To say that actions speak louder than words is cliche. But to Jewish groups preparing for an international conference on anti-Semitism, the axiom is entirely current. That’s because the upcoming meeting of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe is the third such gathering in three years — and many of the commitments made in last year’s declaration from Berlin have yet to be fulfilled, Jewish officials say.
“We’re interested in not having more nice words,” said Betty Ehrenberg, who will be attending the conference as director of international and communal affairs at the Orthodox Union. “We’re interested in having countries actually taking the steps, the concrete steps.”
“Implementation” is the buzzword among Jewish nongovernmental organizations prepping for the meeting, the Conference on Anti-Semitism and on Other Forms of Intolerance, slated for June 8-9 in Cordoba, Spain.
At last year’s Berlin conference, participants committed to hone their legal systems to better combat hate crimes and to promote academic exchange and educational programs, including Holocaust studies. They also pledged to collect data on anti-Semitic and other hate crimes in their countries.
They further agreed to report such crimes to the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which is charged with monitoring anti-Semitism with the cooperation of the 55 OSCE member states.
Finally, the OSCE’s human-rights branch agreed to collect “best practices” on addressing anti-Semitism from regional nongovernmental groups.
But while the Berlin conference’s condemnation of anti-Semitism was significant, many of these commitments have yet to be put into practice, those familiar with the situation say.
“We have serious concerns,” said Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress’ governing board, who noted that the WJC is working with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos and other European leaders “to remind them of their obligations to combat anti-Semitism.”
The WJC will hold its governing board meeting in Cordoba just before the conference and will take part in a June 7 forum of NGOs in Seville, preparing for the Cordoba meeting.
“I hope the conference will build momentum behind the efforts of the OSCE and its tolerance unit and mobilize support for implementation of commitments that states have made to combat anti-Semitism,” said Stacy Burdett, associate director of governmental affairs for the Anti-Defamation League.
“In the months since Berlin, the OSCE has done an assessment of what tools are in place in different states and what the gaps are,” said Burdett, who also will be attending the Cordoba conference.
The OSCE says it’s seeking to ensure that member states live up to their commitments.
“The purpose of the conference is to analyze the status of implementation of OSCE commitments in the field of tolerance and nondiscrimination, and operational follow-up at the national level throughout the OSCE region,” Simona Drenik, an official with the Permanent Mission of Slovenia to the OSCE, told JTA by phone from Vienna.
Slovenia now holds the rotating chairmanship of the OSCE.
Drenik said the conference also will touch on the concrete implementation of projects in the fields of data collection; monitoring; legislation; law enforcement; Holocaust and anti-Semitism education; the media; and sharing of best practices for dealing with racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda on the Internet and strengthening interreligious and intercultural dialogue.
Other Jewish groups planning to attend the conference include Hadassah, B’nai B’rith, the American Jewish Committee and NCSJ: Advocates on Behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States & Eurasia.
Meanwhile, the Organization of American States will hold its General Assembly from June 5-7 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Among resolutions expected to be passed at the assembly is one on intolerance that for the first time will mention anti-Semitism by name, while also referring to this year’s 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Until this year, the OSCE addressed anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance in separate conferences — in 2003 both took place in Vienna; last year, a conference on intolerance took place in Brussels while the anti-Semitism meeting was in Berlin. This year, one conference will tackle both subjects.
Some Jewish observers expressed concern that merging the conferences may reflect Western Europeans’ “holistic” approach to addressing intolerance. Western European nations, they say, are willing to view anti-Semitism as a phenomenon distinct from other forms of intolerance, but prefer to deal with it in conjunction with other types of hatred.
That could be a stumbling block to implementation of any decisions, observers say.
“If the holistic approach means avoiding the acknowledgment of the uniqueness of anti-Semitism, it’s troubling,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs at the AJCommittee. But “if the holistic approach means ‘We’re going to deal with it in parallel with other forms of racism, xenophobia and intolerance,’ ” then it’s less troubling.
Baker will represent the AJCommittee in Cordoba and was invited to moderate a session on anti-Semitism in the media.
The ADL’s Burdett said she hopes the conference would focus on anti-Semitism.
“It’s a problem with a unique history and manifestations, and I think we’ve seen in the past how a failure to spotlight it has led to it not being addressed on the ground adequately,” she said.
Observers say the OSCE’s non-European Union members generally lack monitoring systems for hate crimes, and the Eastern Europeans largely don’t distinguish between hate crimes and other crimes.
In addition, some European governments appear to rely on the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, a Vienna-based E.U. agency– which has contracted people on the ground in E.U. nations to collect hate-crimes information — for their hate crimes data, rather than gathering it themselves.
But Baker said some progress has been made. Last December, special representatives for anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Christianophobia were appointed to represent the OSCE chairman — now Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel — and to advocate for implementation and lobby OSCE governments to follow through on the Berlin declaration.
Further, Baker said, OSCE’s human rights office has created a tolerance unit focusing on anti-Semitism and is now funding a pilot program in which law enforcement agents train other police in responding to hate crimes. Spain and Hungary have taken part so far, and a report on the program’s results will be given in Cordoba.
Baker called these positive developments. But, he added, “If it ended here, I think we’d all be disappointed.”
In the lead-up to the conference, Israel had expressed consternation with what it said was the limited role it was being offered.
But Nimrod Barkan, director of World Jewish and Interreligious Affairs at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said that “all issues have been resolved since.”
Because of scheduling problems, it remained unclear whether Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom would attend the conference.
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