Initiative to Combat Anti-Semitism
Throughout history, anti-Semitic attitudes have persisted across cultural and national lines. We believe that, in a competition for beliefs and ideas, good ideas will overcome bad ideas with a pro-active, assertive approach. To that end, the Koret Foundation seeks to combat new and old forms of anti-Semitism including but not limited to, deligitimazation, demonization and divestment from Israel and general discrimination against Jews within the Bay Area and beyond.
The Koret Initiative to Combat Anti-Semitism focuses on four grant strategies:
- Campus Advocacy
- Legal and Public Policy Strategies
- Media Monitoring
- Pro-Israel Thought Leadership
In the Bay Area, many of our advocacy efforts focus on college campuses, where students and faculty are actively working to combat the prejudice that can often be found there. Koret focuses on educating students, faculty and campus administrators with the tools to successfully fight back against boycott, divestment and sanction campaigns and other harmful anti-Israel campus activities. Some grantees working involved in advocacy include The Israel Campus Coalition, Hillel Israel Fellows, StandWithUs, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and Blue Star PR.
Our goals are to ensure a bright future for Israel as a stronghold of democracy in the Middle East, to counteract misconceptions, and to offer factual information about Israel to the media, policy-makers, and the public. In these efforts, Koret supports supports The Institute for Jewish and Community Research (IJCR)’s Combating Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism Initiative, The Israel Project (TIP), Media Central, and MEMRI.
“Today’s opponents of Israel can use many tools to express their hostility. These often morph into something more sinister… outright expressions of hatred toward Jews. As a community, we must use all of our talents and resources to fight this hatred, wherever it appears.”
- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate, Holocaust survivor, and recipient of the 2007 Koret Prize.