Dr. Suzanne Barakat's speech from the People of Color Conference

There's debate over antisemitism at the People of Color Conference stemming from Dr. Suzanne Barakat's speech. People on all sides have opinions but many have not read It or watched the entire speech. I'm posting the transcript so that we can start from the same place in having a conversation. Sorry for the big gaps. I did a cut and paste but overtime I will be closing the gaps.

Transcript of Dr. Suzanne Barakat’s keynote speech at NAIS POCC, December 5th 2024

Introductory Speaker:

[audio begins mid-sentence]

…the mental health of Arabic-speaking communities worldwide, as well as serve thousands of refugees along the Turkish-Syrian border by hearing their full stories, completing physical exams, mental wellness evaluations, and more to assist asylum seekers in their brave journeys towards safety. In 2015, Dr. Barakat’s brother Deah, his wife Yusor, and her sister Razan were murdered inside their own North Carolina home. While local commun— while local news, excuse me, too quickly mislabeled the murders as having been due to a parking dispute, Dr. Barakat embraced her grief by advocating against the true cause: Islamophobic hate. Following the violent loss of her family members through hate and persecution, Dr. Barakat combines her medical expertise with her passion for advocacy work. She has delivered a moving TED Talk, sharing her family's story, been interviewed on major news outlets and featured in documentaries, participated in round table discussions with global leaders, engaged with top US officials in contribution to the national strategy to counter Islamophobia and earned the honor of the Uniter Award from President Biden. Incredible intellectual, caretaker, and courageous changemaker, please join me in welcoming Dr. Suzanne Barakat to POCC.

Dr. Suzanne Barakat:

Hello, everyone. These lights are bright. Thank you for having me, and my clicker isn't working. Okay. What a privilege and honor it is to stand in front of all of you who similarly carry stories filled with resiliency, trauma, hope. Thank you to the organizers for inviting me. I want to start by saying that I take this opportunity very seriously. It's a responsibility and a heavier weight than you may realize to try and get it just right: to be a voice for the voiceless, to honor memories of those no longer with us, to move us all collectively by a fire to do better for our sisters and brothers around the world and the children in our classrooms who depend on us to make it right. We are in a difficult moment in our recent history. It's a delicate balance to strike between understanding

and accountability, compassion and justice.

I acknowledge the privilege I and all of us here carry in the safety and the coolness of this conference hall. My intention is to hold space and also hold the trauma whether directly or vicariously experienced by all of us doing

the vital work that we do. I ask for your grace as we traverse difficult topics. I was also told we have some

friends from the media. Y es, I'm looking at you, speaking to you directly, and I ask that you listen with open

hearts. With that, I also wanted to state upfront a trigger warning as I discuss topics that involve violence and

death, which may impact this particular crowd more than most, so I empower you to do what you need to take

care of yourself if need be, including stepping outside.

A little more about me. I heard the little cheers. So I was born and raised in North Carolina, and I went to UNC

Chapel Hill.

[cheers]

I see you. Both undergrad and med schools. Okay. My parents are Syrian. We used to spend fun-filled summers in Syria growing up: Idlib in particular, which is a small town close to Aleppo in Northwestern Syria, about 30 minutes from the Turkey— the Turkish border. In 2010, the conflict in Syria broke amidst the Arab Spring

spreading across the Middle East. As the months turned into years, family in Idlib became internally displaced,2

then violence would get bad enough, they would cross the Turkish border, but then cost of living would be too

high, so they'd come back into Idlib. The violence would escalate again. They would flee again, until the

violence became intolerable. Think chemical warfare, airstrikes, and gun violence in the streets. Many were

leaving for good. In 2015, there was a mass exodus of Syrians fleeing on foot. Today, Syria remains the world's

largest refugee crisis with over six million forced to flee their country and another six million Syrians internally

displaced.

There was news coverage of the unprecedented amount of people crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to the

Greek island of Lesbos, with rafts capsizing being the expectation. I was following the family WhatsApp group,

tracking some cousins as they journeyed on foot from Syria to Germany, with one cousin on those rafts with

kerosene leaking down and burning her leg, but no ability to move from how overcrowded it was. Or another

uncle who texted us that the raft he was supposed to be on ended up capsizing and his family miraculously

made it okay on the next one, creating what is now known as the life-vest graveyard in Lesbos with over

500,000 deserted life-vests.

We had recently lost my cousin Muhammad Barakat, who was shot on his balcony in Idlib, Syria by regime

soldiers on his very street as he was yelling on the soldiers to let go of his baby brother. The same balcony I had

spent summer evenings taking in the lovely breeze, listening to some old-school Arabic music, sipping on

late-night tea. So it wasn't totally shocking when I was at San Francisco General Hospital in a busy pediatric

urgent care shift, wrapping up an incision and drainage of an abscess when my phone starts blowing up with

condolences. Surely it was someone in Syria. I actually ignore my phone at first, but then calls start coming in.

This is my baby brother Deah, a second year dental student at UNC Chapel Hill, top of his class, adored by all.

And his wife of six weeks, Y usor, who was just accepted to join him at UNC Dental. They were fundraising to

organize a dental relief trip for Syrian refugees in Turkey, and this is Razan, Y usor’s sister, an architectural

engineering student who was visiting for dinner. Deah, Y usor, and Razan were murdered, execution-style, in the

safety of their Chapel Hill home by their white supremacist neighbor because they were Muslim, by a man who

had a plethora of anti-religious posts on his social media who told them he didn't like the way they looked. I

took a red-eye and by the time I landed in North Carolina, the police had issued a statement based on the

murderer's claim that it was due to a parking dispute. The Muslim community was outraged. Still in scrubs, I

gave a press statement asking for this to be investigated federally as a hate crime.

Within 24 hours of the murders, I was on CNN's Anderson Cooper and the families were on a flurry of national

media interviews trying to set the record straight as media outlet after outlet repeated the sound-bite “Tell us

about this parking dispute.” The police took the words of the murderer, who turned himself in, while chuckling

shared how he executed them and then was applauded by law enforcement. I'll si— I'll spare you the former, but

see for yourself the latter: a clip from the newly released documentary called 36 Seconds.

Video clip audio:

Narrator:

… entitlement allowed Mr. Hicks to be given some type of benefit of the doubt, some type of control of

the narrative after these horrific murders.3

Police Officer:

…I’m-a be honest with ya. I respect you taking this on the chin like a man and, and, man up. I respect

that. I mean, do you think something, just the rage, caused you to snap? I mean, you know what I'm

saying?

Narrator:

He's jovial and ingratiating to the police officers, and it's clear that he considers himself closer, more like

these police officers in this position, that they would understand why he did what he did.

Police Officer:

Y ou got a long road ahead of you, man. I wish you luck.

Hicks:

It’s a road I made for myself, sir, but I appreciate the thought.

Narrator:

What Mr. Hicks told the police, we know, is not accurate. He lied to the police about Deah that day,

stating that Deah had cursed him.

Hicks:

He goes “fuck you, you worthless piece of shit.”

Narrator:

He even speculated that Deah had a knife, um, and had cut him.

Hicks:

He started making a movement at— towards me, so I pulled it real quick and starting shooting. Maybe

he came at me and hit me with a knife. I don’t know. But something cut my thumb. I don’t know what

else would’ve cut my thumb ’cause it was bleeding all over the place. This is all my blood, I believe.

Narrator:

But it was a lie, which we know because Deah found a way to tell the truth, even after his life was taken.

Dr. Suzanne Barakat:

[whispers] This is always so hard.

[normal voice] In an attempt to capture his threats, Deah had filmed the encounter in his chest pocket. That's

how we confirmed there was no parking dispute, no altercation. It was deliberate and targeted. He came to their

door as they were eating dinner. Deah opens the door and the murderer proceeds to shoot. 36 seconds of terror.

Girls screaming, pleading for their lives, and then silence. Imagine, as a physician, reading the autopsy reports

of your young healthy family members. Cause of death: laceration of midbrain by bullet because the girls were

put on their knees and executed. Imagine looking into your brother's casket and seeing a circular gap in his teeth

and learning then that the eighth and final fatal bullet was to his mouth.4

Some of the rage that I felt at that time was that if roles were reversed and if an Arab, Muslim, or

Muslim-appearing person had killed three white American college students execution-style in their home, what

would we have called it? A terrorist attack. When white men commit acts of violence in this country, they're

lone wolves, mentally ill, or driven by a parking dispute. Words matter. Call it what it is: a terrorist attack, an

ideologically motivated act of violence committed by a white supremacist who hated Muslims.

[applause]

I still couldn't understand, though, how—how can hate be so powerful? It leads to murder? How do we do this

to one another? The pyramid of hate adopted by the Anti-Defamation League or ADL provides a good

framework to understanding human rights violations in their different contexts. At the base, you'll see here we

all carry implicit biases. That's fear of differences, which can lead to acts of bias like microaggression, cultural

appropriation, which can lead to systemic discrimination. Think criminal justice disparities, immigration and

border policies, double-standard media representation, which can lead to bias-motivated acts of violence like

rape, murder, terrorism, and can ultimately lead to genocide, or killing of entire groups of people. In other

words, when we otherize people, we dehumanize them, which then allows us to justify something like violence

or murder or even an eradication of an entire population.

Our families founded the Our Three Winners Foundation with a mission to promote equity and reduce prejudice

against Muslims and marginalized communities through grantmaking, advocacy, service, and evidence-based

programming with a vision that never again will Islamophobia prove fatal. Let's take a step back and zoom out,

a little Islam 101 because I don't want to assume everyone knows, and if you do, great. A little review. Islam is

an Abrahamic monotheistic faith shared with Judaism and Christianity. Muslims believe Prophet Muhammad is

the last messenger with equal reverence given to Prophet Moses and Jesus. It is the second largest religion in the

world, and it's also the fastest growing. There are 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide. In the US we have 3.5

million, making up 1.1% of the US population.

According to a 2023 Gallup poll, the religious makeup of the United States is two-third Christian, 22%

religiously unaffiliated, and 7% other religions. Within the 7%, 2% of the US is Jewish, 1% is Muslim, 1% is

Buddhist. I didn't like that they had it among “others,” but I apologize—that's what the data had. The

Muslim-American community is not a monolith. Muslims are the most ethnically diverse faith community in

America. It is the only community without a majority race. Contrary to popular belief, Arab-American Muslims

only make up 14% of the Muslim-American community. 28% are Black. American Muslims look like what all

of America will look like in the future. No majority race.

So what is Islamophobia? Islamophobia is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived

Muslimness. It is experienced by Muslims regardless of their religiosity, ethnicity, or culture, and by

non-Muslims who are perceived as Muslims. Well, what about the term “anti-Muslim hate”? It does not

incorporate the broader array of structural racial inequalities that Muslims face. Consider, for example, a

Muslim facing discrimination at the workplace based on having the name Muhammad. This is not an example

of hatred necessarily yet is clearly a type of racism and is Islamophobic. The Carter Center put out this report

and says “Islamophobia is not just an arbitrary fear of Muslims.” It is, “in large part, the function of an

anti-Muslim industry and well-funded and well-connected network of individuals, institutions, and donors.”5

The Islamophobia industry is comprised of political, ideological, institutional, and economic networks—more

specifically: media outlets, political figures, far-right white nationalist groups, Islamophobia influencers,

pro-Israel fringe-right groups, Muslim dissidents, think tanks, security experts, and the donors who fund their

campaigns. This figure was pulled from a report on the Canadian Islamophobia industry. A 2019 report by

CAIR titled “Hijacked by Hate” mapped the flow of funding from charitable organizations to anti-Muslim

interest groups. They examined publicly available tax filings of anti-Muslim organizations and found that 1,096

organizations were responsible for funding 39 groups involved in the Islamophobia network between 2014 and

2016. The total revenue capacity of the Islamophobia network during this two-year period alone amounted to at

least $1.5 billion. My brother was murdered in 2015.

I was invited to give a TED Talk that highlighted the rise and fatal nature of Islamophobia. It was released on

the eve of the election when Trump was elected the first time around. I attended a round table with

then-President Obama and frankly hit my lowest point of depression. I made my story heard to the most

powerful leader in the world and nothing actually changed. Hate crimes continued to rise. The Muslim ban

happened shortly after. My Syrian grandmother, who became a refugee in her eighties, was denied entry to the

US to join her only child due to the Muslim ban and ended up dying and being buried in foreign soil, stripped of

her property, her dignity, and her family.

These days, these days, it's felt like a very long, many days. It feels like Islamophobia is a socially acceptable

form of bigotry. We have politicians reaping political and financial gains off our backs. Did you know that hate

crimes rise in parallel with presidential elections? And not just Trump's.

During the South Carolina primary in 2016, Donald Trump made admiring comments about executing Islamic

terrorists with “bullets coated in pig blood.” I challenged him to meet me and tell me to my face that Deah,

Y usor, and Razan were deserving of the bullets.

Okay. So, let's see what the data shows us. Y ou're all educators, academicians. Data matters. The Institute for

Social Policy and Understanding or ISPU surveyed Americans and asked if they faced religious discrimination

over the past year. In 2022, American Muslims were the most likely group to report facing religious

discrimination at 62%. As found in previous years, Jewish Americans were the next most likely group to report

experiencing religious discrimination at 52%. More than half of Muslims and Jews face religious discrimination

in any given year.

Here's where it gets interesting. Among those who reported facing any religious discrimination in the past year,

they asked about whether it occurred in various settings. They found that Muslims stand apart from all others in

terms of not only the frequency, but how they experience religious discrimination. Particularly, Muslims who

have experienced religious discrimination in the past year are more likely than Jews, and the general public who

have faced religious discrimination, to experience it in their interactions within institutional settings. Muslims

are more likely than Jewish Americans and the general public to experience discrimination when applying for a

job and when interacting with law enforcement. Other institutional settings where Muslims are much more

likely than Jewish Americans and the general public to face religious discrimination include when seeking

healthcare and at the airport.6

Are you familiar with the term “flying while Muslim”? For years, travelling through SFO, including after

getting vetted to go meet with POTUS, I was randomly selected for additional screening 99% of the time. I

don’t know about you, but I took statistics in high school and random means one in two, or 50%. I was

repeatedly pat down, my bun under my hijab squeezed—despite going through the visual scanner because

somehow I can miraculously hide something in there—crotch violated, and swabbed for bomb residue. Think of

that humiliation every single time I flew, and perhaps then you can understand my anger. How I am perceived as

the threat when it is this very rhetoric that killed my family.

Do you remember the Islamophobia network we just discussed? This is structural racism that entails

anti-Muslim hate. I attended the United We Stand Summit at the White House where President Biden awarded

me with the Uniter Award. Things had been feeling pretty bleak, but I have to admit that summit rejuvenated

something in me. I looked around the room and there were activists and civil rights warriors representing every

major hate crime our country has seen in the last couple decades. Sikh, Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ, Asian

Jewish, Arab, Muslim. It was the beautiful diverse melting pot I know our country to be. I scanned the room and

I saw so much trauma, but also resiliency, our shared humanity, and a deep understanding of the impact of hate

on all of us. For the first time in a long time, I felt seen. I had a moment of hope.

We've talked about how language matters. Here I was sitting closest to POTUS’s podium. They were calling

anti-Muslim attacks ‘terrorist attacks,” highlighting the rise of anti-Muslim terrorist attacks on people and

property: in the White House, by a white man. That may not seem huge to some of you, but when you are

fighting to correct the narrative from parking dispute to hate crime, shifting that narrative is everything.

[applause]

With an acknowledgement of what we've known all along but is not represented in our media reporting, 90% of

hate crimes, of hate crime perpetrators, are motivated by biases consistent with White supremacy, or male

supremacy, or both.

ISPU data shows that perceived Muslims accused of a plot receive an average 770% more media than others

accused of plots of similar magnitude. I'm just curious. Just a show of hands: who here actually heard about the

Chapel Hill shooting back in 2015? Look around the room. Some, but not enough. Do you agree?

One of the outcomes of the United We Stand Summit was outlined expectations for federal agencies to respond

to the president's call to prevent, respond to, and recover from hate-fueled violence and to foster national unity.

This Free to Learn initiative was launched by the US Department of Education. It's an Ed-funded technical

assistance center and NCSSLE hosts resources specifically to support Jewish and Muslim students, MENA

students, and others as well as a series of webinars. Their audience is specifically pre-K to 12 educators, so this

is a great resource for you all.

Okay, let's dive deeper into religious-based bullying. As in previous years, Muslim families are by far the most

likely to have a child who has been bullied for their religion, with 48% of Muslim families reporting having a

child who faced religious-based bullying in the past year. In comparison, 13% of Jewish families and 18% of

families in the general public reported having a child who was bullied for their religion. Even more alarming is

that 20% of Muslim families report that the bullying happens nearly every day. Said differently, Muslim7

children are two times as likely as the general public to be bullied for their faith, with a big caveat that this data

is from 2022 and does not reflect the last year.

Then they asked among those who reported a child who faced religious-based bullying, who bullied the child?

This was again 2022 during the pandemic, so it included online settings as well. 64% reported bullying occurred

at school from other students and—get this—four in ten Muslim families who've experienced bullying, say the

bully was a teacher or school official at school, and roughly one in five say the bully was a teacher or school

official online. If there is no other takeaway from this talk, I want you to look at these numbers again. 42% say

the bully was a teacher at school. 19% say the bully was a teacher online. Believe your kids. In sum, Muslim

children and parents have to worry about facing religious based bullying at school and online from other

students and even trusted adults in the school.

I have worked on and contributed to the first ever White House US national strategy to counter Islamophobia

and anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism. It is in the works to be released soon, with more recommendations as

it pertains to education, so look out for its release.

And then October 7th happened. As the JVP describes it, “following 16 years of Israeli military blockade,

Hamas fighters launched an unprecedented assault in which hundreds of Israelis were killed and wounded, and

civilians kidnapped. The Israeli government declared war, launching airstrikes, killing hundreds of Palestinians,

and wounding thousands, bombing residential buildings and threatening to commit war crimes against besieged

Palestinians in Gaza.”

A dark time in our world became suddenly darker. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't function. I cried often and deeply

at every mother's pain over losing a child, whether Israeli or Palestinian, at the frivolity in which we were

treating the sanctity of all life. And what has followed over the past year is the unfolding of a genocide right

before our eyes.

[applause]

I was glued to the news, feeling guilty that I couldn't get myself to look at all the images as it triggers my PTSD

and takes me down a dark path. I was watching the way American media was covering what was unfolding. I

had a knot in my stomach, and I just knew it was only a matter of time.

A week later, Wadea Al Fayoume, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy, was killed when he was stabbed 26

times in his home in a Chicago suburb by his landlord. He initially stabbed his mother, telling her “Y ou

Muslims must die.”

On October 27th, I was one of five Muslim Americans who met with President Biden to discuss Gaza and the

rise of Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian rhetoric and violence domestically. I connected with him in our shared

loss of loved ones. I told him his superpower is empathy, and that's what makes him relatable as Everyday Joe,

and I told him you are lacking empathy for Palestinian suffering. We pleaded for a ceasefire, to stop sending

billions of dollars of our federal funds towards weaponry that is killing predominantly children and women in

an open-air prison, that is targeting schools and hospitals and buildings of worship, with no access to food aid or

shelter. At the end, he apologized and promised more empathy for Palestinian suffering. He leaned in and8

placed his hand on mine saying he's not just the president, he's a father, and a grandfather. And I leaned in and

said, “But in this moment, you are the president, and you can stop this.”

[applause]

It was a heavy, seemingly sincere and moving moment. A request for a humanitarian pause was called for

shortly thereafter, but a genocide continued to unfold over the next year—a genocide that has never been better

documented in the history of the world. The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

Genocide defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a

national ethnical, racial or religious group as such.” The act includes “killing members of the group causing

serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life

calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent

births within the group; and or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” As a physician who

also documents forensic evidence of torture and ill-treatment according to UN protocol and guidelines, what is

happening in Gaza has the textbook hallmarks of a genocide. But don't ask me. The United Nations,

International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, and a multitude of human-rights organizations share

these concerns. Our government and country has provided bipartisan support of the State of Israel. Kamala

Harris and Donald Trump couldn't agree on almost anything, except for their unwavering support for the

country of Israel.

So then, what's the issue? Why is it so hard to talk about? Let's take a couple minutes to frame additional

terminology relevant to this context. We can't understand it before we can actually define it. We're going to talk

about anti-Palestinian racism, Zionism, and antisemitism. “Anti-Palestinian racism is a form of anti-Arab racism

that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames, or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives.” An

important note: “scholars and activists have rightly pointed out the problematic nature of conflating

anti-Palestinian racism with Islamophobia. First, it ignores the fact that Palestinians are not all Muslim and

erases the identity of Christian Palestinians. Second, the conflation reduces a settler-colonial conflict to a matter

of mere religious belief.”

The Institute for the Understanding of Anti-Palestinian Racism breaks down the various forms it takes.

Examples are “denying the Nakba; justifying violence against Palestinians; failing to acknowledge Palestinians

as an indigenous people with a collective identity, belonging, and rights in relation to occupied and historic

Palestine; erasing the human rights and equal dignity and worth of Palestinians; excluding or pressuring others

to exclude Palestinian perspectives, Palestinians, and their non Palestinian allies; defaming Palestinians and

their non-Palestinian allies with slander such as being inherently antisemitic, a terrorist threat or sympathizer or

simply opposed to democratic values.” The Institute for a Middle Eastern Understanding says “the Nakba, or

‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, refers to the violent expulsion of approximately three-quarters of all Palestinians from

their homes and homeland by Zionist militias and the new Israeli army during the State of Israel's

establishment” in 1947 to 1949. “1948 marked the end of the British mandate and the beginning of Israel as an

independent Jewish state. Palestinian Muslim and Christian Arabs considered the date, um, considered the

Nakba whereby they were dispossessed from their home lands and livelihoods as a result of Israeli

ethnic-cleansing operations during the Arab-Israeli war between ’47 and ’49.” By understanding the history of

the Nakba, you can uncover its profound intersections with Black and Indigenous liberation movements.9

The IMEU states “the roots of the Nakba and the ongoing problems in Palestine/Israel today lie in the

emergence of political Zionism in the late 1800s when some European Jews, influenced by the nationalism then

sweeping the continent, decided that the solution to antisemitism in Europe and Russia was the establishment of

a state for Jews in Palestine. They began emigrating to Palestine as colonists, where they started dispossessing

indigenous Muslim and Christian Palestinians.”

I apologize for getting a little text-heavy, but as we have established language matters, and I'm quoting you

words from the experts themselves, so I appreciate your patience here. I promise it won't all be like this. Okay,

so what is Zionism? According to the ADL, “Zionism is the movement for the self-determination and statehood

for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland: the Land of Israel. The vast majority of Jews around the

world feel a connection or kinship with Israel, whether or not they explicitly identify as Zionists, and regardless

of their opinions on the policies of the Israeli government.” The Jewish V oice for Peace adds “It is important to

note that people who consider themselves Zionist have different interpretations of what that label means in the

present political moment, to them personally, and historically. Moreover, over time, multiple strains of Zionism

have emerged, including political Zionism, religious Zionism, and cultural Zionism. The political ideology of

Zionism, regardless of which strain, has resulted in the establishment of a Jewish nation-state in the land of

historic Palestine. In 1948, 750,000 Palestinians were expelled as part of that process, their homes and property

confiscated. Despite recognition of their rights by the United Nations, their rights to return and be compensated

have long been denied by the US and Israel. In ’67, Israel occupied what is now known as the Occupied

Palestinian Territories, putting millions of people under military rule. Longstanding systemic inequalities

privileged Jews over Palestinians inside Israel and the Occupied Territories.” If you haven't already read

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message, it offers a profound analysis critiquing the establishment of a state

founded on ethnocentric superiority as an inherently systemically racist framework.

Okay. What is antisemitism? “It is a certain perception of Jews which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews.

Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals

and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” This is what is known as

“the working definition of antisemitism.” A draft initially published in 2005 as part of an effort by the European

Monitoring Centre of Racism and Xenophobia aimed to provide a practical tool for identifying, addressing

antisemitism, particularly in the context of data collection and hate-crime reporting. It was adopted by the

International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA, 2016. Accompanying the working definition but of

disputed status are 11 illustrative examples whose purpose is described as guiding the IHRA and its work, seven

of which relate to criticism of Israel. One of the examples states that antisemitism is embodied in “denying the

Jewish people the right to self-determination by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist

endeavour.” It also says that it’s antisemitic “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the

Nazis.”

Kenneth Stern, an American attorney and scholar specializing in antisemitism was the lead author of what

became known as the working definition of antisemitism. In The New Yorker, he says it “was not drafted and

was never intended as a tool to target or chill speech on a college campus” and in The Guardian, “I drafted the

definition of antisemitism. Right-wing Jews are weaponizing it. The working definition of antisemitism was

never intended to silence speech, but that's what Trump’s executive order accomplished in 2019.”10

In the recently released White House US National Strategy to counter antisemitism, it says “There are several

definitions of antisemitism, which serve as valuable tools to raise awareness and increase understanding of

antisemitism. The most prominent is the non-legally binding ‘working definition’ of antisemitism adopted in

2016 by the 31-member states of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, IHRA, which the United

States has embraced. In addition, the Administration welcomes and appreciates the Nexus Document and notes

other such efforts.”

Now, what is the Nexus Project? They describe themselves as advocating for the full implementation of the

national strategy to counter antisemitism, including its framework for understanding antisemitism. “We raise

awareness and educate against the misuse of accusations of antisemitism as political weapons and the conflation

of Jew-hatred with legitimate criticism of Israeli policy, which undermines the fight against the increasing threat

of antisemitism.”

The IHRA definition has been adopted by 43 governments. The US is entering uncharted territory now by

attempting to introduce this non-legally-binding working definition into federal law. The JVP comments

“criticism of Zionism is not to be conflated with antisemitism. States such as Israel and the United States are

openly criticized in public life and their political beliefs and policies are subject to critical debate in accord with

our basic First Amendment rights.” Professor Neve Gordon, an Israeli professor of international law and human

Rights is quoted saying “The idea that comparing policies carried out by Israel with policies carried out by the

Nazi regime is antisemitic is crazy. What the definition tries to do is silence legitimate critique of Israel and the

genocide it is carrying out in Gaza.”

We don't have federal data on hate crimes in 2023, but polling in surveys has suggested that antisemitism,

Islamophobia, and anti-Palestinian racism are on the rise. The Council of American Islamic Relations, the

nation's largest Muslim civil-rights and advocacy organization, received a staggering 2,171 complaints of

anti-Palestinian racism in just two months between October and December and over 170% increase in reports

compared to the same time of the year before. It is important to note though, in general, it's estimated that only

1% of hate crimes actually get reported. And did you know, for example, in the case of Deah, Y usor, and Razan,

while the court of public opinion has labelled the Chapel Hill shooting a hate crime, it does not have the legal

definition. And if that can't get labelled as a hate crime, can you imagine how many we actually miss?

The study reveals widespread anti-Palestinian racism in schools and other academic institutions. It finds that

more than 70% of university students and educators face considerable discrimination: emotional and physical

health effects for supporting Palestinian human rights. In places of learning, there has been silencing, erasure,

censorship, intimidation, and even terminations. In September, 2024, a much-needed Senate judiciary

committee hearing was held on the “tide of hate crimes in America.” Witnesses from the Jewish Advocacy

Center and Arab-American Institute testified before the committee. The mother of 6-year-old Wadea, who was

stabbed to death, sat in the front row. Kenneth Stern, who authored the working definition of antisemitism,

provided testimony. The executive director of the Arab-American Institute was questioned by Republican

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, and he asked her more than once, despite her response, “Y ou support

Hamas, don't you?” He ended his questioning by saying, “Y ou should hide your head in the back.” This was at a

hate-crimes hearing, by government officials.11

So now I ask you, how are you going to meet the moment? There's individual and institutional approaches. Let's

start with the individual. Show of hands: how many here have been on the receiving end of a microaggression,

racist comment, or behavior? That's, like, almost everyone. Okay, hands down. And then now: who here has

witnessed someone who was on the receiving end of a microaggression and was stunned and remained

awkwardly silent? Also most of us, if not all of us.

So number one is going to be awareness of our implicit biases. We all carry them. All of us. It doesn't make us

bad. It doesn't make us good. Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, homophobia, anti-Palestinian

racism awareness is not sufficient, but it's the building block so you can start to do the anti-racist work. Number

two: recognize our relative privileges. This references leveraging the relative privilege we have in the moment

to be an upstander for the individual with less privilege. We all carry different privileges in varying contexts.

We have the privilege of being in this convention hall shelter without threat of an airstrike. Many of your

schools are covering your fees to fill your souls in connection and learning. Number three: demonstrate personal

allyship. Don't be a bystander. We all agree that bigotry is unacceptable, but when we see it we're silent because

it makes us uncomfortable.

We need to prime ourselves, train ourselves, train our students, and actually practice how to respond in the

moment. It matters less what you say and more that you introduce a filler. It buys you the moments to think

about what to say or do next while simultaneously halting the train in its tracks, instead of letting that moment

pass into the abyss of awkwardness, and it's now too late. One phrase I've found works in most situations is

“Hey, that's not okay,” and intonation is everything because it can be, “Hey, that's not okay” [low pitch], or like,

“Hey, that's not okay” [high pitch]. So humor me. We are going to practice together with some real life

examples. With each example, if it aligns with your values, we're going to say, “Hey, that's not okay.” Y ou guys

cool with this? Okay. All right, so example number one: I'm rounding on patients in the hospital with my

medical team and my patient points at me and says, “Y our people are killing people in Los, Los Angeles.” If

you were in the room, you all would say… [Audience says “Hey, that's not okay.”]

Awesome. I'm doing this. It's intentional. I promise. It's like the neurological priming and establishing new

neural pathways. I can geek out. Okay, yes. Number two: my female attending with short hair and cargo pants,

she has a new patient who tells her, “Y ou look like a man. Women don't look like that in my country. No, really.

Y ou look like a man.” [Audience says “Hey, that's not okay.”]

Third example. On a rotation, and a white colleague comments on a Black colleague's hair saying, “Wow, your

hair is so cool. Can I touch it?” and proceeds to stroke it without permission. [Audience says “Hey, that's not

okay.”]

Imagine if we all stood up for one another, we would never feel alone.

[applause]

Now, for educators. Recommendations for educators on inclusion of students of all religious, secular, and

spiritual identities go into three categories, and this framing, by the way, was provided to me by the Department

of Education's Director of Center for Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships. I'm not just pulling it out

of— okay. Number one: religious literacy. It is about awareness raising. For example, what are the religions of12

the world, and what is the lived experience for students from these diverse backgrounds, including

discrimination they may face? It includes addressing bias and inaccuracies in the curriculum.

Number two: rights and recommendations. For example, are school policies and practices inclusive of religious

attire? Are accommodations made for prayer or for fasting during Ramadan? Does the school accommodate

absences for holidays and avoid scheduling exams or mandatory events on significant holidays? Are there Halal

food options available? Another takeaway would be actually doing trainings on antisemitism, Islamophobia,

and anti-Palestinian racism.

Number three is school climate. How is the school taking steps to prevent and also address bullying? Are they

working both with students who are targeted because of their religion or other identities and with the students

who are engaging in bullying behavior?

Let's talk about school climate for a second. There should be an emphasis on inclusion and belonging. Drop

“tolerance.” I don't want anyone “tolerating” me. Number two: teacher and staff training in bullying prevention

and implementation of schools’ anti-bullying program. I'll take that a step further and say, do you have an

anti-bullying program? Number three: cultural sensitivity—I'm going to scroll down a little bit—and support for

minority students. Do you have affinity groups for the true minorities of your schools?

And unless you're in a faith-based school where faith is part of your mission, then predominantly

Judeo-Christian songs have no place in your music curriculum. Either equally represent all faiths, make your

music curriculum secular, or stick to your “Twinkle Twinkles.” For administrators, everything previously also

applies, but a reminder that anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and antisemitic discrimination is illegal. The Title VII of

the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars discrimination including on the basis of religion, national origin, and race in

all aspects of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignment, promotions, layoffs, training, fringe

benefits, and any other term or condition of employment. To this organization: on your website, you say,

“participants leave the conference better equipped to improve the interracial, interethnic, and intercultural

climate in your school, which will have a positive impact on the academic, social-emotional, and workplace

performance outcomes for students and adults alike.” Then, lovingly—and I underscore lovingly—I ask: when

the single most divisive issue in your membership has been related to the ongoing genocide in Palestine, where

is the Palestinian voice on this stage, and in your workshops?

[applause]

There is one workshop on North African and Middle Eastern Jews. Not a single workshop addressing this issue.

How do you explain that? How exactly are you going to go back to your schools better equipped if we just

brush it under the rug and continue to silence those hurting?

[applause]

I'm reminded by MLK's quote, “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” “Do not let your discomfort in truly

meeting the moment—that's what this is about, right?—to be remembered as your silence on the issue, because

remember: silence is complicity—in violence, oppression, and racism.” And yes, I just quoted myself so you

folks in the media have a sound-bite.13

Okay. None of this is easy to talk about or bring up or rehash, but I do this for my brother and sisters-in-law. I

do this for the 25 family members I've lost in the last decade to various forms of hate-fueled violence. I also do

this for my children, [names redacted]. They are the legacies I leave behind. They're descendants of a professor

who left Partition India and Pakistan. They're descendants of a prominent legal scholar and judge in the

Ottoman Empire whose roots go back to Rome during the Crusades. They're descendants of a child refugee

from Holocaust Austria. They're descendants of Syrians who have since become refugees in the largest refugee

crisis the world has seen. Whose great-grandparents’ home just came down in an airstrike three days ago.

Whose uncle and aunt were murdered in this country, in an Islamophobic hate crime. Whose cousins they will

never meet. They're citizens of this world we all share. These are the children who will be going to one of your

schools next year, whom you teach, frame their thinking, teach them their history and how to think critically.

What a responsibility and privilege.

Who will you allow to write that history and teach it? Will it be shaped around values of inclusion and justice,

or will it be silencing and oppression? How will you meet the moment to nurture their souls—identities—and

shape their futures, thereby shaping the future of our world?

I will leave you with this video montage of family members that have departed too soon in the last decade to

honor their memory and show them they are not forgotten.