The state of Arizona voted to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism on Tuesday.
The amendment stated that “antisemitism includes the definition of antisemitism that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance on may 26, 27 2016 and that has been adopted by the United States Department of State, 28 including the contemporary examples of antisemitism identified in the adopted definition.”
In addition, the term “antisemitism” was amended to a few of the local laws such as “collecting information concerning criminal offenses that manifest evidence of prejudice based on antisemitism.”
The Arizona Holocaust education bill was supposed to be passed a year ago, after years in the works – but it was stalled by Arizona State Sen. Paul Boyer since it didn’t include the IHRA definition for antisemitism. “Passing the bill without the IHRA definition would leave our legislative intent unfulfilled and vulnerable to exploitation,” he said a year ago according to the Arizona local Jewish News. According to the Jewish News report in April 2021, Arizona House Rep. Alma Hernandez (LD-3), who first introduced the bill in January 2020, said “including the IHRA language threatens the bill’s bipartisan support and further delays something that has been ‘agonizingly close for three years.’” The IHRA definition has 11 examples of anti-Israel speech that are considered antisemitic.
