The Canadian group Independent Jewish Voices today is releasing a report titled “Unveiling the Chilly Climate – The Suppression of Speech on Palestine In Canada.” We spoke to researchers Sheryl Nestel and Rowan Gaudet about what they found.

When Idris Ebakri asked at a public event on Israel — “Do we want an ethnic enclave? What’s being called for is basically an ethnic enclave in the middle in the Arab Middle East for Jews only” — the University of Winnipeg sadly sided with the IHRA definition of antisemitism in finding that it was antisemitic speech. It was actually civil, thoughtful speech that exposes the anti-free-speech intent of the IHRA.

Since its development the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism has been used as a cudgel to stifle and suppress Palestine activism. Recently a group of over 200 Jewish scholars published the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which takes direct aim at the IHRA.

The JDA is an overwhelmingly positive contribution to detoxifying the debate over antisemitism and the dishonest attempts of Israel’s supporters to conflate antisemitism and anti-Zionism. It should therefore be welcomed as a wholly positive contribution to demystifying the question of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, Tony Greenstein writes.

According to the new Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, hostility to Israel “…could be the emotion that a Palestinian person feels on account of their experience at the hands of the State.” This, the sole appearance of the word “emotion” in the entire document, is applied exclusively to the direct victims of Israeli crimes, the very people who have the most fact-based, lived-experience for entirely rational “hostility” to the state. Categorizing the Palestinian response as emotional is to deny Palestinians the dignity to simply demand to be free of their shackles.

The new “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism” offers a needed alternative to the fraudulent IHRA definition of antisemitism, but it sill contains crucial flaws.

A group of over 200 Jewish scholars have released a definition of antisemitism in a direct response to the contentious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which included some criticisms of Israel. While many Palestine activists are applauding the new Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism for taking on the IHRA, they’re also pointing to problems with its framing and voicing concerns over its potential impact.