In 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) adopted a “working definition of anti-semitism”. Since then, the definition has attracted endorsement by a wide range of governmental, professional and civic organisations as a means of identifying antisemitic attitudes and behaviours.

In particular, the European Commission sees the definition as “the benchmark” for defining anti-semitism and as “the basis for [its] work on tackling anti-semitism.”

Further, the commission argues that Jewish endorsement of the IHRA definition is an important condition for demonstrating its validity.

The IHRA definition comprises a generic statement on the nature of anti-semitism, augmented by a set of 11 “contemporary examples”.

Seven of them are linked in some way to Israel (e.g. applying double standards to Israel, drawing comparisons between Israeli policy and that of the Nazis) and four examples are unrelated to Israel (e.g. alleging that Jews control the media, finance, etc.).  

Despite the broad range of support for the IHRA definition, a significant number of scholars, lawyers and civil society organisations have questioned the value and legitimacy of the definition.

The grounds for these objections are diverse and include arguments that some of the examples conflate anti-semitism with harsh, but non-racist, criticism of Israel, and that some examples lack clarity and focus. 

In justifying its support for the definition, the commission relies heavily on the findings of a major survey of Jewish perceptions of anti-semitism conducted by the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) in 2018.

Specifically, the commission claims that this survey shows that the IHRA examples of anti-semitism reflect what the vast majority of European Jews regard as antisemitic. The commission also claims that the survey demonstrates that European Jews encounter antisemitic incidents related to Israel more often than any other form of anti-semitism.

About a year ago, the Brussels-based European Middle East Project (EuMEP) commissioned me to conduct an independent assessment, to examine whether the 2018 FRA survey does indeed provide empirical support for each of these claims.

My findings are published on Thursday (4 July) in the report Does the IHRA working definition of anti-semitism reflect the views of most European Jews?.

In a nutshell, they show that the 2018 FRA survey, whilst broadly robust in its methodology and analysis, does not bear out the central elements of the commission’s claims.

This is not to say that the survey disproves the claim that European Jews endorse the IHRA examples of anti-semitism. Nor that it disproves the commission’s second claim about the predominance of Israel-related anti-semitism.

Rather, my analysis shows that the survey did not incorporate all of the questions that would have been needed to test these claims in their entirety, nor was it designed to do so.

The EU Commission appears to have drawn the wrong conclusions from the data

The claims therefore remain untested. In citing the survey as the evidence base for these assertions, the commission appears to have drawn the wrong conclusions from the data.

More specifically, the survey data show that, at best, three of the 11 IHRA examples of anti-semitism  are endorsed by the majority of European Jews. In the remaining eight cases, including all of the more controversial Israel-related examples, the survey did not include questions that could reasonably assess agreement with those examples. Hence, it could not provide evidence for Jewish endorsement of the majority of the IHRA examples of anti-semitism (nor the lack of it).

Similarly, with regard to the commission’s claim about the predominance of Israel-related manifestations of anti-semitism, the survey provided no direct evidence on the prevalence of different categories of anti-semitism.

It did assess the perceived frequency of a few very specific examples of anti-semitism, but the data do not provide any statistically credible evidence that Israel-related anti-semitism is the dominant form.

Of course, in the aftermath of 7 October, given the alarming rise in Israel-related anti-semitism across Europe, it would be perverse to question the claim that this is currently the main vehicle for the expression of Jew-hatred.

As my report notes, the prevalence of Israel-related anti-semitism has a history of dramatic fluctuation driven by spikes in the intensity of the Israel-Palestinian conflict through time.

Nonetheless, in the absence of such acute triggers, the ‘natural’ balance between various manifestations of anti-semitism remains an important and open question. And, despite the commission’s assertion, this question has not been resolved by the 2018 FRA survey.

These conclusions are also relevant to the more recent FRA survey of experiences of anti-semitism conducted in 2023, the results of which are due to be published on 11 July.

Unlike the 2018 survey, the questionnaire items in 2023 do mirror many of the examples of anti-semitism attached to the IHRA definition (eight out of 11). Thus, this survey could have been used to assess Jewish endorsement of the more controversial IHRA examples.

However, the respondents were not actually asked to assess whether the examples were antisemitic – only to report whether they had experienced those (presumed) manifestations of anti-semitism.  

Hence, like the 2018 FRA survey, the 2023 survey will also be silent on the question of whether the majority of European Jews endorses the contested IHRA examples – though for a different reason.

These issues should be considered in the context of the wider debate about whether the victims of anti-semitism (or any other form of racism) should serve as the main arbiters of what constitutes unacceptable speech for them.

But if the commission is indeed committed both to the necessity for Jewish endorsement of its preferred measure of anti-semitism and to the importance of evidence-based policy-making, it cannot rely on the 2018 survey findings.

It will need to obtain fresh evidence that is relevant to the question of whether the IHRA definition reflects the views of most European Jews.