The City of Roeland Park, Kansas, passed a resolution adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism at a city council meeting with more than 50 Jewish community members in attendance.
The Roeland Park City Council, overseen by Mayor Michael Poppa, passed the resolution 6-2 on Aug. 7. The resolution faced opposition from members of the city council and the Kansas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). All previous adoptions of the IHRA definition in the region were passed unanimously.
The IHRA defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
The resolution to adopt the IHRA definition in Roeland Park was led by Mayor Poppa, who spoke at the council meeting about standing up to antisemitism and listening to the voices of the Jewish community.
“We owe a huge amount of gratitude to Mayor Poppa for his leadership,” Jewish Community Relations Bureau|AJC Executive Director Gavriela Geller said. “He has been our champion since the moment we approached him.”
Over the past 18 months, JCRB|AJC has been leading the effort to pass the IHRA definition in regional, state and local governments. After a successful campaign to pass the resolution in the Kansas legislature in 2022, JCRB|AJC turned its focus to regional county and city governments. Roeland Park’s adoption made it the ninth municipal government in 2023 to pass such a resolution.
Locally, major Jewish organizations and all synagogues in Johnson County signed a letter supporting the adoption of the IHRA definition in Roeland Park.
Opposition to the resolution
The resolution was opposed by two councilmembers, Michael Rebne and Miel Castagna-Herrera, who were in support of a proposed last-minute amendment that Rebne suggested to adopt the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism instead of the IHRA definition. This amendment did not pass.
“The Jerusalem definition does not have the support of the community,” Geller said, regarding the amendment. “We would rather not pass a resolution here tonight at all than to adopt the Jerusalem definition.”
In advance of the vote, the Kansas chapter of CAIR released a statement on Aug. 3 calling on the Roeland Park City Council to reject the IHRA definition.
In the statement, CAIR-Kansas Board Chair Moussa Elbayoumy said, “Adopting the IHRA definition in any capacity poses a threat to the residents of Roeland Park’s free speech and stifles political discourse,” claiming the IHRA definition “silences political debate,” “muzzles critics of Israel and its far-right racist government” and “delegitimizes the Palestinian movement for self-determination.”
The press release was full of “false claims, misinformation, and accusations that the Jewish community is advocating for IHRA not to protect ourselves from antisemitism, but instead for the purpose of silencing criticism of Israel,” Geller said.
The IHRA definition lists what it considers contemporary examples of antisemitism, including denying Israel’s right to exist, calling Israel a racist endeavor, applying double standards comparing Israel to other democratic nations, comparing Israeli policy to Nazi policy and holding Jews collectively responsible for Israel’s actions.
Additionally, it states, “Manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
Israel is not mentioned elsewhere in the IHRA examples.
During the public comments at the council meeting, Elbayoumy, along with three Jewish people who spoke via Zoom, expounded the argument presented in the CAIR statement.
“On the face value, [the IHRA definition] looks very safe, and they claim it has no reference to Islam,” Elbayoumy said. “As we always say, the devil is in the detail… the [IHRA definition’s examples] put a lot of restriction on American citizens’ ability to speak freely, to exercise their constitutional right for freedom of speech and expression.”
These arguments were followed by Kansas City Jewish community members and area residents advocating for Roeland Park to adopt the resolution, many of which were encouraged to attend by JCRB|AJC in anticipation of pushback.
Community members share their experiences
Twelve of the 15 speakers were Jewish community members from Greater Kansas City. Nearly every person shared their experience with either encountering or witnessing antisemitism.
The issue of how antisemitism affects children was many speakers’ focus. Lisa Bernard shared how her children experienced antisemitism in the Shawnee Mission School District. Congregation Beth Shalom Senior Rabbi David Glickman shared how teenage congregants told him about being turned away from clubs after being asked if they were Zionists. Sarah Markowitz, JCRB|AJC director of education and programs, shared statistics from the organization’s 2022 Antisemitism in Schools Survey and mentioned the antisemitic photos shared at Bishop Miege High School (located in Roeland Park).
Orli White, an incoming freshman at Shawnee Mission South High School, and Emma Jacobson, an incoming sophomore at Columbia College Chicago, shared their first-hand experiences with antisemitism at school.
In addition to recounting an antisemitic joke directed at her by another student, White shared her experience studying in an Arabic program. The teacher showed a map of the Middle East with Israel mislabeled as Palestine.
“Aside from being geographically incorrect,” White said, “it was offensive — offensive because it didn't show any recognition towards Israel, implying either a belief that Israel is not a legitimate state or hoping in the future that it will cease to exist… When Israel's painted like it's an evil entity and shouldn't exist, it makes Jewish students like me feel othered. It isolates and excludes us. It makes us the target of harassment… This isn't new to us. It's painful and scary to see how these attitudes and comments have grown over the last few years.”
Jacobson, who recently finished a summer as JCRB|AJC education and programs intern, shared her experiences as a university student involved in social justice causes.
“As someone who’s active in social justice spaces, I’ve seen how the state of values of these movements to listen to minority communities to promote inclusion seemingly apply to everyone except the Jewish community,” Jacobson said. “The word ‘Zionist’ is being turned into a slur. Jewish students are being told that they cannot participate in social justice movements unless they leave their identities at the door, that being a Zionist somehow disqualifies us. It is extremely painful to see my community excluded over and over again for simply believing that a Jewish state should exist. That is not criticism of policy. That is antisemitism.”
Israeli-American community member Neta Meltzer shared her perspective on antisemitism from her position as someone involved in progressive causes. She emphasized the fact that anti-Zionism is not criticism of the Israeli government or its policies, but instead the sentiment that Israel should not exist.
“[Anti-Zionism is] the erasure of Jewish connection to our ancestral homeland and the subsequent exclusion and vilification of Jews in various spaces due to our proclaimed or perceived identification as Zionist,” she said. “From my perspective, anti-Zionism is antisemitism. From my progressive perspective, it is not progressive in any sense of the word to deny an indigenous community’s connection to their ancestral homeland.”
JCRB|AJC board members Barry Kaseff and Jason Krakow highlighted the importance of Jewish voices in defining antisemitism and emphasized how Roeland Park’s passage of the resolution would show that it cares about the Jewish community and provide a framework for identifying and fighting antisemitism.
“We need you to listen to us, stand by us and commit to calling out and addressing antisemitism from wherever it appears,” Kaseff said to the councilmembers. “It's crucial that the Jewish community be able to define our own oppression.”
“When Roeland Park adopts this [resolution],” Krakow said, “it will reflect that this definition is both what Jews themselves define as antisemitism, as well as having Roeland Park join all the others that are working with their communities and with law enforcement to more readily identify what is and what is not antisemitism.”
David Soffer, who has worked in the state governments of New York and Kansas (most recently as legislative and policy director at the Kansas Department of Commerce), highlighted the IHRA definition’s widespread acceptance beyond just the Jewish community.
“This definition, keep in mind, has been adopted by the president, by Congress, by Democrats, Republicans, urban [and] rural governments in the U.S. and abroad because it addresses the real issues at hand,” Soffer said.
Community member Eric Jacobson argued that the IHRA definition does not equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, does not infringe on the First Amendment and is meant to serve as an educational tool for governments and law enforcement.
“Any instances that people can point to chilled speech would represent a perverse misuse of this educational tool with no basis at all in what it actually says,” he said.
Samantha von Ende, J.D. emphasized that the intent of the definition is to help educate, and help law enforcement analyze the possibility of bias when a crime has been committed. In her remarks, she clarified that the adoption of a definition does not circumvent the First Amendment and pointed out that although Kansas and Johnson County have adopted the IHRA definition, those in opposition still felt comfortable speaking out publicly against it, indicating that freedom of speech has not been chilled or silenced.
Three more local residents spoke in support of the resolution. Joseph Hassan, originally from Egypt, shared his story about seeing the enforcement of antisemitism in Egyptian media and how his views were changed when he met real Jewish people and Israelis.
“If I believed what [the Egyptian media] were showing me, I would be misjudging a whole group of innocent people,” Hassan said. “I already ran from Egypt; I don’t want to run away from here.”
Bob Hill, minister emeritus at Community Christian Church in Kansas City, Missouri; Barbara Isaacson, a participant in Strangers No More (a women’s group for interfaith learning co-sponsored by JCRB|AJC); and Roeland Park resident Kyle Russell also spoke in favor of the resolution.
The council’s decision
Before the official vote, some councilmembers addressed the meetings’ attendees, explaining their positions and thanking them.
“Going to school in the ‘50s, many of my Jewish friends had many antisemitic comments made towards them. It troubles me. Seventy years later, this is still going on,” Councilmember Tom Madigan said.
Mayor Poppa and Councilmembers Kate Raglow and Trisha Brauer thanked the Jewish community members who spoke in front of the council for their courage.
Councilmembers Michael Rebne and Miel Castagna-Herrera also expressed thanks, but held reservations on the proposal based on the arguments made by CAIR and Elbayoumy, supporting Rebne’s proposed amendment instead. They voted against the resolution to adopt the IHRA definition; Councilmembers Raglow, Brauer, Madigan, Jennifer Hill, Benjamin Dickens and Jan Faidley voted for the resolution.
“Monday night’s debate was a perfect illustration of the battle with far-left antisemitism,” Geller said. “An entire community showed up to beg the [Roeland Park City] Council to listen to their voices and allow the Jewish community to define anti-Jewish hate and bias, yet two members of the council instead chose to reject the Jewish community’s voice on antisemitism, dismissing our lived experiences and believing instead that they are able to define antisemitism better than our community.”
Amanda Sokol, a nursing student in attendance, said, “This was true civic engagement in action. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever been a part of.”
JCRB|AJC board member Kathi Rosenberg said, “I think we all feel that we witnessed something very large and important happening in that little room.”
Geller said that there might be opposition to similar resolutions in the future among counties and cities in the region.
“We don’t know whether CAIR or other groups will organize opposition to our ongoing and future efforts,” Geller said. “It is very possible that we will need to mobilize our community again.”
Geller asks anyone interested in joining in such efforts to contact JCRB|AJC at .
