An overtly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comic featured in Belgian geography textbooks, to which the International Legal Forum first brought attention to, will now be removed from subsequent editions of the textbook.
The German domestic intelligence agency, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, has recently labeled the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement as anti-Semitic.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center’s Vice President, L. Rachel Lerman, Esq., published an op-ed yesterday in Newsweek, supporting the newly introduced Anti-Semitism Awareness Act.
On Friday, May 25, student leaders of UCLA School of Law’s chapter of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) and attorneys at LDB authored a letter sent to UCLA Chancellor Block urging action in response to a recent event disruption on UCLA’s campus. The letter highlights how the recent disruption of a Students Supporting Israel (SSI) event not only violated UCLA Student Code of Conduct policies, but also potentially violated the California Penal Code as well as federal law.
The State of Louisiana has become the 25th state to prohibit ties with the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. On Tuesday, May 22nd, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed an anti-BDS executive order, stating that Louisiana does not and will not support any boycott of Israel.
The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act was introduced in both the House of Representatives and Senate. It would provide for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to use the same, widely-adopted definition of anti-Semitism used by the U.S. Department of State.
The final two weeks of FutureLearn and Yad Vashem’s online course investigating anti-Semitism are now available to the public. Weeks 1 and 2 investigated the definitions and origins of anti-Semitism in both antiquity and the modern era. Weeks 3 and 4 continued this trend by exploring the Holocaust, as well as more contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism. Over the final two weeks, the course concludes with a discussion of anti-Semitism in the Arab World, as well as what the future may hold for addressing anti-Semitism.
On April 10, the Associated Student Government Senate at the University of Arkansas passed ASG Senate Resolution No. 19, “A Resolution to Reaffirm Support for Jewish and Israeli Students at the University of Arkansas.” This resolution, which was drafted in “support of Jewish and Israeli students” on campus, accurately labels the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel) movement as anti-Semitic and “promotes the inclusion of Jewish and Israeli students and their beliefs and values on campus.”
The Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism released a statement in response to the newly-released data from the Kantor Center’s recent report on the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe. The Kantor Center’s report concluded that anti-Semitic incidents had risen in the U.S. by 57% between 2016 and 2017.
This past week, the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry released its 2017 “Antisemitism Worldwide” analysis, which noted a dramatic upswing in anti-Semitism within the United States. The Kantor Center is currently led by Dina Porat, a member of the Louis D. Brandeis Center’s Academic Advisory Board.
