Combating Antisemitism in the Workplace
10.19.2026
Employers looking to combat antisemitism should have clear definitions, strategies, and education plans in place.
The New York State Bar Association recently hosted a webinar on what employers should know to stop anti-Jewish hate in their workplaces. More than 160 people attended.
Rory Lancman, director of corporate initiatives and senior counsel at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, presented the webinar. Lancman previously served as a New York City Council member and a New York State Assembly member.
“The employers who get into trouble aren’t always the ones with bad intentions,” said Lancman. “They’re also the ones just without a plan. The Brandeis Center recommends a four-part roadmap: define, modernize, align, and educate.”
Defining Antisemitism
Lancman said the first step was defining antisemitism. He advised that organizations formally adopt the definition from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as a tool for recognizing discrimination when it happens.
The alliance 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 definition has been adopted and/or endorsed by 45 countries, including the U.S. The New York State Bar Association’s Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Asian Hate used the alliance’s definition in its 2024 report.
Furthermore, Lancman advised modernizing key documents like employee handbooks, codes of conduct, and diversity, equity, and inclusion plans to include Jewish employees.
He explained that one of the modern drivers of antisemitism is the misconception that Jewish identity is merely religious, as Jews are also a people with a shared ancestry, history, ethnicity, and peoplehood.
“In the workplace, this misunderstanding shows up as the exclusion of Jewish employees from the very programs designed to make every employee feel included,” said Lancman. “Antisemitism is left out of DEI training. Jewish Employee Resource Groups go unrecognized. Jewish holidays are overlooked. Jewish causes are left out of corporate giving campaigns, and Jewish concerns are disregarded in company communications.”
Lancman explained that this misconception of Jewish identity caused some companies to tell Jewish employees that they do not belong in diversity programs or deny Jews from forming Employee Resource Groups.
Lancman said that the next step involves arming managers, human resource departments, general counsel, and other decisionmakers with a shared understanding of the definition of antisemitism.
Educating the Workforce
The final step, Lancman said, is to educate the larger workforce on the current forms of antisemitic harassment and the legal rights of Jewish employees.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war, there has been an increase in attacks against Jews. FBI crime statistics show that in the month after the attacks, reported incidents of antisemitic hate crimes tripled, and have generally stayed above pre-Oct. 7, 2023, levels since.
Anti-Jewish hate crimes have accounted for more than half of the 425 hate crime incidents so far in 2026 despite Jewish New Yorkers making up only 10% of New York City’s population, according to New York City police crime data. Similar hate crime statistics were also reported in 2024 and 2025.
This animus has extended to the workplace.
“The second driver of workplace antisemitism is anti-Israel fanaticism,” said Lancman. “And by that, I mean an obsessive hatred of Israel that is singular in its intensity. It is a preoccupation with Israel that no other conflict in the world commands. It is aimed not at any particular Israeli policy, but at the Jewish state’s very legitimacy, and at the Jews who will not disavow it, and it often employs classic antisemitic tropes recycled for a new target.”
Lancman said that when the workplace becomes a political battleground over Israel, Jewish employees end up on the front line, no matter their personal or expressed opinions.
“Treating a Jew as a stand-in for Israel itself is itself evidence of anti-Jewish animus,” said Lancman. “When ‘Zionist’ is applied on site to anyone who looks Jewish, it isn’t a description of anyone’s politics. It’s a proxy for who they are.”
At the University of California, Berkeley, student protesters singled out visibly Jewish students, filmed them, and called them “dirty Zionists” without asking about their views on Israel. Law students at the university posted a caricature of Dean Erwin Chemerinsky with blood around his mouth – an antisemitic trope – captioned “no dinner with Zionist Chem.”
Chemerinsky is Jewish and has publicly criticized the government of Israel.
Lancman noted that for some American Jews, Zionism is a part of their religious identity or a personal connection to Israeli family members.
“Zionsim is the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland,” said Lancman. “Zionism is not an endorsement of any particular policy of the government of Israel, any particular government of Israel, or a stand in for being unable to criticize the government of Israel.”
The New York State Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section sponsored the webinar. View the full program here.
