Weaponising Antisemitism?

Weaponising Antisemitism?

Tue 23 Nov 2021 at 7:30pm - 8:30pm

Contact Sharon Berger ( 0438262120) for more information.

If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that antisemitism remains a real threat to Jews around the world. Yet, the push to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism in law and policy – a move recently embraced by the Morrison government – has been opposed by leading Jewish American organisations and others who fear it has been weaponised to silence criticism of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians.

Join the definition’s lead drafter Kenneth Stern, former director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation Mark Baker, and student activist at the University of Sydney Nell Cohen for a discussion on the definition’s origins, how it is playing out in governments and on universities and how we can best commit to opposing antisemitism today. The conversation will be facilitated by Jo Kalowski.

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Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate and an attorney and award-winning author. For 25 years, he was the American Jewish Committee's expert on antisemitism, and he was also the lead drafter of the “Working Definition of Antisemitism." He has argued before the Supreme Court of the United States and testified before Congress, and he is a frequent guest on television and radio. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Forward. His book Loud Hawk: The United States vs. The American Indian Movement, about his legal representation of American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks in one of the last post-Wounded Knee trials, won the prestigious Gustavus Myers Award. His book about the Oklahoma City bombing -- A Force Upon The Plane: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate -- was nominated for the National Book Award. His newest book is The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate (New Jewish Press, 2020).

Mark Baker is the author of two memoirs: "Thirty Days: A Journey To the End of Love" a book about grief, marriage and death, and "The Fiftieth Gate: A Journey Through Memory", a best-selling and critically acclaimed publication of his parents’ experience during the Holocaust which won a NSW Premier’s Literary Award in 1997. Mark was formerly Associate Professor and Director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University. He completed his D.Phil at Oxford University and was twice a fellow at the Hebrew University. He is a member of the New Israel Fund international council, NIF Australia's advisory council and is currently writing a novel.

Nell Cohen has an undergraduate degree in Media and Communications, and is currently undergoing a postgraduate law degree at the University of Sydney. She is a former bogeret of Habonim Dror, and previously wrote and edited for an online student publication Et Cetera, as well as student publications Pulp and Honi Soit. She has also written for Plus61J Media. She was a 2019 Fellow of AUJS’s Susan Wakil Fellowship. She is currently involved with NIF’s New Gen team, and works at the electorate office of the Member for Coogee, Dr Marjorie O’Neill MP.