New Mexico adopts International Definition of Antisemitism

The State of New Mexico has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed an executive order incorporating the Definition into state law.

The Board Chairman of the Israeli-American Coalition for Action said that the organisation “applauds Gov. Grisham for not only recognising [the] IHRA [Definition] but for implementing it in order to ensure equal protections from discrimination for Jewish victims. We are grateful to see that Jewish and Israeli-Americans are not left to contend with incidents of antisemitic hatred alone.”

Jewish life in New Mexico may date as far back as the 1590s, when crypto-Jews who had escaped Spain were among the early settlers in the region, but expanded from the mid-1840s after the United States gained control of the territory.

There are reportedly 12,625 Jewish people in New Mexico as of 2020, making up 0.6% of a total population of just under 2.1 million.

Britain was the first country in the world to adopt the International Definition, something for which Campaign Against Antisemitism and Lord Pickles worked hard over many meetings with officials at Downing Street. New Mexico joins a growing list of national and state governments and public bodies to use the Definition.