British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis dropped out of an antisemitism conference that is being hosted by Israel’s Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem later this month in response to the inclusion of several far-right European politicians, his office told eJewishPhilanthropy.

Mirvis joins a growing list of speakers who have canceled their appearances at the gathering. This includes: British antisemitism scholar David Hirsh, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, German antisemitism envoy Felix Klein and head of the Germany-Israel Friendship Association, German Volker Beck. 

“Having been made aware of the attendance of a number of far-right populist politicians at the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, the Chief Rabbi will no longer be attending,” Mirvis’ office told eJP.

Natan Sharansky, a former Israeli government minister and chair of the Jewish Agency, announced on Monday in a Facebook post that he would still be participating in the conference but criticized the Diaspora Affairs Ministry for inviting far-right European politicians without first consulting with their countries’ Jewish communities. Sharansky maintained his concerns about left-wing and right-wing antisemitism.

“Those who continue to hold onto their antisemitic views obviously have no place in conferences against antisemitism. However, those who claim to have changed their views towards Jews certainly deserve to be heard,” Sharansky wrote. 

Marion Marechal, a far-right French representative to the European Parliament and granddaughter of French politician and Holocaust denier Jean Marie Le Pen; Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right French National Rally party, a successor of Le Pen’s National Front; and Hermann Tertsch, a far-right Spanish member of the European Parliament, are all due to attend the conference. Bardella, whose party Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli publicly supported in France’s recent election over President Emmanuel Macron, is due to deliver a keynote address at the conference.

“In an increasingly hostile world, the State of Israel is hungry for allies, but it must be disciplined in keeping some distance from those who do not share its values. Israel could listen more attentively to the advice of local Jewish communities and it should not offer the populist right, which has fascistic antisemitism in its heritage and amongst its support, an official Jewish stamp of approval,” wrote Hirsh, academic director of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism, in a letter announcing his decision to withdraw from the gathering.

For these far-right parties, official involvement in an Israeli conference on combating antisemitism provides them with a credible defense against claims of antisemitism in the future. 

But critics argue that their involvement will provide ammunition to those claiming that the fight against antisemitism has been politicized. To supporters, this embrace of Europe’s far right by Israel and segments of the Jewish world reflects a reshuffling of the geopolitical map and a more accurate reflection of who better represent the Jewish people’s allies in the fight against contemporary antisemitism, which they see as principally coming from Muslim immigrants and the far left.

In any case, the controversy over the inclusion of these politicians has served as a distraction from the stated focus of the conference: combating antisemitism. Virtually all of the articles written about the conference so far have focused on who is and isn’t participating — not on the growing number of antisemitic incidents around the world — and it is reasonable to assume that most of the reports from the conference will as well.

Several of the Jewish speakers who are still listed as appearing at the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism have in the past warned against European far-right parties, including Sharansky and William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

The guest list of the antisemitism conference reflects the Israeli government’s recent embrace of far-right European parties, with which it previously maintained official distance due to many of their founders’ connections to Nazi Germany and more contemporary ties to neo-Nazi groups and Holocaust revisionism. Exceptions to this are German and Austrian far-right parties, whom Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Israel would still keep at arm’s length.

The antisemitism conference, which is scheduled to take place on March 26-27, is meant to serve as the culmination of next week’s “Diaspora Week,” when the Israeli government highlights the Israel-Diaspora relationship through a dedicated cabinet meeting, educational initiatives in schools and other gatherings throughout the country.