Russian summit held on antisemitism

Senior figures from almost every continent converged on the Russian capital to discuss the global trends and challenges relating to antisemitism, writes Adam Decker.

Hosted by the Russian Jewish Congress, the three-day event was the third Moscow International Conference.

Entitled ‘Protecting the Future’, it focused on combating xenophobia, antisemitism and other racisms. On the agenda was the latest research and monitoring data, plus educational tools, cultural projects to increase cross-communal tolerance, online hate speech, legislating against Holocaust denial, interfaith initiatives, and Israel.

Delegates also examined anti-Jewish racism in specific arenas such as sport, as well as online and multiplayer computer games, which was referred to as “an uncontrolled platform for xenophobic sentiments among young people”.

Among the speakers were Israel’s Diaspora affairs minister Nachman Shai, who recently visited Vienna to pay his respects to the victims of the Kristallnacht pogrom.

British speakers included the government’s antisemitism tsar Lord (John) Mann, head of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research Dr Jonathan Boyd, and Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell MAMA, a charity that monitors Islamophobia.

The first Moscow International Conference was held in 2016, where participants worked on the basis that “antisemitism is indissolubly tied to xenophobia”.

They said anti-Jewish racism was “closely intertwined with the escalation of hate in the world and the creation of the enemy, when certain population groups become the objects of hate on a national, religious, or racial basis”.