The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism

After the June 1967 War, the relationship between speech or conduct targeting the State of Israel and anti-Jewish bigotry became the subject of public controversy. Over subsequent decades, as Israel came under increasing international criticism for its diplomatic rejectionism and international law violations, a growing number of officials, campaigners, commentators, and researchers recast much of that criticism of Israel as a sinister “new antisemitism.” In 2004, an Israel advocacy group based in the United States led the drafting of a formal “redefinition” of antisemitism whose novelty was to cast certain statements criticizing Israel as antisemitic. In 2016, a version of this definition was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental body promoting Holocaust education. The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, as the text was henceforth known, became a flashpoint for debates about the relationship between antisemitism and criticism of Israel, as well as disagreements over how to mitigate “hate speech” while safeguarding academic freedom and freedom of expression.

IHRA Definition and Examples

In May 2016, IHRA’s decision-making plenary adopted “the following non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism”:

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.

The Working Definition was followed by explanatory text intended to “guide IHRA in its work.” This asserted that antisemitism may target “the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity,” and caveated that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

The explanatory text then listed eleven “examples” of acts or expressions that “could, taking into account the overall context,” constitute antisemitism. Four of these examples related to Israel:

• “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 [to Israel] 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”

The explanatory text also classified “antisemitic acts” as “criminal” when “so defined by law,” “criminal acts” as “antisemitic” when directed at targets selected because of a perceived “link” to Jews, and “antisemitic discrimination” as “the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others.”

Supporters of the IHRA document presented it as a “vital tool” that empowered authorities to identify antisemitic manifestations consistently and then respond accordingly. Relevant authorities were said to include judges applying hate crime laws; data collectors deciding which alleged antisemitic incidents to count; social media platforms moderating online content; university administrators regulating speech on campus; and public bodies determining which research, civil society, and cultural projects to fund.

Supporters of the definition claimed that authorities had previously failed to recognize antisemitism when it manifested as speech or action against Israel; they now could apply the IHRA definition and be guided by the examples to reach consistent assessments in hard cases. 

Criticism

Critics of the IHRA text argued that it was inadequate on three main grounds:

It was indeterminate. The two-sentence Working Definition was vague to the point of vacuity as it stipulated that antisemitism was “a certain perception of Jews” without specifying what kind of “perception.” The accompanying examples of acts or expressions that “could, taking into account the overall context,” constitute antisemitism could not be consistently applied, because the text failed to specify which “context[s]” should be considered as qualifying. Finally, some examples were internally ambiguous. For instance, deciding whether a statement applies “double standards” to Israel will normally require that antecedent historical, political, and legal judgments be reached in respect of complex questions across highly contentious domains. Yet the IHRA text provided no guidance on how such controversies should be resolved.

It was partisan. The IHRA examples incorporated in a supposedly objective, technical definition of antisemitism premises that were ideologically and politically partisan. The belief that Israel or Zionism was a “racist endeavor” could be defended based on mainstream scholarship, yet one IHRA example stigmatized this position as presumptively antisemitic. Respected Jewish as well as Israeli commentators had drawn parallels between Israeli and Nazi policies, while Nazi analogies were anyway ubiquitous in political rhetoric, yet another IHRA example selectively, sweepingly, and by fiat delegitimized such comparisons. Israel has been accused by leading human rights groups as well as the International Court of Justice of breaching the apartheid convention, yet the IHRA example on “double standards” classified Israel as a “democratic nation.”

It threatened human rights. Read literally, with all its caveats included, the IHRA text lacked meaning. If the caveats were overlooked, the IHRA examples could easily be construed to encompass legitimate, accurate criticism of Israel. In either case, the text was unsuitable for use as a speech code. Its radical imprecision would encourage people to self-censor, as they would be unsure which statements would be interpreted as breaching the rules, while its examples could be wielded to stigmatize or stifle legitimate expression. In the United States, incorporation of the IHRA examples into company or university regulations could deter employees or students from expressing their opinions on US foreign policy for fear this would incur career-ruining reputational harm. Besides jeopardizing the right to free speech in general, the text also delegitimized speech criticizing Israel in particular. This threatened to strip the protective shield of international publicity from those targeted by Israeli policies, increasing their vulnerability to human rights violations.

Responding to these concerns, proponents of the IHRA text underscored that it was “non-legally binding” and highlighted its caveat exempting “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country.” But neither of these purported safeguards reassured the critics. For one thing, the IHRA definition had been given legal effect in certain jurisdictions (e.g., in multiple US states) and campaigners still pushed for its legal codification elsewhere. For another, even if not themselves binding, the IHRA examples could still control how judges applied hate speech laws. Furthermore, if used by university administrators, media platforms, political parties, and others to regulate speech in those domains, the IHRA examples could be non-legally binding yet still stifle expression across civil society. Meanwhile, if the question of what constituted “double standards” against Israel was subjective, it was no clearer which criticisms of Israel were “similar to that leveled against any other country.” That supposed qualification did not check or balance but merely reproduced in positive form the examples’ flaws.

History

The IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism is the product of a concerted political campaign by Israel advocacy groups that worked with supportive governments to delegitimize as antisemitic a broad swath of international criticism of Israel.

The new antisemitism

In the 1970s, Israel became the subject of growing censure over its military occupation, human rights violations, and diplomatic intransigence. Israeli spokespeople and Israel supporters alleged that much or most of this proliferating international criticism was an anti-Jewish phenomenon — a “new antisemitism.” They argued that whereas traditional antisemitism had targeted Jewish individuals or communities, the new antisemitism manifested distinctively as hostility to or discrimination against the Jewish State. They further maintained that the distinction between legitimate and antisemitic criticism of Israel could be clearly delineated.

Where should that boundary be drawn? “New antisemitism” exponents were remarkably consistent in their response, the essence of which was distilled in February 2004 by Israel’s then-minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs Natan Sharansky. Sharansky defined the “new anti-Semitism” as comprising “3Ds”: the “demonization” of Israel, its “delegitimization,” and the application of “double-standards” to it. Demonization denoted criticism “blown out of all sensible proportion,” delegitimization the denial of “Israel’s fundamental right to exist,” and double standards the “singl[ing] . . . out” of Israel for “selective” or otherwise hypocritical criticism.

Definition of the European Union Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, 2004 – 2013

In the early 2000s, the breakdown of the Oslo “peace process,” eruption of the second Palestinian intifada, and media coverage of Israel’s harsh repression combined to erode Israel’s standing in Western public opinion. The 2001 World Conference Against Racism, held in South Africa under UN auspices, had seen a revival of the charge that Zionism was racist, while in a 2003 survey across European Union countries, more respondents identified Israel as a “threat to peace in the world” than any other country. Several Western European countries had also witnessed an uptick in recorded anti-Jewish incidents, linked to escalated conflict in the Middle East, even as public opinion polls did not register an increase in anti-Jewish sentiment.

In this context, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) led the drafting of a formal “redefinition” of antisemitism that encompassed the “new antisemitism.” The AJC was a prominent lobby group for Israel that had long promulgated the new antisemitism idea. Most other participants in the drafting process also worked for Jewish organizations that advocated for Israel and endorsed claims of a new, Israel-related antisemitism. Jewish officials and antisemitism experts who had expressed skepticism toward the new antisemitism framework were excluded. The resulting text was virtually identical to the version endorsed by IHRA more than a decade later.

In 2005, the European Union Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) — an autonomous agency of the European Union (EU) — circulated a tweaked version of the AJC’s text on its website as a draft “working definition of antisemitism.” The AJC’s original document listed eleven acts or expressions that were presented as categorically antisemitic; negotiations with the EUMC added the caveat that these examples merely “could” be antisemitic depending on the “context.” That qualification was inserted to protect legitimate criticism of Israel. But in practice, Israel advocacy groups often ignored it. Neither the EUMC nor the EU endorsed the Working Definition. But Israel advocacy groups subsequently wielded what they at times construed as the “EUMC definition,” “European definition,” or even “EU definition” as a rhetorical bludgeon against Israel’s critics. The resulting controversies are what seemingly prompted the EUMC’s successor organization, the Fundamental Rights Agency, to remove the definition from its website in 2013. This deletion prompted the Israeli government and its advocates to find an alternative institutional home for their “redefinition” of antisemitism.

IHRA definition, May 2016

Between 2014 and 2016, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) worked with officials from the United States, Romania, Germany, and elsewhere to secure the Working Definition’s adoption by IHRA. The SWC was a right-wing Israel lobby group with an expansive notion of antisemitism as it related to Israel: the SWC likened EU guidelines prohibiting the funding of Israeli institutions established unlawfully in Occupied Palestinian Territory to the “Nazi boycott of the Jews”; ranked UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reaffirmed the illegality of Israel’s settlements, the world’s “Worst Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Incident” of 2016; and responded to an International Criminal Court determination that it had jurisdiction in Palestine by charging that “kangaroo court” with “anti-Semitism.”

The SWC’s Director of Government Affairs, Mark Weitzman, also chaired IHRA’s Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial (“Antisemitism Committee”). Ahead of IHRA’s May 2016 meeting in Bucharest, Weitzman’s committee asked IHRA’s decision-making plenary to adopt as its own Working Definition of Antisemitism what amounted to the entire EUMC text: both the two-sentence definition and the list of eleven examples, including all four relating to Israel. Several IHRA member countries objected to the Israel-related examples as posing a threat to legitimate political speech, i.e., to valid criticism of Israel. To achieve the requisite consensus, the SWC’s proposed text was revised to exclude the examples from the Working Definition; they were retained merely as guidance for the IHRA’s own work. This revised text was adopted by consensus on 26 May 2016.

Misrepresentation

Israel and its advocates never valued the vague two-sentence Working Definition of Antisemitism. What they prized was the accompanying list of examples, which could be used to delegitimize criticism of Israel. By distinguishing between the definition and examples, some IHRA delegations sought to appease the pro-Israel forces that were pushing the text while preventing Israel and its supporters from using the examples to undermine freedom of speech. But beginning in 2018, Israel lobby groups began to misrepresent the examples as if they were part of the Working Definition of Antisemitism adopted by IHRA’s plenary in May 2016. IHRA’s own permanent office, based in Berlin, colluded in this falsehood. Certain IHRA member countries that had opposed the Israel-related examples privately objected to the unilateral rewriting of IHRA’s 2016 decision, but they declined to make their concerns public.

Adoption and Implementation

By March 2025, the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism had been endorsed by forty-four UN member states and more than half of US states; it also underpinned the EU’s antisemitism strategy. The legal or policy status of said “endorsements” was often unclear, and it was unknown how many countries had adopted the IHRA examples as well. On the other hand, the US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism published in May 2023 and the UN Alliance of Civilizations in January 2025 both declined to adopt the IHRA definition despite intensive lobbying by Israel supporters. The IHRA text had also failed to win broad support among experts; a panoply of scholars, jurists, civil liberties campaigners, Palestine solidarity activists, and progressive Jewish groups had criticized the IHRA examples on the grounds surveyed above.

Palestinian and Arab intellectuals argued in a 2020 joint statement that by conflating “Judaism with Zionism,” the IHRA examples set up a false opposition between Jewish and Palestinian rights, undermining both. Among many problems with the definition, they asserted that its adoption made it difficult to freely discuss alternative visions of the Israeli state (for example, its reconstitution as a binational polity) or the internationally recognized right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Some of these critics drafted alternative definitions that attempted to mitigate the IHRA examples’ flaws, notably the 2021 Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Meanwhile, analogous “working definitions” of Islamophobia and Hinduphobia were developed in explicit imitation of the IHRA text. None of these other definition projects gained comparable political traction. 

In practice, campaign groups identified multiple instances where the IHRA examples — misrepresented as the IHRA definition — were used to impose sanctions on individuals or groups for legitimate political speech. In Britain, for example, student events organized under the banner of "Israel Apartheid Week" were shut down in early 2017 for breaching the IHRA examples, while in 2021, the opposition Labour Party prohibited a branch motion condemning Israeli apartheid on the same grounds. The SWC hailed this use of the IHRA text to suppress campus events as a “turning point in the struggle to curb the demonization of the Jewish state at universities.”

Increased political attention to antisemitism allegations after 7 October 2023, together with broader right-wing projects in Britain and the United States to discipline or defund universities, created conditions for IHRA-enabled censorship to proliferate. Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace reported in February 2024 that there had been “a flood of complaints and lawsuits against US campuses for alleged antisemitism — virtually all relying on the IHRA definition of antisemitism.” As of March 2025, multiple initiatives to entrench or legislate the IHRA definition and/or examples were underway at both the state and federal levels.

More broadly, Israel’s formal rejection of partition in Palestine together with its plausibly genocidal conduct in Gaza from October 2023 had polarized Western public opinion and eroded Israel’s fundamental legitimacy abroad. With the second Trump administration committed to deploying the IHRA examples against “campus anti-Semitism” and pro-Israel donors pressing universities to quash student demonstrations over Gaza, controversies over the limits of permissible speech and association — with the IHRA definition as their lighting rod — look set to continue.