Educating to counter anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is still a problem. In recent months, angry protestors have attacked synagogues and kosher grocery stores, and threats and hate speech targeted Jewish communities. While anti-Semitism has been around in parts of the world for centuries, there has been much progress in countering this problem in recent decades.
In the Berlin Declaration, ten years ago, the OSCE committed to countering anti-Semitism in all its forms.
Berlin Declaration, 2004
The OSCE's second Conference on anti-Semitism ended on 29 April 2004 with a ringing condemnation of all acts motivated by anti-Semitism or other forms of religious or racial hatred, and participating States agreed to take specific, practical counter-measures. Read more>>
OSCE participating States are to "condemn without reserve all manifestations of anti-Semitism, and all other acts of intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief, wherever they occur."
In this Declaration, OSCE States acknowledged that anti-Semitism had taken on new forms, which pose a threat to security and stability.
Based on the Declaration, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) leads the Organization’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism through a range of measures, such as training police officials, prosecutors and civil society, and collecting data about hate crime provided by governments, NGOs and international organizations in the Hate Crime Reporting website.
The Declaration also recognizes the importance of engaging young people at an early age on the advantages of diversity and why anti-Semitism, together with other forms of intolerance, is unacceptable and counter-productive. “There was a sense”, says Rabbi Andrew Baker, Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Combating Anti-Semitism, “that educational ideas and tools were needed to specifically address anti-Semitism.”
Back to school
Following a study of current policies and practices to counter anti-Semitism in the OSCE region, ODIHR identified the need for teaching materials to help pupils and students understand the phenomenon.
In order to effectively help governments in their efforts to implement their commitments on combating anti-Semitism, we had to develop a tool that educators can use to teach about historical and contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism.
Georg Michael Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
The result was a set of teaching materials designed to reach out to youth through an appealing layout and content that they can easily relate to, beginning first with their own questions about identity and discrimination.
"We really want students to identify with the issue," says Karen Polak, Project Manager at the Anne Frank House, which designed the materials with ODIHR’s support and in collaboration with experts from across the OSCE region. “By tailoring these teaching materials with partners in each country – and they are available in 13 languages – youth can really see how anti-Semitism affects their own societies. They can then choose to promote tolerance, because they see the impact intolerance has close to home.”
Giving students the chance to understand anti-Semitism as part of both European history and as part of each country’s past and present is important. While many students already have the opportunity to learn a lot about the Holocaust, there is a need to understand that anti-Semitism did not begin nor end with the Shoah.
For that reason, the teaching materials also focus on contemporary displays of anti-Semitism, including neo-Nazi movements and the relationship between anti-Semitism and international politics, notably the conflict in the Middle East, which was the trigger of many anti-Semitic acts in European cities this summer.
"Anti-Semitism plays a role in contemporary politics, it is part of the society we live in," says Dr. Juliane Wetzel, Senior Researcher at the Technical University of Berlin's Center for Research on Anti-Semitism. "Learning about this topic will help students make sense of the world and might encourage them to join efforts that oppose not just anti-Semitism, but other forms of intolerance as well.”
How are OSCE States challenging anti-Semitism?
Explore figures and case studies from OSCE participating States in our interactive Hate Crime Reporting website. The website presents hate crime data collected by ODIHR from governments, international organizations and civil society from across the OSCE region, and is organized thematically and by country.
