Announcing the Define It To Fight It Summit
Students Supporting Israel (SSI) is excited to announce the launch of a new event. SSI will be hosting the first-ever IHRA Definition of Antisemitism Summit. This will be a virtual convention for zionist students, featuring a panel of speakers from across the world. The summit will take place via zoom on April 11th, 2021 following Yom HaShoah, Israel’s national Holocaust remembrance day.
During the 2020/21 academic school year SSI has, so far, successfully pushed for the official adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition at nine different universities. Since 2014, SSI has successfully passed 20 legislative pieces through student governments in favor of the Jewish and Zionist communities. This summit is intended to empower and educate Zionist students so they may continue to pave the way for progress and combat antisemitism and antizionsim on their campuses. Click here to see the list of schools that have adopted the IHRA definition.
In 2020 the Students Supporting Israel National movement set itself a goal to join the fight against the rise in global antisemitism. As a strategy, the movement began promoting the concept that the fight against antisemitism begins with defining it. We choose to promote the official adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism in academia as a primary path of action. The SSI movement has been working tirelessly within student governments, academic departments, and through appeals to university deans, and has so far initiated the adoption of IHRA’s working definition at multiple academic institutions and created the hashtag #DEFINEittoFIGHTit to be used to promote the initiative. Our mission is to raise awareness around the pressing issue of antisemitism and antizionsim and to call on global efforts to actively work to uproot and challenge this problem. Promoting the adoption of the IHRA definition is one of the ways we intend on accomplishing this goal.
To visit our website for more information and future updates click here.
Throughout this process, we have come to recognize that many groups and individuals within the academic world and wider community fiercely oppose the idea of adopting the IHRA definition, despite the fact that antisemitism is one of the oldest forms of hatred, and despite the IHRA definition being adopted by many countries and international bodies, including the U.S. Department of State.
We are launching this conference with the aim of achieving the following goals:
- Educate on what the IHRA working definition of antisemitism is: creation, content, meaning.
- Present the need to officially define antisemitism and issue a global call to action to adopt the definition.
- Review the arguments raised by those opposing the definition and explain flaws and counterarguments.
- Provide an overview of the global slate of countries, international bodies, and academic institutions that have already adopted the working definition of antisemitism.
- Suggest specific courses of action to achieve the official adoption of the definition of antisemitism.
In addition to the specific goals related to the definition of antisemitism, the summit will raise awareness of the alarming escalation in global antisemitism in its various forms, while presenting a united front ready to fight against it. This is also intended to serve as a platform for Zionist students to connect, learn, and motivate each other to continue the fight against antizionism and antisemitism that has only just begun.
Applications to attend the summit will be available soon.
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