ADL to spearhead new global task force seeking strategies to combat antisemitism
Jonathan Greenblatt participates in a panel during the TAAF Heritage Month Summit on May 5, 2023. Photo by JP Yim/Getty Images
Jewish organizations from seven countries announced today the founding of a group that will seek to provide a forum for Jewish communities worldwide to share and develop strategies for fighting antisemitism, as reports of incidents of antisemitic hate continue to increase globally.
Led by the Anti-Defamation League, the J7 Global Task Force on Fighting Antisemitism will meet annually to discuss issues including antisemitism education and tech policy. “By working together, we might be able to coordinate our efforts more effectively, share best practices, and leverage the learnings from other communities that are facing similar challenges,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in an interview.
The formation of the international group has been a year in the making.
“I was talking with some of my counterparts in France,” at a 2022 gathering of Jewish leaders, Greenblatt said, “and we were realizing that the large Jewish diaspora communities in liberal democracies are experiencing this rise of antisemitism.”
“That conversation prompted us to reach out to the other largest communities and to create this new entity,” he added.
In addition to France and the U.S., the J7 group will involve Jewish organizations from the United Kingdom, Argentina, Germany, Australia and Canada.
The announcement of the founding of the task force coincides with global reports of increasing rates of antisemitism.
2022 saw mixed trends in antisemitic incidents in the countries in which the task force’s participant organizations are based. While Australia and the United States witnessed a spike in antisemitism, fewer incidents than in 2021 were reported in Argentina and Germany. But wider trends, Greenblatt said, indicate a significant increase in antisemitism globally over the past decade.
“Even if antisemitic incidents in Germany, for example, decreased last year, we have to keep in mind that all of these numbers are incredibly elevated,” says Greenblatt. “If your timescale was 12 months, you might not see a problem. But when you pull back and look at a bigger timescale, like 10 years, 20 years, the reality is unmistakable.”
The leaders of the participant-organizations will meet for the first time at the ADL’s 2024 Never is Now Summit in New York, an annual forum on antisemitism. In the future, Greenblatt hopes to rotate the host countries of the consultations — much like the G7, the intergovernmental forum of the world’s leading liberal democracies, whose format the task force is modeled after. Among the first issues that the task force will tackle, according to Greenblatt, is the rise of antisemitism on social media.
“Antisemitism is a disease of the human spirit that eats away at the foundations of civilisation everywhere,” said Peter Wertheim, Co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry in a press release. “It is not limited by geographical borders, ideology or creed. It is a global phenomenon that requires a global response.”
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