, political, religious, cultural, economic or social life. It can manifest in a range of ways including negative, dehumanising, or stereotypical narratives about Jews. Further, it includes hate speech, epithets, caricatures, stereotypes, tropes, Holocaust denial, and antisemitic symbols. Targeting Jews based on their Jewish identities alone is discriminatory and antisemitic.
Criticism of the policies and practices of the Israeli government or state is not in and of itself antisemitic. However, criticism of Israel can be antisemitic when it is grounded in harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions and when it calls for the elimination of the State of Israel or all Jews or when it holds Jewish individuals or communities responsible for Israel’s actions. It can be antisemitic to make assumptions about what Jewish individuals think based only on the fact that they are Jewish.
All peoples, including Jews, have the right to self-determination. For most, but not all Jewish Australians, Zionism is a core part of their Jewish identity. Substituting the word “Zionist’’ for ‘’Jew’’ does not eliminate the possibility of speech being antisemitic.
Source Title: “Statement on Racism”
Link / DOI / ISBN: https://universitiesaustralia.edu.au/media-item/statement-on-racism/
Source Type: Resolution
Tags: Scholarly
Country: Australia
Year: 2025
Initiative to Study Hate
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