Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Though antisemitism is overwhelmingly perpetrated by non-Jews, it may occasionally be perpetrated by Jews in a phenomenon known as auto-antisemitism. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by anti-Judaism, though the concept itself is distinct from antisemitism.
Robert Solomon Wistrich was the Erich Neuberger Professor of European and Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and he was also the head of the university's Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Wistrich considered antisemitism "the longest hatred" and viewed Anti-Zionism as its latest incarnation. According to Scott Ury, "More than any other scholar, Wistrich has helped integrate traditional Zionist interpretations of Jewish history, society, and fate into the study of antisemitism." Other researchers have reproduced much of his work without questioning its founding assumptions.
Jonathan G Campbell was a Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies & Early Judaism in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bristol in Bristol, United Kingdom. He retired in 2017.
Holocaust trivialization refers to any comparison or analogy that diminishes the scale and severity of the atrocities that were carried out by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The Wiesel Commission defined trivialization as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing its atrocities. Originally, holocaust meant a type of sacrifice that is completely burnt to ashes; starting from the late 19th century, it started to denote extensive destruction of a group, usually people or animals. The 1915 Armenian genocide was described as a "holocaust" by contemporary observers.
David Hirsh is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and co-founder of Engage, a campaign against the academic boycott of Israel.
The anti-Jewish violence in Central and Eastern Europe following the retreat of Nazi German occupational forces and the arrival of the Soviet Red Army – during the latter stages of World War II – was linked in part to postwar anarchy and economic chaos exacerbated by the Stalinist policies imposed across the territories of expanded Soviet republics and new satellite countries. The anti-semitic attacks had become frequent in Soviet towns ravaged by war; at the marketplaces, in depleted stores, in schools, and even at state enterprises. Protest letters were sent to Moscow from numerous Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian towns by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee involved in documenting the Holocaust.
Gavriel David Rosenfeld is President of the Center for Jewish History in New York City and Professor of History at Fairfield University. His areas of academic specialization include the history of Nazi Germany, memory studies, and counterfactual history. He is an editor of The Journal of Holocaust Research and edits the blog, The Counterfactual History Review, which features news, analysis, and commentary from the world of counterfactual and alternate history.
Eliminationist antisemitism is an extreme form of antisemitism which seeks to completely purge Jews and Judaism from society, either through genocide or through other means. Eliminationist antisemitism evolved from older concepts of religious antisemitism. The concept was developed by Daniel Goldhagen in his book Hitler's Willing Executioners to describe German antisemitism in the twentieth century, but has since been adapted and used to describe antisemitism in other societies and eras.
The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews is a three-volume work of pseudo-scholarship, published by the Nation of Islam. The first volume, which was released in 1991, asserts that Jews dominated the Atlantic slave trade. The Secret Relationship has been widely criticized for being antisemitic and for failing to provide an objective analysis of the role of Jews in the slave trade. The American Historical Association issued a statement condemning claims that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade, and other historians such as Wim Klooster and Seymour Drescher concluded that the role of Jews in the overall Atlantic slave trade was in fact minimal.
Catherine Chatterley is a Canadian historian, specializing in the study of modern European history, the Holocaust, and research on antisemitism, and is the Founding Director of the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism (CISA). Chatterley is Founding Editor-in-Chief of Antisemitism Studies, the first scholarly journal devoted to the study of antisemitism. It is published by Indiana University Press. Chatterley appeared in the documentary called "Unmasked: Judeophobia" (2011), where she was one of the scholars interviewed. That same year, she was invited as an expert scholar to participate in the Canadian All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, which produced the Ottawa Protocol.
Elder of Ziyon is an American pro-Israel blog. It is written anonymously.
Keith Kahn-Harris is a sociologist and music critic. He is an honorary research fellow and senior lecturer at Birkbeck College and an associate fellow of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and a lecturer at Leo Baeck College.
Mervin Feldman Verbit is an American sociologist whose work focuses on sociology of religion, American Jews and the American Jewish community. He is currently the chair of the Sociology Department at Touro College.
Per Anders Rudling is a Swedish-American historian and an associate professor in the Department of History at Lund University (Sweden). He specializes in the areas of nationalism.
Annika Hernroth-Rothstein is a Swedish journalist and activist. In 2020, she published her first book, Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora. The Algemeiner Journal considered her one of the top 100 people positively influencing Jewish life.
The working definition of antisemitism, also called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism or IHRA definition, is a non-legally binding statement on what antisemitism is, that reads: "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." Accompanying the working definition, but of disputed status, are 11 illustrative examples whose purpose is described as guiding the IHRA in its work, seven of which relate to criticism of the Israeli government. As such, pro-Israeli organizations have been advocates for the worldwide legal adoption of the definition.
Israeli Students combating antisemitism (ISCA) online has been founded in 2011 and operates with the purpose of fighting the growing antisemitism, xenophobia and Holocaust denial on the internet.
Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany are a rhetorical staple of anti-Zionism in relation to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The legitimacy of these comparisons and their potential antisemitic nature is a matter of debate. Historically, figures like Arnold J. Toynbee have drawn parallels between Zionism and Nazism, a stance he maintained despite criticism. Scholar David Feldman suggests these comparisons are often rhetorical tools without specific antisemitic intent. Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sees them as diminishing the Holocaust's significance.
Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967–1989 is a book by Jeffrey Herf, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. The book argues that East Germany in particular was extremely hostile to Israel and waged "undeclared wars" against it by funding Arab militant groups and other anti-Israel actions. The book received positive reviews for being well researched and uncovering new information on East Germany's relationship with Israel.
The Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism (JCA) is a peer-reviewed academic journal published bi-annually since 2017. It is published by Academic Studies Press. The editors-in-chief is Lesley Klaff (Sheffield Hallam University). The journal covers the "scholarly, scientific and theoretical analysis of antisemitism from an anti-antisemitism point of view." It is the only active English-language journal devoted entirely to the study of antisemitism.
