In January 2020 the Jewish community came together in New York City to rally against anti-Semitism. 

The rally was in response to a series of attacks against Jews in December 2019 that included two events of horrific violence targeting Jews in Monsey, New York and Jersey City, New Jersey. Earlier that year, in April 2019, a synagogue was attacked by a white supremacist, resulting in the murder of a congregant. 

One year before that attack, in October 2018, the Jewish community in America mourned following the attack against the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Congregation synagogue that killed 11 worshippers at Shabbat services. 

In response to these events, B’nai B’rith created and introduced a program called “None Shall Be Afraid.” This program is a way to stand against anti-Semitism, hatred and intolerance in our communities. It was created to help bring awareness to how words and actions matter. It provides tools to help understand the fight we face as Jews. Anti-Semitism is not new—we know of the long history of Jew-hatred in most of the places Jews have lived. While there may have been times of tranquility, Jews have faced the worst experience during the Holocaust, as the Nazis sought to wipe out the Jewish people. While the Holocaust can be referenced between a beginning and end in physical years and occurred decades ago, we are not surprised to see the glorification of Nazis and the denial of the Holocaust itself play out each day today online or in anti-Semitic symbols painted in public places. A key component of the None Shall Be Afraid program is the promotion of a very important tool to help define anti-Semitism. This includes endorsement of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. 

B’nai B’rith has spoken out against anti-Semitism at times when there are attacks against the Jewish people in places around the world. It also takes the opportunity to educate when events, even when they are not violent, offer a teachable moment. 

B’nai B’rith, via staff and international leadership, have participated in international conferences and forums that focused on anti-Semitism. For example, in July 2021, B’nai B’rith International CEO, Daniel S. Mariaschin addressed the 7th Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism (GFCA) in Israel that was organized by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Diaspora Affairs to serve as a think tank for the global Jewish community. His presentation focused on contemporary anti-Semitism and its manifestations in history. His approach offered several suggestions to be an advocate for the Jewish people. This includes working with friends and allies of Israel on every level of government. It means sharing this important information with friends, family and colleagues. It calls for educating ourselves as well as others about Jewish history, especially the contribution that Jews have made to make the world a better place. B’nai B’rith is also involved in many coalitions on the subject, adding our voice to speak out when Israel and Zionism are attacked on the street, as well as at international meetings sponsored by the United Nations, such as the Durban IV Conference held last month.

You can get involved by taking a deeper look at the None Shall Be Afraid program here. None Shall Be Afraid offers answers you need to become and encourage others to be an advocate for the Jewish people. This also includes an important first step that you can take. Take our pledge to fight anti-Semitism here.

The title of None Shall Be Afraid comes from the letter exchange between President George Washington and Moses Seixas, writing on behalf of the congregation of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode 
Island in 1790. In it, George Washington quotes Micah 4:4—"Everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid." 

The letter would find its place in history as the promise of the United States to the Jewish citizens to provide a place they could live and be free of bigotry and persecution. It was to be no place for intolerance, hatred and violence. We take that promise seriously and will continue to speak out in response to threats to Jews and around the world. Help us spread this important message by taking the pledge today. If you have already signed on, take another step and send it to friends and family asking them to get involved. Mention it at the next virtual program you attend and provide the link. The more voices that become part of this call to educate, the stronger our advocacy. 

If you are getting together with family this Thanksgiving, print out the pledge and share it with your guests. Share your own experiences with anti-Semitism and listen to your children and grandchildren about what they face on campus. Let your parents share what they experienced in the past. It will offer a glimpse into Jewish history, especially if you have the fortune to have the precious Holocaust survivors in your family. Write down their experience to share as part of your family’s legacy and please share your stories with me at rlove@bnaibrith.org so that we can include this in our Annual Yom Hashoah programming in April 2022.

The United States was again elected this month to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) after an absence of more than three years. The United States fully deserves to be recognized as a global leader in promoting human rights.

Often, however, election to the world’s preeminent human-rights body is not founded upon countries’ merit but political horse-trading. In fact, none of the 18 vacant seats to be filled at the start of 2022 was contested; each will essentially have been claimed in advance by a “candidate” government without assurance of governments’ actual performance in protecting human rights or of equal opportunities for a stint on the council.

​Case in point: Since the establishment of the council, around 120 of the 193 U.N. member states have enjoyed membership on it, some repeatedly.

Among the countries perennially left out is one subjected to far more harsh treatment by the body than any other: Israel.

​This comes as no surprise to those within the U.N. system. After all, Israel is one of the United Nations most longstanding members, dating back to 1949, and it has also gotten more than its fair share of attention from the Security Council. Yet it has not been one of the 130 countries to have had at least one term in that powerful forum either. That’s unlike Algeria, Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

To sum it up: Over the course of nearly 75 years, one side of the Arab-Israeli conflict has repeatedly had a voice, and vote, on relevant matters in key international institutions. The other hasn’t.

One side has wielded an automatic majority in these critical settings—there are some 60 Arab and Muslim U.N. member states—and the other is the world’s only Jewish state, Israel.

But the inequity is not limited to questions of mere representation.

When the United States withdrew from the Human Rights Council in 2018, The New York Times characterized the pullout as protesting “frequent criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.” No country is immune to fair criticism, but this portrayal, sadly commonplace, represents nothing short of journalistic malpractice. What the council dishes out to Israel is not “criticism” but simple demonization—delegitimization and double standards.

The Human Rights Council was formed 15 years ago to replace its corrupt and utterly ineffective predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights. But the council has been little better, particularly when it comes to Israel and the human rights of its diverse citizens.

At the council, what is the only country permanently probed under a dedicated agenda item? Israel. The only country even tarred as racist under yet another agenda item? Israel. The country targeted with more condemnatory resolutions than all others? Israel. The country that has been the subject of more “emergency” sessions than all others? Israel. The country repeatedly targeted with so-called fact-finding missions whose one-sided findings are endorsed in advance? Israel. The country scrutinized in perpetuity, though not its violent adversaries, by a “special rapporteur”? Israel. The only country subjected to a discriminatory corporate blacklist? Israel.

Too many outsiders assume that the U.N.’s sky-high output of anti-Israel excoriations reflects the real-world misbehavior of a uniquely and wildly aggressive Israel.

In actuality, Israel serves as a convenient target for scapegoating and unjust isolation at the world body, despite an astonishingly humane record in the face of practically unequaled and unending existential threats.

Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad—all openly committed not to limited territorial or political claims but to the outright destruction of the Jewish state—have never been condemned by the Human Rights Council for their fanaticism and terror.

Meanwhile, more Arabs have been killed in just 10 years of civil war in Syria than in nearly a century of conflict over Jews’ return to sovereignty in their small and sole ancestral homeland.

Fortunately, with more and more Arab and Muslim leaders now recognizing not only the permanence of Israel but also its legitimacy and potential to help forge a thriving Middle East, forces long accustomed to weaponizing the United Nations for cynical political purposes may find increasingly little enthusiasm for that stale cause.

As America rejoins the UNHRC, it must make clear that the body’s own legitimacy rests upon abandoning bias and bigotry in the pursuit of human dignity. Only concrete and substantial change at the council will make the body worthy of American membership and sustained investment. That change should start with ending the council’s singular fixation upon defaming Israel at the expense of highlighting the world’s most egregious and systemic human-rights abusers.

Read Mariaschin and Michaels' take in JNS.