Antisemitism is too serious an accusation to be sprinkled like confetti
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Kenneth S. Stern is the author of the original draft of what became the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
In recent years he has inveighed against its misuse.
He writes here, in support of Bard College students’ right to protest: “it does little good to make that charge [of antisemitism], as here, when there is no evidence of it.”
Read the response of one of the students protestors
This article was originally published by Forward on Sun 13 Oct 2019. Read the original here.
Letter to the Editor: I Was at the Bard Anti-Semitism Panel, and Saw Deep Disagreement, not Singling Out of Jews
This article is a response to an article one published on Saturday night by Batya Ungar Sargon, Opinion Editor of The Forward.
You can read her original article here.
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It’s significant that Kenneth Stern defends the right of pro Palestinian and pro BDS activists to protest and express their views. I do wonder though how he ever came to write the incoherent IHRA definition which has been used all over Europe and North America to attack those rights.
What an interesting, thoughtful and useful piece – useful in the sense of helping to provide guidelines on principles of protest. But what is baffling is how a man with obvious intelligence and principles could have produced such a crap so-called definition and examples of ‘antisemitism’
Did he write a draft for the definition or both the definition and the pro-israeli examples?
Others have focused on the mess originating from the IHRA definition.
They are quite right : in essence, the definition of ‘antisemitism’ is not difficult and can be achieved in one sentence.
The confusions – exemplified in the subject of this piece – arises from the attempt to conflate extend such a definition to various forms of alleged ‘thought crime’ in order to protect those guilty of other forms of prejudice from hard reality.
To be fair, Stern has admitted that the IHRA definition is not fit for purpose.
Especially not the so-called illustrative “examples”.
What is bizarre is that Muslims have copied and pasted the IHRA wording into their preferred definition of Islamophobia, with modified “examples”.
Ultimately, the IHRA definition and examples are being used to shut down any kind of critique of any religio-cultural set of beliefs and ideas.
Free speech has become the unintended victim of all this nonsense.
I note John’s comment that “Free speech has become the unintended victim of all this nonsense.”
I would disagree with is the use of the adjective ‘unintended’. The result of the IHRA document is very largely intentional.