The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century: From the Academic Boycott Campaign into the Mainstream
Edited by David Hirsh
The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century is about the rise of antizionism and antisemitism in the first two decades of the 21st century, with a focus on the UK.
It is written by the activist-intellectuals, both Jewish and not, who led the opposition to the campaign for an academic boycott of Israel. Their experiences convinced them that the boycott movement, and the antizionism upon which it was based, was fuelled by, and in turn fuelled, antisemitism. The book shows how the level of hostility towards Israel exceeded the hostility which is levelled against other states. And it shows how the quality of that hostility tended to resonate with antisemitic tropes, images and emotions. Antizionism positioned Israel as symbolic of everything that good people oppose, it made Palestinians into an abstract symbol of the oppressed, and it positioned most Jews as saboteurs of social ‘progress’. The book shows how antisemitism broke into mainstream politics and how it contaminated the Labour Party as it made a bid for Downing Street.
This book will be of interest to scholars and students researching antizionism, antisemitism and the Labour Party in the UK.
Table of Contents
Introduction
David Hirsh
1 Demonisation blueprints: Soviet conspiracist antizionism in contemporary left-wing discourse
Izabella Tabarovsky
2 Turning full circle: From the Anti-Nazi League to Corbynism: how so much of the radical left in the UK abandoned Jews and embraced antisemitism
Philip Spencer
3 Durban antizionism
David Hirsh and Hilary Miller
4 Demystifying antisemitism: A return to critical theory
David Seymour
5 Is Palestine a feminist issue?: Intersectionality and its discontents
Karin Stögner
6 Cancelling Israel and displacing Palestine: Narratives of a boycott
John Strawson
7 The legal construction of Jewish identity as a ‘protected characteristic’ through an examination of Fraser v UCU (2013), Parker v Sheffield Hallam University (2016) and the Report of the EHRC into Antisemitism in the Labour Party (2020)
Lesley Klaff
8 Seven Jewish Children and definitions of antisemitism
Sarah Annes Brown
9 Learning and teaching about antisemitism
Mira Vogel
10 Climate catastrophe, the ‘Zionist Entity’ and ‘The German guy’: An anatomy of the Malm–Jappe dispute
Matthew Bolton
11 Whither liberal Zionism?
Anthony Julius
Biography
David Hirsh is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Academic Director of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. His previous books include Contemporary Left Antisemitism (Routledge, 2017) and Law against Genocide: Cosmopolitan Trials (2003).
ISBN 9781032116624
292 Pages 2 Color & 1 B/W Illustrations
Published November 29, 2023 by Routledge