Follow Kritica on Google
Add Kritica to your favourite sources.
Kenneth S. Stern, 73, a lawyer and scholar and the current director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, was the “lead drafter” in 2004 of the definition of antisemitism subsequently adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which forms the basis of the so-called “Antisemitism Bill,” Bill 1004, currently under debate in Italy’s Chamber of Deputies after having already been approved by the Senate. An avowed Zionist, he has over time become one of the leading critics of that very definition. In the midst of the public debate over the Italian bill, we interviewed him to understand his reasoning, during a live broadcast on X via the Officine Shay educational channel, with which Kritica has been collaborating for a year now.
Below is the text of the interview, conducted by Editor-in-Chief Federica D’Alessio.
In 2004, you were the lead author of the definition of antisemitism later adopted by the IHRA in 2016. For years, you have been observing and denouncing the misuse of the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. In one of your articles, you even stated that most of the ways it has been used since its initial publication have been a “bad deal,” precisely to highlight a fundamental failure of the very intentions with which you yourself had drafted the definition. What have you found particularly alarming, over the years, about the application of the IHRA definition? This definition, let us recall, will serve as the operational definition— with all its indicators and examples— for Law 1004 “against antisemitism,” which is about to be passed in Italy.
I was the lead drafter of a text of a working definition of antisemitism back in 2004, and it's been used, unfortunately, since about 2010, or trying to suppress speech. It was originally set up to help monitor the temperature of antisemitism in Europe in particular, but it's been used to try to say if somebody violates what somebody believes the definition says, particularly about Israel, they're expressing anti Semitism.
It was intended primarily as a tool for data collectors to take the temperature of antisemitism, which sometimes relates to things about Israel, because if you're taking the temperature, there's a correlation there. It was never intended to say if somebody says something about Israel that people perceive as violative of the definition that's anti Semitic, or that it should be suppressed. But I first saw the indications on college campuses in the US where somebody said, oh, somebody's teaching a course with this text or saying something or inviting a speaker that was saying something that they saw as violent, usually around pro Palestinian speech. And it's become even more problematic since it's been used in places to affect NGO funding. It's been used in places for criminal things. It's been used in places to suppress speech. So it's really been, you know, undone in terms of what it was attempting to do. It was attempting to allow us to take a temperature of anti Semitism. And now it's saying, this is how you fight anti Semitism. And I think one thing that we forget in this, a scholar in Pennsylvania put it very succinctly. He said it's more important to focus on what anti Semitism does. Does then get bogged down in definitions of what anti Semitism is, and that's part of the problem.
Currently in Italy, there is strong interest in determining whether there are examples of news reports or misuse of the definition—beyond those you mentioned—so that people can gain a better understanding of how the definition can be applied. It should be noted that, while in other countries the definition has not been adopted at the legal level—nor as a legal instrument—and despite the fact that the definition itself was not intended to become legally binding, Italy is approaching the stage where the IHRA definition will be incorporated into legislation and used to regulate key areas, particularly educational settings such as schools and universities.
Plenty of examples. Unfortunately, one is happening in Australia now. They are using the definition inside an association of healthcare providers and the worry is if somebody posts something about Gaza that somebody sees as violent of the definition, they may have their medical license bridge. And that has nothing to do with whether you're a good doctor or a good nurse or not.
In Germany, where they adopted they applied it to classified Jews who were protesting the war against Gaza as anti Semites. And as somebody commenting on that said in Isn't it ironic that Germany is yet again deciding what it means to be a good Jew, what Jewish values are. In the UK they use it to suppress a demonstration for calling Israel an apartheid state. In the US it was used in one of the settlements the Trump administration, actually many that the Trump administration engineered. And it led to a Holocaust survivor professor who's an expert on genocide saying, I don't know if I can teach because if I quote Hannah Arendt or other sources that are seen as saying things that are violent of the definition, that's going to be a problem. And tons of other examples too.
In the Jewish community there is a debate over Zionism of belief in Israel as a. As a Jewish state. Most Jews are Zionist, as am I, but there's an increasing number of younger Jews whose Judaism leads them to prioritize values such as how you treat the stranger or how you repair the world (the tikkun olamformula, ndr) or how one interprets all of this, rather than the Jewish connection to the land.
And what is happening at the legislative level is that one side [of the Jewish community, ndr] s basically saying to the state, adopt our view of this, that anti Zionism is anti antisemitism. And to me that's a problem. I don't want states to decide what particular set of religious values means. I think that's something internally for the Jewish community to talk about. I think it's an important issue, but I don't want the state to decide it. And that's what's being asked by the people who basically say anti Zionism is anti Semitic antisemitism.
So one of the things that we know from the field of hate studies, I run a hate study center, is that on contentious issues like this, people gravitate to what I call binaries. You know, look at one, want to put everything on one side or the other of a bright line. They want to have simple answers that want to build community around people that share that simple answer. They want to have certainty. And that's part of how this debate is playing out. And I think that does two things. One is it blinds us to how antisemitism actually works because we think there's a simple solution, take a definition and apply it when it's much more complicated. And the second thing is that in law, it creates a chilling effect.
One of the things that's happened this last couple of days too is the flip side of trying to do what this bill does is saying that anti Zionism is anti Semitism. In the uk, the Green Party voted for a resolution that said Zionism is racism. And we know what happened. When a similar resolution was adopted by the UN in 1975, people said, Ah, Jews are Zionists, Zionists are racist. Racists have to be excluded.
This is the flip side of that. It's saying that people that are anti Zionists don't have a legitimate view. The reality is that some anti Semitism, some anti Zionism is anti Semitism. When you use the classic tropes about Jews and apply it to Israel, there's a lot that isn't. There's the Jews that I talked about who have a different view, what Judaism means. You have Palestinians who say Zionism affected me. And it's not because it happened to be Jews doing it, it's because of my effect. There's a whole bunch of stuff in the middle that's not clear depending on looking at the intent and you're looking at what people hear. And we're trying to put things, everything on one side of the line. People that are promoting IHRA are trying to put the anti Zionism is anti Semitism. The Green Party is trying to put, you know, Zionism is racism. And that blinds us to the complexity of how we should understand these issues related to Israel and anti Semitism and hate itself.
I don't think any definition of anti-Semitism should be used by a government to determine what is permissible to say about political issues and what is not. That is McCarthyism, and it is truly problematic.
I wonder if there isn’t an inherent problem with the indicators included in the original definition of antisemitism adopted by the IHRA. In particular, I wonder if the fact has perhaps been overlooked that Israeli policy—just like any policy of any state—over time, regardless of our personal views on Zionism, is nonetheless subject to change; and that, therefore, the definition of antisemitism formulated by Kenneth Stern in 2004, subsequently adopted by the IHRA, may not hold the same weight in 2026.
What I’d like to understand is whether, in some way, a series of examples—I’m referring above all to the last three—might not be inherently problematic and might not make this polarization you mentioned inevitable; because, for example, in light of what has happened over the past three years, I don’t think we can attribute the same meaning to the phrase “drawing comparisons between contemporary Israeli politics and that of the Nazis” in 2004 or in 2026.
Furthermore, in 2018, we know that a very significant turning point occurred in the political landscape of the State of Israel—namely, the Basic Law that defined Israel as the Jewish state, the state of the Jewish people. In light of this, I ask: to what extent do the examples cited within the definition change in meaning? Because today, it is Israel itself that “holds Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel,” given that it defines itself as a Jewish state. So much so that, even though there are—and in fact there are many—examples of Jewish dissidents, particularly those who dissent regarding recent events related to the genocide of the Palestinian people, we are even reaching the point where some of them are having their citizenship revoked precisely because they are dissidents, as happened to the two filmmakers behind the movie *NAZA*, for example, just recently.
The most recent example that has caught my attention is the third-to-last point in the definition adopted by the IHRA, according to which it is antisemitic to use symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism—such as “blood libel”—to characterize Israel or Israelis. Italian institutional Jewish communities and their top representatives have used precisely these examples to brand certain criticisms of the State of Israel’s conduct as anti-Semitic. For instance, in some official documents—which, among other things, will become an integral part of the implementation of the law under discussion—it is stated that criticizing Israel for the killing of 20,000 children in Gaza constitutes a “blood libel.” The former president of the UCEI (Union of Italian Jewish Communities) stated that the phrase “Jesus is Palestinian” has revived the charge of deicide. How can we prevent this malicious use of such examples?
Well, the reality is the examples are the definition. They're the part that's contending. The reason that it was put together with examples was to give data collectors in different parts of Europe a common set of references to look at so you could compare what antisemitism's manifestations might be over time and across borders. It was never to create a hate speech code. Okay, so the examples are the core the examples of the thing. And, you know, and that's the problem. People are weaponizing the examples. The problem with how this is being implemented is two things. One is that it's basically choosing one narrative over another. The reality is there's a mainstream Jewish connection to the land, the narrative of Jews returning back to their ancestral homeland. And there's the Palestinian narrative that we've been here, and these guys are, you know, come in and they may have had a connection with the land, but they are coming and they're really controlling their lives. And those two narratives are perhaps mutually inconsistent. But a lot of using the examples and a lot of things on the other side are trying to say there's only one way to look at this as opposed to how do we navigate these two narratives simultaneously?
About the film NAZA, I haven't seen it yet, but I think it's a really good point. It's a problem when Israel is basically saying that some people that made a film that showed some, you know, apparently massive problems with how Israel was conducting itself in Gaza, that it's traitorous. You're basically unjews, we're going to consider taking away your citizenship. That's a threat about speech as opposed to answering it and saying what in their view is wrong.
The IHRA definitions of proponents who want to say, oh, it's not legally binding, but we're going to use it in law to regulate speech are doing the same thing. They're saying as opposed to answering speech. We want to basically prescribe what speech is okay, what isn't, who gets funded and who doesn't, who's going to get administrative or other penalties for posting things that somebody says are outside. The problem with the examples is not the examples themselves, if they have been used correctly. They've been used as a sort of a magnet for people that want to weaponize disagreement with political speech, and they try to shoehorn things into it and say, look, we have this ability to go after speech we don't like. It's put in law and we're going to go after you. And the fact that that chill speech is harmful in a number of ways. One, it's telegraphs to people that, you know, that people that support Israel can't have an answer. And secondly, it harms our democracies because when you have certain types of speech that are beyond the pale, and I know Italy has a different tradition than the US which has a First Amendment, it still creates an authoritarian impulse, especially when there's political disagreement about things like this.
In light of these past three years in particular, and the manipulative uses you’ve discussed so far, would you rewrite the definition of antisemitism you drafted in 2004? You have never signed the Jerusalem Declaration, nor have you ever renounced the definition of antisemitism adopted by the IHRA. Now, based on the debates currently underway in Italy, one party in particular — the Democratic Party — has taken a stance, declaring itself willing to vote in favor of the bill as drafted, on the condition that the Jerusalem definition be adopted in place of the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism. This Jerusalem definition was formulated precisely in response to the instrumental uses of the IHRA’s definition and, in a certain sense, protects anti-Zionism as a form of freedom of expression. Do you think this could be a solution?
Great questions. So I would not write the definition any differently for what it was intended for back in 2004. If it had been used that way just to take a temperature, as opposed to use it as a hate speech code, I think it would have had some utility. The problem is using the definition in the law to try to chill political speech.
So there's a JDA definition, as you said, there's a nexus definition. There are other definitions the NEXUS definition. I don't think any of them should be used by a state to say this is what's okay to say about something related to politics. And here's something that isn't. That's McCarthyism. And it's really problematic.
In the U.S. there was a debate in the Senate, actually in the House, excuse me, about adopting legislation that further enshrines the definition. And you had some Republican legislators who said, well, you know, I like this idea, but there's an example in there about the aside about Jews killing Jesus. I would like the rest of this stuff, but I'm going to go and try to move that this particular example is taken out. Well, that's an admission that this is about speech. This is about values. This is about things that people hold dear.
In the context of huge debates over Israel, over Palestine, over Zionism. I don't want the state in any event to take a definition, whether it's JDA or nexus or any other, and say this is our official view of what anti Semitism is, any more than I'd like them to take a definition with political examples about racism. One of the things we're seeing in the United States is this is happening from the Trump administration about gender, not with definitions per se, but saying certain things can't be taught. Also seeing it about race, we're seeing it about immigration status. I don't want the state to define what speech is okay and what isn't in this context I think that harms democracy. And whenever democracy is harmed, it inevitably leads to a rise in antisemitism. And that's my concern. We're taking our eye off of what can we actually do to combat antisemitism. And being seduced by the simplicity of we just have a definition and everybody has to live by it. And if you're outside of it, you're going to be killed or punished, and that's wrong. That creates an environment where more people are likely to adopt antisemitic views.
One final point: “Measuring the level of antisemitism,” according to the original intent of the definition as you explained it, is a very different practice depending on whether it is carried out by an independent research institute, an NGO, a group of citizens with no particular power, or by the legislature. The IHRA’s definition of antisemitism was immediately made available to the legislator and it was drafted right away for use by lawmakers at the European level. So I wonder how anyone could have failed to realize that if you create it for the benefit of lawmakers, then lawmakers will use it, at the very least, for some form of policing because it doesn't make much sense to gauge the extent of a very serious phenomenon like anti-Semitism and then do nothing about it.
Thank you for that. I did not foresee this would be the use until I saw the used this way in 2010. The other thing in the definition that sort of missed that for me was very important at the time of crafting it was the language about an anti Semitic hate crime. There was when the head of the came to an AJC meeting meeting and was talking about anti Semitism reports and, you know, sort of the need to have a better common definition across different countries. Three weeks beforehand, a Montreal Jewish day school was firebombed in reaction to an Israeli assassination of a Hamas leader. And according to the sort of Rubric that the EUMC had put out in its 2004 report, it would not have considered that anti Semitism. And I thought about that. That's sort of nuts.
And you may remember a couple of years after, after the working definition was created, we had this situation in France where a Jew was kidnapped, held for ransom and ultimately killed. And there was a debate in the French press about whether this was anti Semitism or not, because it was A positive stereotype. One of the things I really wanted to accomplish, which never really happened, was for European countries to fill think about hate crimes more on the American model. It didn't matter what the motive was [in this case, to secure the ransom, ed.], what matters is the intention.
So that was part of the calculation of how it was drafted too. But it was never. I never thought that it would be weaponized this way to again go after speech. And the things that worry me most about this are not just the abuse. Abuse of law and the abuse of speech is. And this is, you know, as a final point, I want to underscore, it blinds us to how antisemitism works. So if you look in the US you had the people at Charlottesville in 2017 saying, Jews will not replace us over a demonstration about a Confederate statute that was supposed to be removed. Antisemitism, at its core is a belief that Jews conspire to harm humanity. And that gives an explanation for what goes wrong in the world. So you have all these different groups, the far right, you have people that are vilifying gay people and immigrants and so forth. And when people try to understand how that could be happening, how people they think are inferior are somehow getting an upper hand, that's the driver of the worst type of anti Semitism. But instead we're being seduced to, let's just pass a law that adopts a definition and be done with it. And that's what I think is really dangerous.
To avoid making the text too long, we have omitted the interesting questions posed by some knowledgeable listeners — the professors Valentina Pisanty, Massimo Amato and Nicola Perugini, and Anneliese Baldaccini from Amnesty International – featured in the discussion, which takes place in the second part of the program. We invite you to hear them in the recording of the event, starting at 1:15:00.
© Kritica – Reproduction is permitted only in part, for short excerpts from the text, provided the source is cited and the link is included at the beginning of the article. The English Version of this article is based on the original transcription of the interview for each answer Mr. Stern made in English to our questions.