OHPI is proud to have its CEO server as a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Forum to Combat Antisemitism. The Global Forum is an initiative of the Government of Israel and is coordinated through the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The steering committee is made up of international experts in a variety of areas of antisemitism. In addition to serving on the Steering Committee Dr Oboler is also co-chair of the Global Forum’s Working Group on online antisemitism along with Adv David Matas from Canada.

On July 2nd and 3rd the Global Forum’s Steering Committee met in Jerusalem to plan the 2015 Global Forum. The conference, to take place in May in Jerusalem, will have between 500 and 1000 attendees, and they will include government officials and members of parliament from multiple countries as well as representatives of NGOs, Jewish communities, and academic researchers.

The core of the Global Forum are its 12 working groups, each dedicated to specific theme of geographic area. At the 2013 Global Forum action plans were created for each of the working groups. At the recent steering group meeting the current state of antisemitism in each geographic and thematic area was discussed, along with progress reports on the action plans. The Steering Committee also discussed the 2015 conference and make a number of decisions regarding its format and structure. Chief amongst these was the importance of providing sufficient time for the working groups and ensuring the next conference, like the last one, would be a meeting for collaboration, planning and action and not a conference for spectators.

The Steering Committee met with senior figures in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, including Amb. Yuval Rotem, formerly Israel’s Ambassador to Australia and now Senior Deputy Director General in the Ministry. The Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, has its own committee that looks into antisemitism. The Steering Committee met with members of the Knesset including Yuli Edelstein MK the Speaker of the Knesset, Dr Shimon Ohayon MK, and Rabbi Dov Lipman MK.

The Steering Committee also lent its support to OHPI online hate monitoring software, which has previously been presented and supported by the Forum’s Online Antisemitism Working Group. The 2015 Global Forum will see some major announcements in relation to this software and the fight against antisemitism.