WJC President Ronald S. Lauder welcomes adoption of IHRA definition of antisemitism by Czech Parliament’s Lower House

NEW YORK – World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder praised the lower house of the Czech Parliament on Friday for its “principled” move to adopt a resolution recognizing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and expressed the hope that other legislative and governmental bodies will follow suit.

“Czech lawmakers have taken a principled and important step today in recognizing that antisemitism is a prevailing problem that must be tackled head-on and in a universal fashion, and we commend the lower house of Parliament for adopting a resolution to address the issue as seriously as it deserves,” Lauder said. “We echo Parliament Speaker Radek Vondracek’s hope that this action on the Lower House’s part will help Czech authorities be able to deal effectively with hate crimes.”

“We also hope that this resolution will pave the way for other Czech bodies and, indeed, other governments to follow suit. The Czech Republic is certainly on the correct path, for which we are both grateful and encouraged, but there is still much work to be done,” Lauder said. “The problem of antisemitism cannot be resolved without proper recognition of the issue at hand, encoding of proper methods to contend, and enforcement of this mechanism across the board.”