George Kalman combats antisemitism where he can.
An 86-year-old Holocaust survivor, Kalman has been active in Holocaust education for over 25 years, speaking with a variety of menâs clubs, senior groups and students who want to learn about the past, he said.
âInstead of giving a prepared talk, I conduct my meetings as a one-on-one Q&A format,â he said. âI tell them that I like hostile questions like, âI hear frequently that the Holocaust never happened, why?â Excellent question, letâs talk about it in detail.â
Talking about antisemitism can be difficult, however. Not everybody knows what it looks like. âI would like to have some definition, because otherwise we donât know what we are talking about,â Kalman said. âItâs very hard to explain.â
The IHRA Plenary Meetings held under the Canadian Chairmanship in Berlin in 2013. (Credit: Trevor Good)
New research charts a five-year campaign by highly partisan, pro-Israel lobby groups to mislead the international community about the nature of what has been widely described as the “gold standard” definition of antisemitism.
According to a report published this week, the campaign has been so successful that political parties, the European Commission, European parliaments, and major public institutions, including universities, have been deceived.
They have been persuaded that the new definition of antisemitism is far more expansive than the terms adopted by the international body behind it. As a result, many governments and institutions have wrongly concluded that the definition severely curtails what can legitimately be said about Israel.
The anti-Jewish bigotry that characterizes the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has become even more apparent as BDS leaders and members seize upon