By Dilia Zwart and Kenny Liebowitz The UK Home Secretary Theresa May recently proclaimed, “We must all redouble our efforts to wipe out anti-Semitism.” Her call to action came during a memorial service in London to remember those killed in the terror attacks in France this month, including four people in a kosher supermarket. May urged the UK to increase efforts to combat anti-Semitism so that Jewish citizens would feel safe in the country. Her call to action reaffirms the UK’s commitment to combat anti-Semitism – seen also in a report on anti-Semitism the UK government issued last month. The report detailed the government’s strategy for and progress in stemming the rising tide of anti-Semitism within Britain’s borders. Yet while the report and May’s affirmation are important steps forward in the fight against anti-Semitism, thegovernment should be criticized for not going far enough in defining the contours of anti-Semitism. The report summarizes the UK government’s past and ongoing efforts to address five aspects of anti-Semitic activity: anti-Semitic incidents, anti-Semitic discourse, sources of contemporary anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism on campus, and addressing anti-Semitism. Furthermore, it details the UK government’s efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of hate crime prosecution, combat the use of the Internet to spread hate messages, and address anti-Semitism on school campuses. But to assess and effectively fight anti-Semitism, it is important to define what constitutes actionable offenses; yet the report asserts the government has no intention to formally adopt the working definition it encourages other government and law enforcement agencies to adopt from the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). The EUMC, now named Fundamental Rights Agency, is an organization that provides data on racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism in Europe, developed and disseminated a working definition of anti-Semitism in 2005. The definition included several examples of anti-Semitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere, as well as examples of ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel. Although EUMC’s successor agency no longer includes the definition on its website, the definition and its examples remain influential throughout the world. The report suggests that government and law agencies adopt the EUMC definition, as the College of Policing, the UK’s law enforcement body, has already done. While the report neither rejects nor criticizes the EUMC definition, it indicates that the UK government as a whole has no current plans to adopt this definition. The lack of a common definition renders attempts to combat anti-Semitism unclear, as different bodies pursue strategies using different definitions and categories of what constitutes a hate crime. The Ottawa Protocol to Combat Anti-Semitism not only set out a model plan of action to combat anti-Semitic crimes, but also adopted the EUMC definition of anti-Semitism. By adopting this definition, the Ottawa Protocol clearly delineated what defines anti-Jewish hate crimes. The U.S. Department of State also endorsed the EUMC definition during the George W. Bush administration. More recently, the Obama Administration State Department issued its own new anti-Semitism definition, closely based on the EUMC definition. While the UK report correctly identifies the need for a concerted strategy to combat anti-Semitism, there is legitimate criticism that the UK’s strategy lacks substance, even beyond its failure to adopt the EUMC definition. An article recently posted on Jewish Chronicle Online (JCO) argues that the government is merely funding the actions and initiatives of a variety of organizations fighting anti-Semitism instead of taking action itself. Furthermore, the report does not do an adequate job of addressing why the tide of anti-Semitism is rising. For example, the JCO article notes that the report does not address the role of Islamic extremist groups in fomenting the upsurge of anti-Semitism. Without assessing the reasons that anti-Semitism is increasing, strategies, no matter how well planned, have a poor chance of efficacy in reducing or resolving anti-Semitism. If there is no common definition and no analysis of what is fueling the rise of anti-Semitism, how can a government create and employ a proper strategy to ensure its decline? If the government did adopt an official definition of anti-Semitism, many of the measures outlined in the report would likely produce results. The government has published guidance to prosecutors on when they should take perpetrators to court, produced guidance to police responding to hate crimes, and endorsed funding extra security measures at Jewish campuses as well as “zero tolerance” policies towards anti-Semitic crimes on the Internet. The UK report is an important step towards concerting a strategy for combating the upsurge of anti-Semitism in the UK. However, the report falls short of a complete analysis of how anti-Semitism should be defined and a more structured delineation of specific measures of action the government itself can take. Tracking data on anti-Semitic crimes, not only in the UK but across Europe as well, and formulating a strategy to impede its increasing trend remain important tasks to continue but difficult ones to successfully do.