Campus Antisemitism Higher in Absence of IHRA Definition Adoption, New Report Says

US states that have not adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism experienced higher rates of antisemitism on university campuses after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel than those that have, according to a new report.

The nonprofit Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) this week published research showing that the consequences of eschewing the IHRA definition, widely regarded as the best in the world and used globally by hundreds of governments and civic institutions, have been destructive. According to CAM, the six states that have not codified the definition in law accounted for nearly two-thirds — 63 percent — of all antisemitic incidents on campus that have been perpetrated in the last year. An increase in antisemitism, it claimed, was measured even in pro-IHRA states such as New York, where only a “symbolic” proclamation by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has recognized the definition’s utility.

“Any debate over the important and necessity of implementing the IHRA definition of antisemitism, overwhelmingly endorsed and accepted by the Jewish community, should have long been over,” CAM chief executive officer Sacha Roytman said in a press release. “Unfortunately, we are now looking at the direct results of a lack of implementation, and Jews, especially Jewish students on US campuses, are witnessing and feeling the results of neglect.”

In its research, CAM distinguished between states that “implemented” the IHRA definition through action such as legislation and others that “symbolically adopted it.”

IHRA, an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel, adopted the non-legally binding “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and well over 1,000 global entities, from countries to companies. The US State Department, the European Union, and the United Nations all use it.

According to the definition, 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.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.

To date, it has been embraced, via legislation or executive order, by 36 US states, including Ohio, New York, Virginia, Texas, Wyoming, and Georgia. However, there have been, across the world, fewer adoptions of IHRA so far in 2024 than in 2023, a fact that CAM described as regrettable given that antisemitism has surged globally during that time.

“Our research has shown that when states adopt and implement IHRA, antisemitism goes down. When they don’t, antisemitism goes up,” Roytman said in Tuesday’s statement. “The facts speak for themselves, and they should embarrass into action any decision maker at the state or federal level that has yet to fully implement IHRA. One cannot talk about fighting antisemitism and disregard the only acceptable tool to do so.”

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the 12 months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. According, to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), higher education saw a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena during the 2023-2024 academic school year.

The report added that ten campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38 respectively. Harvard University, the University of California – Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others, filled out the rest of the top ten. Violence, it continued, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.

“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said last month, after the report’s release. “The anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality or political views, and they need to start now.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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