Prairie Village is now the second Johnson County city to adopt a resolution formally defining antisemitism in response to an ongoing uptick in reported instances of antisemitic hate both nationally and around the Kansas City region.
Leawood is the only other Johnson County city currently with such a resolution on the books, which uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism as a means for guiding public response to any potential acts of hate.
Other Johnson County cities, including Mission and Roeland Park, have also discussed adopting similar measures.
The definition is also used by U.S., 38 other countries
- Gavriela Geller, director of Jewish Community Relations Bureau | American Jewish Committee, told the city council on Monday that “one of the biggest barriers to antisemitism is a lack of education.”
- Geller said about one-third of Americans cannot define antisemitism.
- The IHRA’s non-legally binding working definition says, in part, that antisemitism is “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews,” which can manifest itself as “[c]alling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews” and “accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing.”
- The resolution is meant to provide specific wording for law enforcement and city officials to use to be able to more readily recognize antisemitism and combat it, she said.
- IHRA’s full definition of antisemitism can be found online here.
Reported antisemitic incidents have spiked
- Geller told the city council that 2021 previously held the highest record for most recorded antisemitic incidents in the nation since the 1970s — at 2,717 total incidents.
- Geller said recent data shows those numbers are 36% higher for 2022.
- Antisemitism is “indicative of a broad fault line in society,” Geller said, and it resurfaces during times of social unrest or economic insecurity.
- Geller said political polarization in the U.S., the lingering societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current state of the economy make for a “ripe breeding ground” for a resurgence in antisemitism.
- “We actually see, historically, that a society that allows antisemitism to fester not only will continue to allow other hatreds of other minorities to feel less secure, but also will have an impact on our democratic society and those values and the trust in these institutions that keep our society from eroding,” Geller said.
Other Johnson County cities may adopt the resolution
- Prairie Village unanimously adopted the resolution to condemn antisemitism and adopt IHRA’s definition of it.
- Mission City Administrator Laura Smith told the Post via email a draft resolution is coming before that city’s Finance and Administration Committee for discussion on April 12.
- Roeland Park City Administrator Keith Moody told the Post the city prefers consistency, so it will wait to see what Mission and Prairie Village’s resolutions look like before proceeding with theirs.
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