Defining the term
OZJF uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism, adopted by consensus in 2016. The core formulation reads: “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 IHRA definition has been adopted by more than forty countries, including the United States under successive administrations, as well as by hundreds of subnational governments, universities, and civil-society institutions. Its strength is that it is specific enough to guide institutional response while leaving room for legitimate debate about Israeli policy.
The definition is accompanied by illustrative examples. Some describe classical antisemitism — blood libels, conspiracy theories about Jewish control of finance or media, Holocaust denial. Others describe contemporary forms that surface in debates about 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 by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”; and “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” The definition is careful to add that “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.” That caveat is not a loophole; it is central.
Contemporary forms
Antisemitism in the United States is not a hypothetical. The ADL’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2023 recorded 8,873 antisemitic incidents, the highest annual total in the audit’s history and a 140 percent increase from the year prior. The FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics consistently show that Jews, who comprise roughly 2 percent of the U.S. population, are the target of a majority of religion-based hate crimes — a disproportion that has held for more than two decades. The American Jewish Committee’s annual State of Antisemitism in America report finds that large majorities of American Jews say antisemitism has increased and that more than a quarter have avoided wearing, carrying, or displaying things that would identify them as Jewish.
The forms antisemitism takes today are various and overlapping.
Campus harassment since October 7
In the weeks and months after the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, Jewish students at numerous American universities reported harassment, intimidation, and in some cases physical assault. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened Title VI shared-ancestry investigations at dozens of institutions, a docket summarized in the OCR’s pending investigations list. The harassment has included chants calling for the elimination of Israel, physical blockades of Jewish students’ access to parts of campus, vandalism of Hillel buildings, and the invocation of classic antisemitic tropes in ostensibly political protest. Legitimate protest against Israeli policy is protected speech. Targeting Jewish students as Jews, or conditioning their access to campus spaces on disavowing Zionism, is not.
Anti-Israel rhetoric that crosses the line
OZJF is emphatic that not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic. Criticism of Israeli military conduct, of settlement policy, of coalition extremism, of Prime Minister Netanyahu — all of that is ordinary democratic debate, and OZJF engages in some of it ourselves on our War and Civilian Protection page. What crosses the line into antisemitism is rhetoric that applies to Israel standards applied to no other state (for example, denying its right to exist while affirming every other nation’s), that holds Jews collectively responsible for Israeli actions (for example, vandalizing a synagogue in Pittsburgh to protest Gaza), or that recycles classical antisemitic tropes in new packaging (for example, accusations of child-killing or blood-drinking transposed onto “Zionists”). The IHRA examples are useful precisely because they draw those lines with specificity.
Conspiracy theories
Conspiracism about Jews is one of the most persistent forms of the bigotry and one that crosses political lines. On the far right, it manifests in “Great Replacement” theories that name Jews as the organizers of demographic change — the ideology invoked by the Tree of Life shooter in Pittsburgh in October 2018, who murdered eleven worshippers at Shabbat services. On the far left and in parts of Islamist discourse, it manifests in claims of Jewish or “Zionist” control of U.S. foreign policy, finance, or media. The ADL’s tracking of conspiracy theories documents both.
Synagogue violence
The Tree of Life attack in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018 remains the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. The shooter was convicted and sentenced to death in federal court in 2023; the Department of Justice press release documents the case. Less than four years later, on January 15, 2022, a gunman took four hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. The FBI’s account of the Colleyville hostage incident describes an eleven-hour standoff that ended without loss of hostage life thanks to the quick thinking of Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker. These events are not isolated. They are the extreme end of a continuum that begins with rhetoric and conspiracism.
Why precision matters
The credibility of anti-antisemitism work depends on precision. If every criticism of Israel is labeled antisemitism, the term loses meaning and the charge loses force — including in the cases where it most needs to land. Conversely, if the genuine article is explained away because it is inconvenient to a political coalition, Jewish communities are left undefended. OZJF’s position is that the IHRA definition, used with care, does the work. It identifies the behaviors — denial of Jewish peoplehood, collective blame, classical tropes, double standards — that cross the line, while leaving democratic debate about Israeli policy untouched.
What institutions should do
Universities, employers, and public agencies should adopt the IHRA definition as an interpretive tool for their existing civil-rights and conduct policies. They should train staff on the difference between protected criticism and targeted harassment. They should publish incident data. They should protect Jewish students’ equal access to every part of campus life. And they should reject two opposite failures: the failure to take antisemitism seriously, and the failure to distinguish antisemitism from legitimate political speech. Both failures hurt Jews. Both hurt honest debate. The point of this page is to make the distinction clear.