The American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the USC Shoah Foundation (University of Southern California) announced on April 27th at the AJC Global Forum their newly formed partnership to give voice to, document, and map modern-day antisemitism around the world. Harnessing AJC’s global reach and the USC Shoah Foundation’s expertise in testimony collection, AJC will contribute to the USC Shoah Foundation’s ambitious and visionary goal of collecting 10,000 testimonies from across the U.S. and around the world to document incidents of antisemitism post-1945, and bring voice to the worldwide persistence of antisemitism and its many manifestations. This multi-year, international testimony collection is part of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Contemporary Antisemitism Collection.
“We must clearly show to the world - and preserve for the future - what antisemitism is, what it looks like, and the personal toll it takes on Jews around the world. AJC has seen, firsthand, the way antisemitism has morphed and manifested itself in different ways since the end of the Holocaust,” said AJC CEO Ted Deutch. “Through AJC’s work all over the globe combating antisemitism, we have also seen the power of personal testimonies in not only changing hearts and minds but also in winning support for policies that protect Jewish communities. The USC Shoah Foundation’s collection of testimonies will forever capture the personal experiences of thousands of Jewish people, enabling us to tell our story, and share it with generations to come.”
“Our partnership with AJC will enable us to reach survivors of antisemitic violence from all over the globe. In turn, this is a powerful statement that bringing the world’s attention to antisemitism requires partnerships built on a shared commitment to giving voice to the personal histories of those who have and continue to experience one of humanity’s oldest and most enduring forms of hatred. This ambitious project, namely building a Contemporary Antisemitism Collection at the USC Shoah Foundation, will add tremendous value to the study of antisemitism and hate and help Jewish and non-Jewish communities become more resilient against these forces, both now and into the future,” said Dr. Robert J. Williams, CEO and Finci-Viterbi Chair of the USC Shoah Foundation.
During the announcement, Daniel Pomerantz, now executive director of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; transl. "Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, a Jewish Community Center), and a survivor of the July 18, 1994 terror attack, explained, “the [Hezbollah] terrorists killed 85 and injured 300. These were my friends and colleagues. They were Argentinian Jews and Argentinians of all backgrounds. Thirty-one years later, those responsible for orchestrating that horrible day - for attacking my place of work, my community’s gathering place, and for murdering and maiming dozens - have still not been brought to justice or held accountable for their crimes.”
The Contemporary Antisemitism Collection focuses on five categories, including: (1) Sephardic, Mizrahi, and Yemenite Jewish communities, many of which were displaced or left the Mediterranean basin, North Africa, and the Middle East in the 1940s and 1950s; (2) Ethiopian Jewish communities, including those which made Aliyah and those that entered the diaspora in Europe and North America; (3) North American Jewish experiences since 1945; (4) The experiences of Jewish communities under communist rule, including Jewish life in the Soviet Union, in Warsaw Pact states, and in the former Yugoslavia; and (5) Victims of antisemitic terror attacks, beginning with the 1994 bombing of the AMIA, the worst antisemitic attack since the Holocaust until October 7, 2023. Once completed, the collection will be the largest archive ever assembled of testimonies on contemporary antisemitism.
AJC, the global advocacy organization for the Jewish people, has long utilized research, policy, and advocacy to address this hatred. The USC Shoah Foundation, the Institute for Visual History and Education, is home to over 61,000 testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust, contemporary antisemitism, the Armenian Genocide, and other mass atrocities and genocidal crimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is the largest such collection in the world.
