AJC Impact 2022 Year-in-Review

Antisemitism rose sharply across the U.S. in 2022. To help leaders in all sectors of society understand, respond to, and prevent anti-Jewish hatred, AJC issued a comprehensive set of guidelines: AJC’s Call to Action Against Antisemitism. It has been a guidepost for new strategies implemented by social media companies, corporations, and the White House. An important step came in December when the Biden administration announced the establishment of an interagency group to counter antisemitism tasked with developing a national strategy to address Jew-hatred. These were crucial moves for which AJC advocated extensively. AJC was a trusted partner to other governments, including France and Germany, as they crafted similar plans, and stands ready to help the U.S. do the same. Among other recommendations, AJC’s Call to Action includes a key first step for governments, corporations, and other institutions: adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism. In 2022, AJC successfully sought the implementation of this critical tool by many national and local governments and leading corporations.

In 2022, AJC’s Transatlantic Institute (TAI), working closely with the Israeli mission to the European Union, helped restart the convening of the EU-Israel Association Council. The Council is the senior diplomatic body in charge of promoting strong ties between Israel and the EU and, for the past decade, its crucial meetings did not take place due to disagreements about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. AJC long advocated for its renewal. Yair Lapid, then-Israeli Foreign Minister, called the reconvening a priority for the Israeli government. After TAI helped mobilize support from over 150 members of the European Parliament, EU foreign ministers voted unanimously to renew the Council. The group finally met in October 2022 to discuss critical issues, including furthering economic, political, and scientific cooperation and the fight against antisemitism.

In April of 2022, AJC, in partnership with Hillel International and the American Council on Education (ACE), hosted an unprecedented gathering of presidents, chancellors, and senior administrators from over 40 universities to combat Jew-hatred on college campuses. The inaugural University Presidents Summit on Campus Antisemitism, was designed to address the challenges Jewish students face on campus, including marginalization and a sharp spike in antisemitic activity. Attendees heard from Jewish community leaders and members of Congress. They also participated in expert-led sessions to learn best practices and to create actionable campus-specific approaches to fighting anti-Jewish hate.

Throughout 2022, AJC built upon its decades of engagement in the Middle East and North Africa. In March, AJC officially opened its first office in an Arab country—AJC Abu Dhabi: The Sidney Lerner Center for Arab-Jewish Understanding—further cementing its role as the leader in the effort to expand the circle of peace in the region. That same month, AJC brought civil society and business leaders from the Arab world to experience Israel firsthand as part of a historic AJC Project Interchange delegation. In May, participants of AJC’s Michael Sachs Fellowship for Emerging Leaders—leaders from the U.S., Israel, and Morocco—traveled to Morocco and Israel to promote new networks of cooperation. In September, a delegation of 80 AJC leaders traveled to the Arabian Gulf to mark the second anniversary of the Abraham Accords and to herald a new era of American-Israel-Gulf ties. While there, AJC announced a series of joint undertakings with the UAE to promote dialogue and education.  

Since Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine in February 2022, no Jewish organization has been more outspoken in support of Ukraine’s freedom and sovereignty. In the days after the invasion, AJC rallied thousands of people to contact their members of Congress, urging them to boost security and military support for Ukraine and take action against Russia. AJC also led two humanitarian missions to the Poland-Ukraine border, organized by the Shapiro Silverberg AJC Central Europe office, and sponsored two flights to Israel for hundreds of Ukrainian Jewish refugees. AJC’s #StandWithUkraine fund raised more than $2.5 million for urgent humanitarian assistance. In June 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed AJC Global Forum from the frontlines, calling for a stepped-up response to Russia’s war and thanking AJC for its significant help.

In 2022, AJC worked throughout the Muslim world to strengthen Muslim-Jewish relations. Across the Middle East, AJC held in-person consultations with a range of Saudi officials and other key contacts on shared strategic concerns. In May, building on AJC’s longstanding partnership with the Muslim World League, Rabbi David Rosen, AJC’s Director of International Interreligious Relations, was part of the first-ever multifaith gathering in Saudi Arabia to promote interreligious cooperation and solidarity. In July, an AJC leadership delegation made a groundbreaking visit to Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country. The delegation discussed AJC priorities with over 50 of Indonesia’s leading politicians, journalists, religious figures, civil society activists, academics, and chiefs of industry, deepening the ties AJC has fostered for two decades.

Young Jewish Americans are facing rising antisemitism and attacks on Israel that strike at the core of their Jewish identity. But AJC prepares young Jews to be confident Jewish advocates through innovative programming and bold new initiatives. To better understand the connection between young American Jews and Israel, in 2022, AJC released the first-ever surveys to highlight attitudes and opinions of millennial American and Israeli Jews. AJC also launched its Campus Global Board, composed of Jewish student leaders from the U.S., Israel, and other countries, to help them develop Jewish advocacy skills. And AJC expanded its young leadership efforts by hiring its first-ever high school affairs director to strengthen outreach to Jewish teens through AJC’s Leaders for Tomorrow (LFT) program and to further AJC’s work with high school administrators.

After a two-year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, AJC Project Interchange (PI) resumed its mission of expanding understanding and countering false narratives about the Jewish state. In 2022, PI brought 19 delegations of influential U.S. and world leaders to experience Israel firsthand. This included U.S. mayors; presidents of Historically Black Colleges and Universities; Asian-American leaders; Austrian parliamentarians; European social media influencers; and policymakers and opinion leaders from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. Over the last 40 years, PI has brought more than 6,100 leaders from over 120 countries to Israel. Participants connect with their Israeli counterparts; meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials; and learn about the country’s history, politics, and security challenges.

In 2022, AJC pushed back against the surge of misinformation and hate online by producing digital resources and tools to educate the public on antisemitism. In the Spring of 2022, AJC released a video series featuring American Jews sharing their experiences with antisemitism, which has now been viewed over 15 million times. In August, AJC released a limited podcast series, The Forgotten Exodus, highlighting the untold stories of Jews who left or were driven from Arab nations and Iran in the mid-20th century. It debuted as the number one Jewish podcast in America. And AJC continued collaborating with social media giants to tackle hate. Meta turned to AJC Central Europe to partner on a social media video campaign—“Don’t Talk Like an Antisemite,”—to prevent the use of antisemitic terms in Poland. The campaign videos garnered over 21 million views on Facebook and Instagram.

To counter rising anti-Jewish hate in the U.S., AJC rolled out a series of customized trainings to help different sectors of society understand the roots of antisemitism, when anti-Israel actions become antisemitic, and how rhetoric can escalate to violence. The trainings incorporate material from AJC’s 2021 State of Antisemitism in America report and AJC’s Translate Hate glossary, and include recommendations from AJC’s Call to Action Against Antisemitism, which aim to address anti-Jewish bias in the workplace and across society. In 2022, AJC led trainings for elected officials; law enforcement; sports teams, like the Cleveland Cavaliers; entertainment companies, like Universal Music Group and Creative Artists Agency; and media companies, like E.W. Scripps and Gannett.