|Diaspora)))///Alliance\Antisemitism Fact Sheet

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ANTISEMITISM EXPLAINED
What is it?

The term antisemitism describes hostility, discrimination, prejudice, and violence towardJews as Jews. Antisemitic rhetoric and behavior hold Jews collectively responsible forsocietal ills or perceived evils in the world, resulting in marginalization, persecution, andviolence. Yet nailing down a formal definition of antisemitism can be challenging given how
antisemitic ideas and images change over time and function differently in local and nationalcontexts.
Drawing on elements of Christian theology and circulating across the western world andbeyond, antisemitism today often takes the form of verbal and physical violence,stereotyping, Holocaust denialism, and conspiracy theories of nefarious Jewish economic,
social, cultural, or political influence and control. As antisemitism conventionally comprises
such paranoid fantasies of Jewish power, the real existence of a Jewish nation-state posesparticular challenges for identifying it. Criticism of the state of Israel may serve as a vehicle
for antisemitic rhetoric or behavior when it exaggerates the state of Israel's influence inglobal politics or holds Jews collectively responsible for Israeli state policies.
Antisemitism does not occur in isolation but rather appears in conjunction with other formsof discrimination, bigotry, and violence. And, like other forms of racism, antisemitism
dehumanizes Jewish people, incites others to harass and exploit them, and manipulates
popular resentments to reproduce an unjust status quo. Antisemitic rhetoric often portrays
Jews as shadowy puppet masters who control those in power or disloyal interlopers seeking
to corrupt and undermine social stability; Jewish people are thus blamed for threats tonational health and security as well as inequalities resulting from capitalism. Antisemitism
can consequently defuse legitimate criticism of existing political and economic systems andabsolve those responsible for ongoing crises, inequality, and suffering.
Oppressive systems and individuals that stoke antisemitism can also coexist with a politics
of philosemitism, which claims to protect and admire Jews. Like antisemitism, philosemitism
uses generalizations and stereotypes about Jews to isolate and exceptionalize Jewish
people, often recycling assumptions about Jewish otherness and distinguishing them fromother minoritized groups. Sometimes philosemitic language and behavior – especially in theform of admiration or support for the state of Israel – can conceal underlying hostility
towards Jews, reinforces antisemitic fantasies about Jews, and authorizes the demonizationof other minoritized groups.

Who isaffected?

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Antisemitism primarily targets Jews as well as people perceived as Jewish. However,vulnerability to antisemitic violence is not distributed equally. Within the Jewish community,
those who appear most visibly and publicly Jewish (based on, for example, forms oftraditional dress) face greater risk of attack. At the same time, the fear of Jewish invisibility
and/or deceptive assimilation has been a feature of antisemitic thinking since the earlytwentieth century at least.

|Diaspora)))///Alliance\Antisemitism Fact Sheet

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Antisemitism does not only impact Jews. Antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as the ‘Great
Replacement’ Theory, often imagine Jews, Black people, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, migrants,and other marginalized groups in a diabolical alliance to undermine white and Christianmajorities or power. At the same time, antisemitic conspiracy theories can offer alreadydisenfranchised communities a foreshortened but appealing channel to express resentment
and frustration at those perceived with power. When individuals or groups from thesecommunities draw on such conspiracy theories in their protests against injustice, they can inturn face disproportionate surveillance, repression, and criminalization. This reactionary
instrumentalization of Jews creates a racialized cycle of antisemitic incitement andphilosemitic punishment.

Instrumentalizedaccusations

Accusations of antisemitism can misuse and misappropriate concerns about anti-Jewish
prejudice to advance reactionary and repressive politics. These bad faith accusations isolate
Jews from other minoritized groups and portray progressive political movements and actors
as illiberal, hateful threats to freedom and democracy. Authoritarian individuals and regimes
often use false accusations of antisemitism against others to promote repressive policies
and agendas and absolve themselves of past or ongoing antisemitism. Such deceptive
performances of philosemitism claim to protect Jews while dangerously endorsing anantagonism between the human rights and safety of Jewish people, on the one hand, and thehuman rights and safety of other minoritized groups, on the other.
Examples where instrumentalized accusations of antisemitism are used to advance political
agendas include:
1) Conflating criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism, such as through theadoption or promotion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)
definition of antisemitism or by discrediting human rights accountability mechanisms
as antisemitic.
2) Anti-boycott legislation, which began as a way to penalize non-violent action for
Palestinian human rights, has since been adopted to penalize non-violent protest inother issue areas.
3) The normalization of anti-migrant, anti-Muslim, and carceral agendas through claims
to protect Jewish communities (see Reuters article)

Strategies tocounter

Fighting antisemitism is part of the larger project of creating a just democracy.
/ Interrupt scapegoating, stereotyping, and marginalization of all Jewish people
targeted as Jews, regardless of political orientation/ Build relationships with local Jewish groups to develop shared visions of justice,democracy, religious pluralism, and human rights.
/ Be rigorous in analyzing forms of both white and Christian supremacy and resist
creating competitive hierarchies of suffering.
/ Address false accusations of antisemitism without denying the existence ofantisemitism.

Please reach out to info@diasporaalliance.co to request training and further resources.
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