Brandeis Center President, Alyza D. Lewin, recently shared insightful remarks at the State Department’s Virtual Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, titled “Ancient Hate, Modern Medium: Conference on Internet Anti-Semitism.” This conference, broadcast on October 21 and 22, 2020, featured presentations from some of the world’s most prominent and leading thinkers about how to combat the many manifestations of anti-Semitism, particularly on the internet. The conference included remarks from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism, Elan Carr. Ms. Lewin spoke during the “Legal Framework” session of the conference. In her remarks, she addressed the scourge of online anti-Semitism today, offering insights stemming from the numerous, egregious experiences she hears about from students across the country who are experiencing anti-Semitism on college campuses. Ms. Lewin began her presentation by noting that as many daily activities moved “online” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, so too had campus anti-Semitism. Ms. Lewin then described the history and purpose of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the law that grants immunity to social media companies for the content posted on their platforms. Ms. Lewin explained this provision was designed to help tech companies facilitate the free exchanges of ideas, while preventing unlawful content. However, due to the lack of consistency by big tech companies selectively regulating some illicit materials, but not others, and the state and federal courts’ expansion of the Section’s protections, Section 230 is no longer a sufficient tool to prevent unlawful web content. Ms. Lewin noted, “As the public has embraced the internet, so to have the criminals who are increasingly turning to the internet to facilitate their unlawful activity. Wrongdoers utilize the internet for an endless list of malfeasance.” This, of course, includes online hate. There is bi-partisan agreement that Section 230 must be reformed. However, as Ms. Lewin explained, there is “vigorous debate” over the best way to ensure that the online space remains free and open, but also safe. “There are no easy answers” to this challenge, said Ms. Lewin. As a first step, however, she called for social media platforms to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Anti-Semitism. Ms. Lewin devoted the second half of her presentation to explaining how the IHRA Definition is an essential educational tool. She explained that to effectively combat online anti-Semitism, our major institutions must first be able to define anti-Semitism. The IHRA Definition is necessary, according to Ms. Lewin, because it describes the different forms of contemporary anti-Semitism, including how anti-Semitism targets and demonizes not only individual Jews but also the Jewish collective – the Jewish nation state of Israel. Ms. Lewin pointed out that “one of the greatest challenges we have today, when it comes to combating anti-Semitism, is that much of society does not understand what anti-Semitism even is.” She explained that: Anti-Semitism looks a little different in each generation. Anti-Semitism morphs. The one constant is that anti-Semitism always seeks to pin whatever is that generation’s greatest evil on the Jew because anti-Semitism always seeks to demonize, marginalize, ostracize, exclude and “cancel” the Jew. Ms. Lewin noted that today’s society views racism, apartheid and “settler colonialism” as our greatest evils. The fact that Israel is branded as the “worst offender” of these evils, is, according to Ms. Lewin, an example of today’s anti-Semitism. Ms. Lewin further explained that many people today are unable “to distinguish between a discussion of Israel’s policies (on the one hand) and statements of support for the Jewish homeland that are, for many Jews, an expression of their pride in their Jewish ethnic identity (on the other).” Ms. Lewin noted that today, Jews who express support for the Jewish homeland and “who celebrate all that the Jewish collective, the Jewish nation-state of Israel, contributes to the world (in high tech, agriculture, medicine, etc)” are often branded as “racist Zionists” even if they are critical of the policies of the current government of Israel. Ms. Lewin described how falsely labeling pro-Israel Jews as “racist” leads to the harassment and discrimination of Jews: Today – Jews are repeatedly told that if they want to be “good citizens” of the world, if they want to join progressive movements and march for civil or human rights, for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, climate change or immigration reform, they must first shed this part of their Jewish identity, abandon their sense of Jewish peoplehood and ethnic pride, and disavow the Jewish homeland. No other community is charged such a high price for admission. Ms. Lewin concluded her remarks with a powerful warning. She said: “Combatting anti-Semitism is a global human rights issue. Anti-Semitism undermines democratic values of respect, inclusion and equality. It is a cancer that rots away at, decays and ultimately destroys societies that fail to curb it. But it is not possible to combat this enemy if we refuse to define it.” She urged social media companies to take the first step in addressing this scourge by adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Anti-Semitism “to protect our democracy, our children, and our future.” You can watch a video of Ms. Lewin’s presentation here (at 1:52:40): Videos of the entire two-day conference are available here.