Talk:Working definition of antisemitism

Requested move 16 October 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: page not moved, except to correct the capitalization.  Arbitrarily0  ( talk ) 14:05, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Working Definition of Antisemitism → IHRA definition of antisemitism – by far the most common name for this definition. QueenofBithynia (talk) 20:58, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose: As a general rule, obscure acronyms are not ideal in titles. From a prevalence perspective, I see no clear evidence that the latter is actively more prevalent. On inspection, 'working' appears more academic, with 'IHRA' used in the news. Ngrams finds no mentions of the latter in its book records. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:22, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose: I can see why reporters shorten it but the acronym is useful only for those who already know what it means, there is an aka "International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism" given in the lead, I think that is sufficient. If one looks at the official site it is mainly referred to there as a "working definition". Selfstudier (talk) 09:57, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose:, as said above obscure acronyms are not ideal in titles. Also I am unsure that "Working Definition of Antisemitism" is not the most common name. Slatersteven (talk) 10:39, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Support: Since there is also the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism in existence this 'working definition' should be ascribed to its source. This is generally found as the IHRA Working Definition, not as 'the working definition'. To refer to it as the working definition in the voice of wikipedia gives it a POV credibility as there is a great deal of controversy about the use of this definition. There are also previous working definitions to be found such as the EUMC (European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, now the Agency For Fundamental Rights, FRA) definition. That wikipedia article was titled EUMC Working Definition of Antisemitism, not working definition. That precedence should be used here as well. Pngeditor (talk) 10:52, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The EUMC definition is covered here, so there's no contradiction there - assuming the page's view of the EUMC version as an IHRA predecessor is true. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:59, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The EUMC article use the acronym in the title so there is a contradiction here. There is a precedence for using the name of the body that came up with this text. Also see the section Competing definitions of antisemitism in this article. This working definition needs to be ascribed to its source in the title, not just in the article itself.Pngeditor (talk) 11:03, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There is no EUMC article: the page under that title is just a redirect to here . We hardly need to maintain consistency with a redirect do we? Iskandar323 (talk) 11:08, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If anything, that two separate working definitions are discussed on this page strengthens the case for the 'working definition' format in the title. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:10, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Disagree, the EUMC definition was in an article using its source in the title. There are now multiple 'definitions', which strengthens the case for using the full title for each. Every other definition or declaration is ascribed, except this one.Pngeditor (talk) 11:16, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The EUMC definition seems to have never had a page of its own, and the redirect history is empty. What article are you referring to? Iskandar323 (talk) 11:19, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * In this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism#Definition there is a whole section on definitions of anti semitism. The EUMC was a working definition, however it was always referred to as the EUMC working definition. All academic, government and scholarly sources seem to refer to this one as the IHRA working definition. Wikipedia should follow that lead. RegardsPngeditor (talk) 11:53, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * All academic, government and scholarly sources seem to refer to this one as the IHRA working definition This is false as even a cursory search will demonstrate. Selfstudier (talk) 12:00, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry, actually I would go for IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which is slightly different from the proposal.Pngeditor (talk) 11:55, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Selfstudier. My statement is actually correct. Perhaps you did not see the qualifiers 'academic, government and scholarly sources'. A cursory search needs to be examined closely to see whether the source meets that criteria, rather than e.g., blogs, and newspaper articles. RegardsPngeditor (talk) 12:06, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Search As I said, your statement is false (now it is false twice). Selfstudier (talk) 12:29, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You just proved me correct. Of the first page only four of the ten sites do not have the term working definition of IHRA or IHRA - working definition in the title, link or text. They are https://www.gov.uk › ... › Equality, rights and citizenship This refers to the UK definition, and so is irrelevant. https://www.state.gov › defining-antisemitism This site states that the US government have adopted a working definition, and it is the IHRA definition.  The third is the JWC, which doesn't meet my criteria. The last one is wikipedia, which is obviously excluded. Anyone searching for working definition of anti semitism will get results other than the IHRA. This definition is about the IHRA definition. There are lots of them. Let's specify which one the article is about. . FYI only  1  What is antisemitism? | IHRA    2 The non-legally binding working definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) is an essential tool for the Commission's work on tackling 3  If universities 'adopt' the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, can they use it?   4 Thus, we speak today of the IHRA Working Definition. ANTI-SEMITISM  19 Feb 2021 — 5 What is the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism?   6 IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism  BTW  I'd accept 'Working Definition of Antisemitism - IHRA' How about that?Pngeditor (talk) 13:14, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * You said All, which is false. Selfstudier (talk) 13:17, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Deleted. Regards. Pngeditor (talk) 18:24, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 'academic, government and scholarly sources' is not a grouping: there are reliable, secondary academic and scholarly sources, and then their are government sources, which are far-removed from the standards of academic and scholarly sources, opaquely sourced and not peer-reviewed. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:03, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So what are you classifying the IHRA itself as?Pngeditor (talk) 19:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Government websites ... really? Most of us can't trust our governments with the economy, let alone informational objectivity. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:58, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Exactly my point.Pngeditor (talk) 18:24, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose - the new title wouldn’t be straightforward (IHRA?). - GizzyCatBella  🍁  18:38, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose: Current title is more encompassing, including both EUMC and IHRA, which are bolded and redirect here. Renaming to limit to IHRA makes the extensive pre-IHRA history problematic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:44, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Support, or at bare minimum correct the capitalization to "Working definition of antisemitism", though "anti-Semitism" would be better. I know Jews who are offended by "antisemitism" de-capitalizing "Semit[e]".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:24, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Source: 2022 journal article.
Res Publica - Jan Deckers, Jonathan Coulter - "What Is Wrong with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Definition of Antisemitism?", 11 May 2022. (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-022-09553-4)

(Res Publica: "A peer-review journal of legal, moral and social philosophy focusing on normative analysis of theoretical, practical, and public issues. The journal publishes work of established scholars, as well as those at the beginning of their careers, in both Western and non-Western settings.")

"We conclude that the definition and its list of examples ought to be rejected. The urgency to do so stems from the fact that pro-Israel activists can and have mobilised the IHRA document for political goals unrelated to tackling antisemitism, notably to stigmatise and silence critics of the Israeli government. ..."

"Whilst it is important to note that the IHRA decision-making body, the Plenary, did not include any of these examples in the definition and that its member countries were only able to reach a consensus on adopting the definition by excluding the examples, the published document that contains the definition nevertheless contains these potential ‘illustrations’. In this regard, Stern-Weiner (2021a, p. 4) finds that the ‘senior IHRA officials and pro-Israel groups’ that were involved in the publication of this document ‘have misrepresented the IHRA Plenary’s decision in order to smuggle into the Working Definition examples that can be used to protect Israel from criticism’ and pressurised governments and other organisations to adopt it. Such pressure has been particularly evident in the case of the UK government (2016), which formally adopted the definition in 2016. In October 2020, Gavin Williamson (2020), Secretary of State for Education in England, urged higher education institutions to follow suit in adopting the definition with its examples, writing that the ‘definition helps us better understand and recognise instances of antisemitism’. Most significantly, he threatened to suspend funding streams for universities that did not sign up to the definition (Adams 2020; Harpin 2020). ..."

"Despite the IHRA’s recognition that some examples are not necessarily indicative of antisemitism, those advocating for Israel typically refer to the list of examples as unequivocal instances of antisemitism, using a simplistic matching process: they match the behaviour of the accused to one of the examples, without considering context and whether the motivation is truly antisemitic. This can be seen very clearly on the web pages of the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA 2022), which has assumed the mantle of monitoring and enforcing the implementation of the IHRA definition in the UK. It particularly focuses on ensuring compliance by the political parties, the universities, and local authorities. In the case of the political parties, CAA has a section for each political party, and dedicates pages to individual members and sometimes ex-members, where it lists what it calls antisemitic ‘incidents’. ... The unequivocal interpretation of the examples is also evident in a message that Luke Akehurst MP, the Director of an organisation called ‘We Believe in Israel’ and a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, sent to British local authorities. Cushman (2017) shows that Akehurst circulated an edited version of the IHRA definition without telling his recipients that it had been edited. ... Many observers attribute such sleights of hand to pro-Israel advocates seeking to clamp down on people who criticise the conduct of the Israeli government (see for example: Winstanley 2020; Stern-Weiner and Maddison 2019; Stern-Weiner 2021b). One of the original drafters of the IHRA definition, Kenneth Stern, accused right-wing Jews of weaponising it. According to Stern’s testimony, these advocates have been enormously persistent in their quest to close down free speech on Israel in the USA: ‘The Zionist Organisation of America (ZOA) and other groups will hunt political speech with which they disagree and threaten to bring legal cases’ (Stern 2019). Further on in this article, we show in greater depth how the IHRA definition has been instrumentalised to shield the Israeli government from criticism as well as to falsely frame pro-Palestinian activists as antisemitic. ..."    ←   ZScarpia  00:40, 18 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Not familiar with this journalist or these authors. The first author is a healthcare ethicist with no previous publications or teaching record on antisemitism. The second author does not appear to have an academic affiliation, but is presumably the Liberal Democrat activist under investigation by his party for antisemitism. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

BobFromBrockley I think you should add the words alleged antisemitism to your statement. This is wikipedia. Thank you. Pngeditor (talk) 21:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

De-capitalisation in title
So just closed an RfC on the title and changed the name of the article by making it lower case, after one editor suggested that at bare minimum correct the capitalization to "Working definition of antisemitism", though "anti-Semitism" would be better. I know Jews who are offended by "antisemitism" de-capitalizing "Semit[e]". As no other editors actually commented on the capitals, it seems to me important that we check there is consensus on this. I absolutely oppose "anti-Semitism" which is a term that, despite being favoured by Microsoft Word autocorrect, is no longer widely used in reliable sources. (See Antsemitism#Usage.) I am agnostic on the new lower case version. I had assumed that the upper case form was more commonly used, but looking at the search results linked by above, I was surprised to see most of the results used the term in a lower case form. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:48, 24 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The most recent definition discussed on the article is the IHRA's and the IHRA does not capitalize the term, so it seems like the linguistic trajectory is clear. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Fine with lowercase, don't mind whether it is anti-S or antis. Selfstudier (talk) 15:13, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for raising this, . Just to confirm what Bobfrombrockley is saying: my close of the discussion as "not moved" was based on my reading of the consensus. The decision to de-capitalize the title was merely my own assessment, and so can easily be reversed.  Arbitrarily0   ( talk ) 16:30, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The de-capitalised title works for me.
 * Misha Wolf (talk) 17:54, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Nexus Task Force
I've created an article about the Nexus Task Force. How do I cause it to have the "Part of a series on Antisemitism" box? Thanks Misha Wolf (talk) 01:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Article title
This is a pre-RM discussion, not a move request.

I'm surprised the above RM failed. This definition is widely colloquially known as the "IHRA definition", far more rarely as the "IHRA working definition", and almost never as the "working definition". It's true among universities: ; government bodies: ; activists: ; news outlets: ; and scholars:. The term "IHRA definition of antisemitism" is much more recognizable (WP:CRITERIA), and seems to be the WP:COMMONNAME. DFlhb (talk) 10:23, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree. I was also surprised by this, since I always hear and see it prefixed with the name of the body who actually adopted it. Heck, many of the sources we use in this article don't even call it a "working definition (of antisemitism)" but just "the IHRA definition (of antisemitism)".


 * For what it's worth, the Dutch and German versions of this article (the German version links to a section in the main article on antisemitism) consistently refer to it as "the IHRA definition" or "the IHRA working definition". TucanHolmes  (talk) 19:17, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No need to discuss it again unless something has changed. Selfstudier (talk) 19:30, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Semitism ... "policy or predisposition favorable to Jews" ... Merriam-Webster
Suggested edit ... Criticism ... Spelling of Anti-Semitism without a hyphen is an attempt by IHRA to erase the definition of Semitism ... "policy or predisposition favorable to Jews"

"The IHRA’s concern is that the hyphenated spelling allows for the possibility of something called “Semitism,” which not only legitimizes a form of pseudo-scientific racial classification that was thoroughly discredited by association with Nazi ideology, but also divides the term, stripping it from its meaning of opposition and hatred toward Jews"

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Semitism

‘JUDEOPHOBIA’ VERSUS ‘ANTI-SEMITISM’: THE ZIONIST SCHEME

https://imemc.org/article/the-law-of-return-and-the-zionist-campaign-to-subvert-science/

2601:444:300:B070:C400:B2D4:8181:4DBC (talk) 16:32, 27 April 2024 (UTC)


 * User Special:Contributions/2601:444:300:B070:DC34:C1E:382D:2EF1 added the above text to section "Criticism". I have reverted the edit both because the statement is nonsense and because the proper place to discuss the spelling of "antisemitism" is in section "Usage" of article Antisemitism. Misha Wolf (talk) 22:20, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Problem in recently added para re the Antisemitism Awareness Act
Hi @Kire1975. There is a problem in the para you've added, which makes the meaning unclear. I don't know the facts so can't correct it but hope that you can and will. The problem is in the second (and very long) sentence: "The bill was introduced by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and lead by co-sponsors Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), and Representative Sara Jacobs (Democrat-San Diego), who is Jewish, said that she opposed the bill ..."The comma after "(R-Ohio)" indicates that Sara Jacobs supported the bill but the subsequent words indicate that she opposed it.

Please clarify. Thanks! Misha Wolf (talk) 14:20, 14 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing that out. Getting right on that. Kire1975 (talk) 03:18, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I hope this is better. Let me know. Kire1975 (talk) 03:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * 👍 Misha Wolf (talk) 08:41, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Petition from 1,200 Jewish university professors
This story either from this source or another should be included. Zerotalk 13:40, 15 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Ah, I added when it was only 800+ :) Selfstudier (talk) 13:45, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I dunnit with the new figure, so perhaps there's an overlap? Nishidani (talk) 16:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
 * OK, the AAA is in two places, OK for now, I guess. See if it gets passed or not and then see. Selfstudier (talk) 16:49, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, specifying that the term "definition of antisemitism" means the definition of antisemitism adopted by the IHRA
Closely related to the topic immediately above this one is Bob Casey's proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, discussed in this article in The Forward. Would anyone care to tweak section United States to mention it? Misha Wolf (talk) 22:29, 16 July 2024 (UTC)


 * PS: This is also relevant to the last para of the earlier section called United States, which talks about the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Misha Wolf (talk) 22:36, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * And mention that the AAA (preceding section) once again failed to go through, once again because of free speech concerns. So if the front door won't work, let's try the back, eh? Selfstudier (talk) 11:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)