The Chicago City Council unanimously adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism on January 21, modifying its existing definitions of discrimination. Jake Rymer, a third-year in the College and president of the Maroons for Israel RSO, advocated for the ordinance’s passage.
The IHRA defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” The definition has been criticized for being vague and suppressing discussion of the Israel–Palestine conflict and the Israel–Hamas war; of the 11 examples of antisemitism the IHRA provides, seven mention Israel.
Its examples of antisemitism include “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” alongside more traditional examples such as “[d]enying the fact, scope, [or] mechanisms” of the Holocaust.
Chicago is the second-largest American city to codify the IHRA definition of antisemitism, after Los Angeles. In January, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani revoked a 2025 executive order establishing the IHRA definition, leading the Israeli government to accuse him of antisemitism.
The University did not respond to questions about whether the city’s adoption would affect campus policy or if the University has considered adopting a definition of antisemitism, as peer institutions have been pressured to do by the federal government.
In an interview with the Maroon, Rymer said that “the IHRA [definition of antisemitism] doesn’t inhibit free speech; it just categorizes speech.”
15th Ward Alderman Raymond Lopez, the primary sponsor of the ordinance, told the Maroon separately, “[T]his [ordinance] will also allow us to charge people for antisemitic hate crimes, as opposed to just simply referring to them as hate crimes, or… giving people the opportunity not to charge things for hate crimes when they clearly are.”
For a violent crime to qualify as a hate crime, it must be motivated by bias against the victim’s perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. Even prior to the new ordinance, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) maintained records of reported anti-Jewish hate crimes.
A Chicago Commission on Human Relations report found that in 2024, Chicago experienced a 25.5 percent decline in hate crimes reported to or investigated by CPD, from 282 to 210, compared to 2023. However, reported anti-Jewish hate crimes increased by 58 percent during that same period, from 50 to 79, with a plurality classified as “criminal damage.”
Lopez indicated that under the new ordinance, anti-Zionist beliefs would be sufficient motive for a violent crime to be prosecuted as a hate crime. “If you have a bunch of anti-Zionists who attack Jewish individuals walking down the street, that is a hate crime,” Lopez said. “That is no different than the KKK walking down the street and attacking a group of Black people going to church.”
Rymer defended the IHRA definition over alternatives, saying that the IHRA definition is the accepted definition of Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee and European Union of Jewish Students. “Other communities choose their own definitions of racism,” Rymer added. “Why don’t the Jewish people get to choose their definition?”
Lopez said he did not consider alternative definitions of antisemitism when drafting the ordinance.
The Jerusalem Declaration and Nexus Project, which explicitly position themselves as alternatives to the IHRA definition, seek to protect open debate while properly defining antisemitism.
Na’ama Rokem, an associate professor of comparative literature and Middle Eastern studies, and Tom Ginsburg, a professor of international law and faculty director of the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression, both expressed concern in interviews with the Maroon about the universal application of a context-specific definition.
The IHRA definition was initially published in 2005 as a guideline for the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia to help the body collect data on incidents of antisemitism. In 2016, the definition was adopted by the IHRA as its working definition.
“In the aftermath of the fall of the Eastern Bloc, there was a sense that there was an uneven landscape of education about the history of the Holocaust,” said Rokem, who is a signatory on the Jerusalem Declaration. In the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, Holocaust education deemphasized the Nazis’ persecution of Jewish individuals specifically. “You can think of the IHRA definition as a kind of cultural policy document that was meant to address a very particular historical moment.”
Ginsburg noted that, in addition to Europe having smaller and more fragmented Jewish populations, European countries like Germany do not have robust free speech protections like the United States. “For the original purpose for which it was adopted, it might have been perfectly appropriate,” Ginsburg said.
Defending the definition’s several references to Israel, Rymer said, “It’s an unfortunate truth that since 2023, the main target of antisemitism has been in things regarding anti-Zionism against the State of Israel.”
Rymer also said that, while the codification will not affect a private institution like the University, he hopes UChicago will adopt a formal definition of antisemitism.
Ginsburg said that the University adopting a definition of antisemitism would be in opposition to the Chicago Principles and free expression.
“Universities have a special duty to be spaces of very broad discourse,” Ginsburg said. “A definition of antisemitism is what we call a contested concept. One person might have a different view of what is antisemitic than others [do].”
The legal application of definitions of antisemitism is also contested. According to Rokem, “both the IHRA [definition] and the Jerusalem Declaration were written more as a kind of document that give general guidelines and a sort of point of orientation” than an enforceable set of rules. Kenneth Stern, the principal author of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, has criticized its applicability in educational environments.
In 2019, the Department of Education adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. “We are subject to investigation from the Department of Education, even prosecution by the Department of Justice under some circumstances,” Ginsburg said. “So when the government changes its view, we have to follow that or contest it.”
“There’s some tension between [the IHRA] definition and the Chicago Principles,” Ginsburg added. “Actually, there’s a tension between all anti-discrimination law and the Chicago Principles, in the sense that overly broad implementation of any of the anti-discrimination provisions could chill speech.”
