Albania hosts online Balkan forum against anti-Semitism

TIRANA, Albania — Albania holds an online forum against anti-Semitism, the first time such a meeting has been staged in the Balkans, with Prime Minister Edi Rama calling anti-Semitism “a threat to our own civilization.”

The Balkans Forum Against Anti-Semitism was organized by Albania’s Parliament in partnership with the New York-based Combat Anti-Semitism Movement (CAM) and the Jewish Agency for Israel. It was held online due to the virus pandemic.

“We need to continue and fight any form of anti-Semitism, which is a threat to our own civilization … upon which our common future is being built,” Rama says.

Last week Albania’s parliament unanimously approved the definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which describes hate speech and other acts that discriminate against the Jewish people or the state, their properties or religious objects.

The CAM calls the approval a “landmark decision” and urged other countries to join it.

Today’s forum aims at creating “a united front among the Balkans to act collectively against anti-Semitism, including the removal of hatred and bigotry from our discourse, creating a more tolerant Europe,” organizers said in their invitation.

Regional top leaders, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials from the Balkans, Europe and the US took part.

“Let’s continue to make sure that people of all faiths can live and flourish side by side in peace,” Pompeo says in his speech.

— AP