A seminar on problems of monitoring and analysis of anti-Semitic acts around the world has begun in the Parisian Shoah Memorial. The seminar is held by the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, and takes place bianually in different countries. Previous seminars took place in Israel, Hungary, and Mexico. The seminar has gathered leading specialists on anti-Semitism from around the world, from Venezuela to Australia. The seminars of the Stephen Roth institute stand out both through their academic excellence and focus on practical issues. For instance, it was the Stephen Roth seminars which worked out the working definition of anti-Semitism that became the base for the official definition of the European Union Agency for Human Rights six years ago.
Among those who spoke at the opening of the seminar were: the special OSCE representative on anti-Semitism, rabbi Andrew Baker; President of the French National Consultative Commission on Human Rights Yves Repiquet; former European Parliament chairman, member of the French Academy Simone Veil; Shoah Memorial Director Jacques Fredj; Director of the Stepher Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-semitism and Racism Professor Dina Porat. Participants of the seminar have been invited to an official reception to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
At the moment, the Stephen Roth Institute is the only scientific organization that publishes an annuak report on anti-Semitic acts around the world. When describing the situation in the countries of the former Soviet Union countries, the Insitute relies on the monitoring conducted by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC). The EAJC is represented at the seminar by General Council member and compiler of the annual EAJC report "Anti-Semitism in Australia and Eurasia" Vyacheslav Likhachev.