Arbeit Macht Frei, gates to Auschwitz

ANTISEMITISM TODAY : USE AND ABUSE OF DEFINITIONS

Antisemitism Today: 

Use and Abuse of Definitions

 

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead

London School of Economics

&

Tom Hickey

University of Brighton

6.30pm Thursday 29th November       

 Lecture Theatre G7

School of Humanities

University of Brighton

10-11 Pavilion Parade, BN2 1RA

For over two years, accusations of antisemitism have claimed regular headlines in the media, and have been at the heart of intensive debate in the Labour Party (LP). Central to that debate has been the redefinition of antisemitism that has been proposed and propagated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – the ‘IHRA definition’. Some prominent LP politicians have been forced to resign their membership or have been expelled from the Party for alleged antisemitic remarks, and the Party itself has been accused of being institutionally antisemitic in part because of its initial refusal to adopt the IHRA definition. Critics of the IHRA definition regard its conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism as designed to prevent criticism of Israel, and to undermine the international Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This debate has coincided with the election of antisemitic politicians to government in parts of Europe, and the rise of racist and xenophobic movements incorporating antisemitic individuals and organisations, across both Europe and the Americas.

What then is ‘antisemitism’, and how is it best understood? Does the redefinition of the term, and the idea of a ‘new antisemitism’ help or hinder the fight against racism, and what is the relationship of this redefinition to Israel and to Zionism?

 

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Jonathan Rosenhead is Emeritus Professor of Operational Research at LSE, Chair of the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP), and member of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL). Tom Hickey teaches philosophy and aesthetics at the University of Brighton, and is the author of the University and Colleges Union pamphlet (2010) on antisemitism and how to fight it.

 

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