The North Carolina state senate passed the SHALOM Act, which codifies the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)'s working definition of antisemitism and contemporary examples of Jew-hatred into law, by a margin of 45 to two on Wednesday.
The bill, which passed the state’s House 105 to four on May 8, now heads to the desk of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
“Both chambers of the legislature passed the bill with overwhelming bipartisan support,” stated the Israeli-American Coalition for Action, a nonprofit, which noted that North Carolina would be the 37th U.S. state to codify or endorse the IHRA definition.
“By passing H942, North Carolina has sent an important message, not just within the state, but across the United States, that every form of antisemitism is unacceptable,” stated Joe Sabag, executive director of IAC for Action.
“Without the IHRA definition, our community has suffered a civil rights deficit, where perpetrators of antisemitic discrimination would target Jews and Jewish institutions and then hide behind the false pretense that they were motivated by anti-Israel politics and not anti-Jewish bigotry,” Sabag said. “North Carolina’s passage of H942 is an important step forward in a national effort to deal with the current antisemitism crisis we are facing.”
“Rising Jew-hatred is a threat to all Americans, and North Carolinians today should feel deeply proud of what their government is doing to confront this scourge,” added Elan Carr, CEO of IAC and a former U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.
The bill’s title SHALOM refers to “Standing up to Hate And Leading with Our Moral principles.”
The state’s chapter of the ACLU, which denounced the bill, stated that it “conflates dissent of Israel as antisemitism” and “could limit the rights and infringe on the civil liberties of North Carolinians.”
