June 24, 2024
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
Dear Members of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees:
As leading Jewish communal organizations, we express our concern and dismay by Wikipedia’s attack on ADL’s reliability on the topic of antisemitism and other issues of central concern to the Jewish community. Fundamentally, Wikipedia is stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself from the hatred that targets our community.
We urge you to immediately launch an investigation into this decision and the motivations behind it, and to start the process for administrative reconsideration. We hope that you will simultaneously speak out clearly and unequivocally in support of the Jewish community’s right to defend against antisemitism.
Antisemitism is one of the oldest and most pernicious forms of hate, and it is also, in many ways, one of the most often misunderstood. As organizations most closely connected to, and representative of the Jewish community, and as organizations that have studied, monitored, and worked to counter antisemitism for decades, we are deeply concerned that Wikipedia’s decision will enable others to undermine our community’s claims or charges of antisemitism and simultaneously use Wikipedia’s decision as cover to perpetuate antisemitism. At a time when antisemitic attitudes are increasing, and antisemitic incidents are skyrocketing, this is simply unacceptable, and it puts our entire community at risk.
Like ADL, we support and rely on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (“IHRA”) Working Definition of Antisemitism as a meaningful tool to describe, understand, and educate others on modern manifestations of antisemitism in society. This definition is the preeminent and most widely accepted definition of antisemitism today, embraced in the 2023 U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism and adopted or endorsed by more than half of the U.S. states and the District of Columbia. It is also used by over 1,000 other governments, universities, NGOs, and other key institutions, demonstrating a clear international consensus.
We are firmly united in the belief that an attack on ADL’s reliability over its use of the IHRA definition and advocacy on behalf of the Jewish people weakens us all.
Again, we urge the reconsideration of these actions and encourage Wikipedia to join us in combating antisemitism, rather than acting as a cover for those who seek to perpetuate the scourge of Jew hatred.
Signed,
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Alpha Epsilon Pi
American Friends of Likud
American Israel Public Affairs Committee
American Jewish Committee
American Jewish Congress
American Sephardi Federation
American Zionist Movement
AMIT Children
Association of Reform Zionists of America
B’nai B’rith International
CAMERA
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Emunah of America
Greater Miami Jewish Federation
Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America
HIAS
Hillel International
Iranian American Jewish Federation
JCC Association of North America
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
Jewish Federations of North America
Jewish Institute for National Security of America
Jewish Labor Committee
Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago
Jewish Women International
Maccabi USA
MERCAZ USA
NA’AMAT USA
National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry
National Council of Jewish Women
National Council of Young Israel
ORT America
Rabbinical Assembly
Rabbinical Council of America
Religious Zionists of America
Union for Reform Judaism
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Women’s International Zionist Organization
Women’s League for Conservative Judaism
Women of Reform Judaism
World Jewish Congress-North America